The coronavirus is affecting all of us and it will continue to do so for several months. Fitness and sport related businesses need to navigate through the period of uncertainty to strategise and focus on the long term plan.
“When the world bounces back AND IT WILL, gyms will be packed, stores will be booming, people will be out running, walking and cycling. A backlog of sporting events will hit our calendars like a meteor. The world will rejoice and celebrate, perhaps like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”
It may seem a long way off but right now is the time to prepare for ‘boom day’. There aren’t many guarantees being granted right now but we know economy will go through the following phases;
Discovery
The truth of the matter right now in March 2020 is a health and economy disaster has occurred. You don’t need me to list the tale of events so far, let’s leave the experts to sort that side of it out. Emotionally we are still coming to terms with what it means to us as family members. We are still going through the discovery phase of what has happened and trying our best to absorb and process the information. Once we do, we must put our business hats back on and focus on economical ramifications;
- Do you need to modify your business model?
- Should you advertise and perform marketing now?
- Are there grants available to help?
The answers for most fitness businesses are yes to all the above.
Adaptation
Businesses always have to adapt. In the sport and fitness industry we actually embrace change. Last week I posted 3 ways fitness businesses can adapt in the short term to focus on;
- On demand fitness (and at home fitness)
- Making use of wearable technology
- Immunity boosting products
See the full article here. On top of this bear in mind the following facts;
- Millions of people are spending more time in their homes than ever before
- People have more time on their hands, think about how you reach out to them
- People are feeling emotive for many different reasons, it’s a great time for reading magazines and books, furthering personal development and using the time wisely to become more fit and healthy
- Ecommerce and certain sectors of retail have seen a massive upturn in business
- Health and fitness is on the minds of more than just our usual core community
- Associations advocate strongly for ‘essential’ dietary supplement manufacturers business, see full report here
If your fitness or sports brand is a natural fit for adapting to some of the short term changes then great! It’s time to position your brand as the ‘experts in home workouts’ or sending out content related value demonstrating the role immunity boosting products play in protecting people from viruses.
If your brand isn’t such as good fit to adapt, then you must focus on building brand equity for the medium to long term.
Preparation
A 3 month campaign to generate leads is always a great idea when it comes to marketing. Such is the pace of the fitness industry we aren’t always afforded the opportunity to put a complete longer term strategy into action. Well guess what? The current seismic economic change opens the door perfectly to work smarter and fine hone our long game. This is the ideal time to provide value to people via content, building leads towards the explosion of future activity. Believe me, it’s coming, the only unknown is how long the adaption phase may last; 3 months, 6 months or perhaps longer, we know it’s going to be considerable so we must prepare accordingly.