Bikini Blitz for Brands

I'll admit that I'm not exactly the target demographic for the women-only outdoor group-fitness people Fit For a Princess.  But my wife-to-be is and it was with some excitement that she removed the bright pink flyer from our doormat and set about investigating their Bikini Blitz promotion.

The concept is a familiar one: take a large open public space (a park is ideal).  Get together a group of like-minded individuals who want to exercise regularly but are put off by busy, sweaty, smelly gyms (and the high membership costs) and who don't have the motivation to squat, crunch and stretch at home on their own.  Hold regular work-outs before work and at weekends.  Throw in the odd boot camp and you have a formula that has experienced huge popularity in London and, so it seems, is now making its way to the suburbs.

What impressed me most about Fit for a Princess was their content-rich website.  Rather than simply provide contact details and a location map, they have embraced fully the idea that by providing interesting articles, videos, a blog and e-books, customers will recognise Fit for a Princess as a leader in their field (no pun intended) and an authority on women's health and fitness. 

Most importantly, Fit for a Princess understand that providing all of this content on their website (and much of it free of charge) won't undermine the business model of getting women to turn up and pay around £5 for their fitness fix.  It's a common misconception among brands (of all shapes and sizes) that publishing valuable material and offering it to customers / subscribers / followers for free will lead to reduced sales.  Not so.  The way to create value (and generate more leads / enquiries / sales) is through creating inspiring, thought-provoking, useful content and to get it seen! 

Countless organisations would benefit from following Fit for a Princess' example.  If only there was a boot camp for out-of-shape brands...

Comments

[James Gubb]

Surely there has to be a limit to how much valuable material you want to publish, though, before it starts becoming counter-productive? If so, how do you know what that limit is? Trial and error, I guess?

For example, I'm having a discussion with my boss currently about whether all our books should be available to download online as pdfs. He thinks it will decrease sales. I think it will increase them because most people don't like reading off a screen and won't want to print off c.150pgs, but the pdf being there gives them a sight of what the content and quality of the work is like. The compromise would be to go to the half-way house like Amazon do and just allow people to read a bit of it as a 'taster'.

Thoughts, Rusty?

[Guy Watts]

James - I agree there is definately a limit to the material you should publish and send out before you start producing a negative message. However I dont agree that you should base this on trial and error. That could result in brand degradation if you got it wrong - you need to look at existing examples of good practice such as the above example Russ mentioned and follow there strategy, making tweaks along the way!

If only there was a boot camp for out-of-shape brands... Perhaps this could be your next venture?

Guy Watts - www.streetscape.org.uk / www.indianoceanrace.com

[Russ Jefferys]

James - your example is exactly the kind of conflict I'm seeing with organisations nervous about what and how much to publish. I think you need to ask 'what do we want to achieve by making this content available?' 150 page pdf's will have limited value to the end-user for the reasons you mention.

I'm a fan of Amazon but feel the 'preview' approach won't be enough to engage customers / clients in your case.

What about pulling out interesting / provocative sections from your books and featuring them over a period of days / weeks / months? That way you can lead the conversation and spark some debate, rather than uploading huge documents that might be ignored.

[Phil Johns]

@ Russ: Interesting first article that makes a valid point. Companies who back up their brand with something of interest certainly do well which in some ways relates to James' comments...

@James: Im not sure of the company that you work for and depending on target market my views may change however, taken note of Russ' first blog post I'de say that you should indeed be releasing SOME content of the books online in the form of PDFs.

However, I think im with your boss on whether to release all of the content or not. In a greement with Russ, how about releasing the whole of your first chapter/section and then just paragraphs and quotes from others where interesting content is visible however without more information the user can't get anything out of them.

Again, the idea of releasing say a chapter a week/month could prove beneficial, youde gain more followers as a business and the repeated traffic to your online content could benefit the company in many ways.