Sales Planning for Aspen Athletic Club for Iowa

The athletic club will address a complex customer base, formed from individuals of both genders and all age groups. The aim of the services is to sustain a healthy life style through physical exercise. The first step on this agenda is that of promoting the club and its healthy life style philosophy. This will be achieved through advertisements on various media channels, such as television, internet, street banner and street fliers. Other activities to promoting the club will include communications with the public through interviews in television programs or specialized local magazines.

Once the marketing efforts are completed and interest is raised in the new facility, it is necessary to commence actual work on the club. The facility already exists but in order to attract more customers it is necessary to redesign it and increase its appeal. It is even possible to relocate it to a region which is more easily accessible and more populated. Then, the issue of the staff members will be addressed. It is as such necessary to hire specialized trainers to teach the customers how to practice various sports and how to stimulate them to exercise.

The club employees will have to simultaneously meet two pivotal conditions -- they must be highly skilled, trained and able to perform their job, and secondly, they must be obliging and polite with the customers. Since the company does not offer a material product but a service, its employees represent the link to customers and they are the ones able to generate client satisfaction. This in turn materializes in returns and sustained revenues.

Aside promotional operations, facility location and human resource training, it is necessary to set the pricing strategy. This should be a penetration pricing strategy which implements lower prices in the first months in order to attract customers. Once the customer base is solidly formed, variable pricing strategies will be implemented, which will set the retail prices in accordance with the costs incurred in the delivery of the services.

Reference:

Forecast and Plan Your Sales, Business Link, http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1073790733 last accessed on July 14, 2009