In the context of our Marketing Management course, we were asked to design an innovative concept of sport club and its marketing plan, in order to attract and retain new members.

Our approach can be summarised into 3 steps:

Definition

Prior to anything else, we had to determine the purpose of our concept. The video of the Australian Sport Commission gave us an idea of the sport clubs’ current situation and why they lack members. With that being known, we chose to create a club that would provide people with flexibility, as regards schedule, and opportunities for beginners to practice team sports. Those criteria helped us orient our research.

Research & Analysis

This step consisted in gathering information about the current sport club market. So we conducted a survey on the internet and in the streets to know about people’s habits and expectations when it comes to sport clubs, along with some research on the internet to learn about the already existing actors on the market.

With all that information, we were able to analyse the present situation (political, economic, social and technological) and thus to have an overview of the public we were going to work on.

It should be noted that, following that analysis, we realised there was a bigger market to conquer if we gave up on the idea of focusing on “beginners”. And so we decided to widen our concept to the part of the population that needs flexibility, regardless of sport level.

Planning

The core of our work had yet to be done. We divided the Belgian population into several segments, depending on the region, the age and expectations regarding sport clubs, in order for us to be able to offer our customers a well-adapted value proposition.

It was then possible to target our market: “People that live in Brussels, already practice sport on a regular basis, within the 19-45 age bracket and looking for flexible schedule for sport”.

From then on we could design our marketing mix, based on the 4C’s framework (Clients, Cost, Communication and Convenience). Thanks to our targeting, we defined our unique selling proposition “We provide you with flexible schedules to learn and enjoy team sports” and our positioning, which base itself on 4 values (Flexibility, Opportunity, Simplicity and Quality). That led us to the conception of our branding strategy, with a logo and motto that reflect our concept’s goal.

Then comes the cost structure of our project, which had to compete with the already existing offers on the market and attract the customers, while remaining realistic from a financial point of view.

Then, we established the communication channels we wanted to use to reach our customers, according to their habits and preferences, and decided we would do it through advertising, direct marketing and public relations.

A last step was the definition of “convenience”, which refers to “how and where the customers will access our product”, and the description of the potential risks related to our concept and their solutions, before we put our work on the internet in the form of a website.