The IS2R System design can help a plethora of different industries. Yet, it is especially productive for the fitness and sports industry.

Fitness and sports products and services are rarely one-time use. People who enjoy the products and services you offer will return. When you are selling a necessary and successful fitness or sports product or service, people need to return to keep benefiting from the help you are giving them. 

Here is a breakdown of how the IS2R System works exceptionally well for marketing products and services in the fitness and sports industry.

 

Identify Your Customer

 

Identifying your customer can be an exciting challenge. The trickiest part of this process is that at first glance, you can probably describe your ideal fitness or sports customer. 

 

Ideally, you want someone who understands your value and can consistently pay your prices to help you make a living.

 

Yet, that doesn’t say anything about the customer. That’s what you want. That isn’t what your customer needs, and that likely isn’t the reason you started your business. 

 

Here are a few ways to identify your true customer (or target market).

What Does Your Customer Need?

By offering products or services, you are filling a need. Whether you realized it at the time or not, you started your business because you saw a need that didn’t have a solution. Either you have a completely new idea or have figured out a way to satisfy your customers’ needs better than anyone else.

 

The first thing you need to do before you identify your customer is to identify the problem you are solving.

 

Once you have a solid idea of precisely what problem your business, product, or service solves, you can discover the customer that will benefit most from your solution.

Identify Your Ideal Customer

Before you identify your ideal customer on a large scale, your target market, you need to identify a single person.

 

No, not a real person, per se. Instead, you want to decide what type of person will be the ideal candidate for your product or service. To do this, you need to imagine as much as you can about this person.

 

Here are a few key characteristics you can focus on:

Where do they live?

While you don’t need to have an exact address in mind, you should know about the area that your ideal customer lives.

 

Think about their social status. Are they working-class citizens, or are they part of the one percent?

 

There is no wrong answer, as long as you are honest with yourself and your goals for the products or services you sell.

What do they like to do?

Knowing your ideal candidate’s daily habits and likes and dislikes is essential to understanding them. Ultimately, you need to know where to find them to market to them in the most effective manner.

What about their social circle?

Who are their friends? Answering this question will tell you a lot about their preferences. Sometimes this answer is more useful than their likes and dislikes. Depending on whether they are social or more loners will dictate where you should focus your marketing efforts.

What do they do for a living?

Knowing this information is useful in many different ways. The first and most apparent way knowing the answer to this question is valuable is that it tells you what they can afford. While you shouldn’t use this in a greedy way, you must know if your services are too expensive (or too cheap) for what you are offering to your ideal customer.

 

Market research does play a role in this, too. However, you must member that this portion of the System is about your customer. If your ideal customer cannot afford your product or services, how can you expect anyone else to want or be able to provide your products or services?

 

The more information you can gather about them, the easier it will be to market to them.

Find Your Target Audience

When you have developed a clear picture of your ideal client, it is time to apply this decision on a grander scale.

 

It is time to formulate your target audience. This portion of identifying your customer is where you take your ideals and fit them into a category of people. Remember, you cannot make a living off one client alone, in most cases. You need to find a group of people that resemble your ideal customer as closely as possible.

 

This task might be simple, but it may not. Within the fitness and sports industry, there are a lot of different potential target audiences.

 

And no. Not everyone is your target audience.

 

If you are going to be successful, you need to isolate the group of people that best fits your ideal customer.

 

Now, you don’t want to outright exclude people from buying your product or service. When it comes to marketing efforts, you want to have a solid group of people in mind. Speak to these people directly throughout all of your advertising messages.

 

While you have your ideal customer in mind, here are a couple of ways you can determine the right target audience for your product or service:

Pick a Niche

There are niches and sub-niches for nearly every industry and topic. This step is so crucial because the better you define your niche, the better you can focus on your target market. The more you can focus on your target market, the more exclusive your brand can become.

 

If you can carve out a specific niche, you can set yourself apart, simply because you become your own brand instead of a replication of another brand.

Use Information from Current Customers

Even if you are only starting, you should have at least a few customers from which you can gain information. Depending on how close you are to the customer you have in mind, you can ask them questions outright. If that is not an option, you can always use a few of these information-gathering tactics:

 

• Surveys
• Social Media Data
• Focus Groups

Assess Your Offerings

After figuring out all the information you can about your ideal customer, take a look at your offerings. While you do this, make sure you think of the customer and what is best for them. With this mindset, determine which products or services will be best for attracting new customers and which products or services will be more attractive to returning customers.

 

Combine this information to identify your customer.

 

Identifying your customer is one of the most critical aspects of marketing, and when you figure it out, this knowledge will open a plethora of doors for you.

 

Satisfy Customers

 

Keeping your customers satisfied is essential to keep them around. If you keep them happy, the last thing they want to do is replace you for one of your competitors. Customers expect you to ensure that they have a great experience using your products and services. This experience encourages them to buy again and spread the word with their friends and family. Customer satisfaction is your ultimate goal, and there are many ways for you to measure your overall customer satisfaction.

How To Monitor Customer Satisfaction

Here are a few ways that can give you an idea of how satisfied your customers are.

Average Response Time

Believe it or not, the average response time plays a vital role in increasing customer satisfaction. Customers need to have someone readily available that they can contact even after making the sale with them. Nothing is more frustrating than a company with insufficient customer service. Businesses should value all the glitch reports and scrutinize response negligence. It is vital to make customers feel appreciated and failing to do so can drive them away.

 

Consider breaking down your average response times on the following channels.

Phone

Studies found that 53% of consumers think that they should only wait for a maximum of three minutes before a customer service query calls. Thus, companies need to take extra measures to minimize the time they put consumers on hold.

Email

Understandably, most companies can be overwhelmed by numerous emails in a day. This occurrence usually happens during product releases, holidays, sales, and other occasions. But the reasonable amount of time that it takes for companies to reply to customer emails should be within 24-48 hours.

Live Chat

Live chat support services are an effective way to address customers’ concerns in real-time. Unlike phone and email, customers can troubleshoot, inquire, and log their interactions. There are many chat providers accessible to businesses with built-in analytics that help you monitor response times.

Customer Referrals

You can take advantage of your customers and offer them to distribute referrals as a word-of-mouth marketing opportunity. The number of referrals they send can be an indication of customer satisfaction. A satisfied customer will testify and advocate for your brand to their friends, family, and co-workers. They can provide testimonials, positive reviews, and recommend people they know towards your brand. Lesser referrals might mean that you need to reassess your strategies, including aspects of your product, to improve.

 

Customer referrals involve affiliate and refer-a-friend programs that provide incentives for every successful transaction from the references made. It is a powerful strategy that satisfies your loyal customers and, at the same time, helps you generate new ones. On top of that, their referrals can give you useful insight to discover why they recommend your brand.

Repeat Purchases

For businesses that offer subscription services, customer satisfaction can be measured based on how long they have subscribed. They will never re-subscribe in the first place if they are unhappy with your service. However, this can be difficult to measure for businesses of different nature. You can always tell by browsing through your product reviews, but another significant indication is repeat purchases. Keeping track of repeat purchases allows you to determine the products that became a crowd-favorite or those that need improvement.

Post-Conversion Activity

Most businesses often overlook the development of customer satisfaction. Instead, they direct their efforts to product development to generate new leads. Although it’s just as important, neglecting customer satisfaction can affect your business and decrease customer loyalty. That said, it’s important to monitor customer engagement with your brand to determine their satisfaction levels. You can use these following aspects as a metric to help you measure their satisfaction:

 

• Pages they viewed

• Average time spent on your brand website

• Email Open Rate

• Clicks

• Items added to their cart

Reaching Your Target Market

Now that you understand the determinants of customer satisfaction, you can now exert extra efforts to acquire substantial leads. Follow this guide to help you effectively satisfy your intended audience.

Determine the Defining Characteristics of Your Target Audience

Incorporating aspects that customers can resonate with into your marketing campaign is an effective way to be heard. It is integral to recognize your target audience to determine the steps you need to take to reach them. When implemented, this approach helps you obtain the right people and develop your products and services based on their needs.

Explore Methods of Interacting with Your Target Market

There are various criteria and communication channels you can acquire to attain your target customers. But your customers are unique to your brand, making it critical to select an effective method that will work. You need to identify aspects you can utilize that is a conjugation of meeting their needs and your company goals.

 

To get started, you can identify demographic points like age, location, and gender. Additionally, you can create a criterion that matches your prospects and your brand’s beliefs, intentions, and vision. This information can help you refine your marketing message that reaches your intended audience. Ultimately, you can direct your marketing efforts to those who will likely be interested in buying from your brand.

Identify What Your Consumers Want the Most

It is a critical step to position yourself in the customers’ shoes as often as possible. This sense of understanding allows you to identify what you need to improve that you can only view through your consumer’s eyes. Furthermore, this can help you address potential concerns and conflicts before they even take place.

Fill Satisfaction Gaps

You also need to determine and fill the satisfaction gaps of your customers. Recognize the gaps between what they want and what they will accept. For example, many people are left with no choice to get the product even if it’s not in the color they wanted. They liked this particular brand of food but preferred to get something nearby. The space between adequate results and total gratification refers to the satisfaction gap. Brands need to discover what the customers truly want instead of merely making efforts to attract them. Once you’re familiar with them, you can explore ways to fill these so-called gaps and increase customer satisfaction.

Know the Most Effective Channels of Communication

There is no single best communication channel that can work for any customer. For example, local businesses don’t need to administer nationwide marketing campaigns to reach their target audience. They can post ads on their local directory, a local newspaper, or even target social media ads for better results. As previously mentioned, your consumers are unique to your brand. You are the only one who can figure out what the best way to communicate with them is.

 

Examine the most common channels your target demographic uses to establish your brand’s platform. Increasing your online presence can help you acquire a younger generation of prospects from different parts of the world. Subsequently, incorporating your brand into their usual information stream improves overall brand awareness and customer acquisition.

Measure Campaign Results

After establishing a comprehensive marketing campaign, measure its outcome to ensure you earned a substantial return on investment. It is vital to use the feedback you received to optimize future campaigns.

 

Retain Customers

 

The frequency of purchase serves as the backbone of customer retention. Customer retention refers to the increase in customers that make repeated purchases. In turn, this can help you generate revenue that increases until these customers cease to exist. It is integral for businesses to go the extra mile in improving overall customer experience to promote retention.

 

That said, let’s talk about the importance of retention and strategies to improve it suitable for your business.

Importance of Customer Retention

The most effective way to maximize your revenue comes from your existing customers. These people know your brand better, and with their help, you can even gain new leads. Here are the reasons why customer retention is essential.

Improve Conversion Rates

Your existing customers will likely repeat their purchase when you provide a consistent and quality service or product. You have already established a valuable relationship with them. You only need to keep at it. This consistency can increase their confidence with your product to vouch for your brand with everyone they know.

Less Marketing Efforts

There is a substantial amount of time and effort required to find new customers and convincing them to try your brand. Accordingly, your marketing efforts can minimize when you take advantage of your existing customers. They can advocate for your brand and can even be motivated to do so with affiliate and referral programs. Less marketing efforts means less work and fewer expenses.

Increased Profits

As mentioned, there is already a valuable relationship established with your existing customers. Having confidence in your brand makes it easier for you to introduce more of your products. Selling your products to customers you retain, becomes less focused on the price but more on the consistency and service.

Lower Costs Per Conversion

It is beneficial to strive toward customer retention if you opt for higher revenue and minimized additional expenses. Research expressed that acquiring new customers can be 5-25x more expensive than retaining an existing customer. Your business can also benefit from a 75% increase in revenue when you increase customer retention by at least 5%.

How To Retain Customers

After exploring the benefits of customer retention for your company, let’s look at different strategies that promote it.

Give Special Offers

Providing offers that urge them to repurchase is an effective way to increase customer retention. Implement discount codes intended for their next purchase to nudge them to come back. Most businesses give a reasonable 10% discount as a standard, but it’s also nice to raise them for succeeding purchases. Research states that providing a 20% discount for a third purchase increases the chances to repeat purchases by 54%. Furthermore, it would be better to experiment with the special offers you can offer to determine which would work best.

Reward Your Most Profitable Customers

Your most profitable customers are those who express loyalty to your products and services. They have high expectations for your performance and consistency. It is essential to establish programs tailored to motivate them to repeat their purchase and vouch for your brand. Therefore, rewarding these people with programs like the Customer Loyalty Program can encourage them to stick around longer.

Customer Loyalty Program

These are retention programs that promote repeated purchases through incentives. These programs provide valuable rewards based on purchase frequency to motivate customers to come back. Many businesses implement these types of programs, considering it is easy to establish and can guarantee a profit. You can use sales reports history to determine the incentive value that would work or opt for app providers. These providers offer automated loyalty apps that can reward your customers for every transaction made from your store.

Personalizing Your Follow-ups

The frequency of purchase is a sufficient indication of an effective customer retention strategy. Email marketing and adequate communication to customers improve their engagement and contribute to their retention. Communication channels such as email are your opportunity to build a valuable relationship with your target market. These channels also allow you to reach out to them before and after the transaction. It makes each message critical, considering that a single message can drive them away and, worse, ruin your entire reputation.

 

A great way to get started on effectively reaching out to customers is through personalized follow-ups. Reach out to them a week after their purchase to acknowledge them and offer gratitude. Personalized emails acknowledge how you value your customers, making them feel good about their purchase. Additionally, these efforts make your brand more approachable and personable.

Setting Constant Contact

Besides reaching out to customers before and after their purchase, it is also integral to set constant contact. Consistent communication enables you to establish a relationship with them. It makes them feel appreciated while keeping them informed regarding your products and latest offers. You can set constant contact through automated emails, special offers, and phone calls.

Implement Feedback Surveys

It is necessary to welcome ongoing feedback from your existing customers to emphasize how you value their insight. At the same time, their opinions allow you to improve your service to meet their expectations. Treat each complaint as a gift that can help you discover areas in your business that require enhancement. The following includes various ways that can help you gather ongoing feedback from customers.

Individual Feedbacks

Individual feedback is more important than comparing them across a wide range of consumers. It is vital to group them depending on demographic specifics like age, gender, location, and others. You will understand their insight better if you narrow down their reviews based on these predetermined criteria.

Data-driven Feedbacks

It is necessary to track your feedback surveys to monitor your progress. You can keep the history of your feedback to determine any changes and refine your future strategies. Additionally, adding insight into feedback surveys can help you identify the particular areas that need improvement.

 

Now that you acquired strategies on retaining customers let’s discuss the reason why they leave.

Why Customers Leave Your Business

While many businesses strive to attract customers, many forget to focus on why they leave. There are a variety of reasons why customers leave your business. They may not be satisfied with the product and found a better, less expensive alternative. Another reason would be that they don’t find the product they need.

 

Finally, they may disagree with your vision, including the message of your brand. Customers are smart enough to recognize insincere and inauthentic services.

 

Instead, listen to what your customers want and strive towards being more personable. It is essential to take a step back and consider these factors to resolve potential problems before they even arise.

 

Repeat

 

It is crucial to sustaining continuous marketing efforts by achieving incremental improvements that can bring immense changes to your business. This process also enables you to improve the quality of your products each time you monitor your progress. Here are the ways continual marketing efforts keep your business afloat.

Why Marketing Should Be Continuous

Continuous marketing strategy is an essential investment in your business that can provide long-term benefits. This tactic helps you refine your marketing strategies and discover the most effective response to marketing campaigns. When you know what works for your company, you can reduce waste in marketing budgets. Learn more about essential advantages to sustaining a continuous marketing campaign.

Help Businesses Stay Relevant

A continuous marketing plan is integral to ensure that lead generation is always happening regardless of the state of the business. Whether your business is going well or not, ongoing marketing keeps your operations afloat. The industry is unpredictable and progressive. You are not the sole contributor to offering a particular product, service, or feature.

 

Most traditional brands that don’t keep up with the changes are torn down by modernized and younger companies. Taxi-hailing apps replaced the conventional taxi industry altogether. Online banks became as relevant as ever with the current economic climate and state of health.

 

However, this development doesn’t mean these industries are extinct. It merely implies that they need to keep up and evolve. The market is extremely diverse, so you’ll never oversee the strategies from your competition. Thus, it is safer to defend your corner of the market, so you won’t fade into irrelevance.

Maintain Momentum

If you don’t make substantial efforts to market your brand, someone else will. You may have seen businesses investing in large and expensive campaigns, but eventually, they stop making up for the costs. This hiatus can be dangerous when other brands begin to take over and mantle their established momentum.

 

Massive campaigns might be necessary to increase brand awareness, but the execution is more important. Instead, determine a precise marketing strategy that has a lasting impact. It is also important to note that most campaigns fade away in time, and customers eventually forget them. Instead of amplifying your voice over a short period, it’s much better to sustain a valuable conversation for an extended timeframe.

 

For example, focusing on boosting promotions for a single social media post is a waste of money. This content will slip down the rankings no matter what due to the influx of new content. It would be better to invest in your everyday content to maintain your momentum.

Establish Brand Authority

Many pioneering companies in the world employ continuous marketing to keep their operations afloat. As mentioned, it contributes to sustaining the momentum despite the competitive climate of the industry. This long-term benefit ensures that your products remain popular, gaining trust from your target market. It gives a boost to perceived authority towards your product and services. Additionally, this serves as a clear message that means your products are worth using. When you establish brand authority, sales are improved.

Measure Leads and Increases in Revenue

A reliable lead generation system is not limited to acquiring a substantial amount of leads for your business. All the leads that you have gathered can also be studied and incorporated in the sales process. Measuring your leads also provides an insight to establish marketing opportunities. Trace all your leads back to their respective marketing origin to help you understand those that worked. When you know the appropriate marketing strategy for your brand, you can successfully establish brand authority.

Test Audience & Strategies

Effective marketing campaigns have gone through extensive strategizing, planning, and research. Part of the steps to ensure seamless execution includes testing its performance. Presenting tests can optimize your overall marketing strategy. Test results can help you determine the proper timing, medium, message, and duration of your campaign. Addressing these potential marketing issues can help you recognize the notable advantages of continuous marketing. As mentioned, most over-the-top campaigns fade into irrelevance and waste significant investments.

 

Extensive research can help you deal with this predicament early on. This preparation also allows you to appreciate the value in sustained, smaller marketing programs.

 

However, you cannot expect each campaign to perform as expected. It is important to make extra effort to try different methods or combine some of them until you see beneficial results.

Effective Product Development

Continuous marketing allows you to make an effort to improve your product continuously. When you market your product non-stop, it means that it’s always out there. Customer needs and requirements change over time, and you need to keep up with this progression. Consistent product development helps your company maintain market share and brand authority. If you let your brand evolve by introducing innovative alternatives, you can be susceptible to making market breakthroughs.

How Continuous Marketing Builds a Competitive Edge

Marketing should be an ongoing effort to stay relevant in an immensely competitive market. It focuses on amplifying the impact to customers over a more extended period. This tactic can also help in discovering potential issues and resolving them. Additionally, a seamless execution can result in exceptional results that can increase your overall revenue.

 

Fostering marketing that never fizzles out can be rooted in these following practices.

Performance Transparency

Performance transparency promotes a collaborative relationship among various departments in businesses. Goals and plans to meet them should demonstrate a mutual understanding of all organization levels. When everyone understands what’s going on, progression towards goals is much more natural. Express transparency by providing clear visibility of what is working and what needs work. Continuous marketing requires a thorough strategy and planning to sustain its effectiveness. Therefore, performance transparency helps companies focus on efficient ways to maximize their marketing efforts.

Transformational Results

The primary takeaway to fostering continuous marketing includes transformational results. Ongoing marketing will help businesses provide higher value to their customers. Constant monitoring of product performance and advertising allows them to explore ways to deliver at their highest quality. While they are at it, they can also respond to the constant changes in their environment.