市场营销论文 English

University Town through STP analysis

1155039 刘紫薇

I. Introduction

1.1 A brief introduction to Qianren Fitness Club

Qianren Fitness Club is a chain store established in 2005 boasting 15 sub branches spreading throughout Hangzhou, Shanghai, Changzhou and Guangzhou. It has a total business area of 35000 square meters, 152 experienced coaches, 20 types of fitness courses. It is regarded as the first university gym domestically. And it is appraised as excellent-quality in service but reasonable in price by Koubei. Com.

1.2 A briefing of the thesis

In this essay, I will study Qianren Fitness Club in Shanghai Songjiang University Town on the basis of STP analysis which is one of the key customer-driven marketing strategy decisions—‘how to divide up markets intomeaningful customer groups(segmentation), choose which customer group toserve(targeting),create market offerings that best serve targeted customers(differentiation), and position the offerings in the minds of consumers(positioning).’(Armstrong and Kotler, Marketing: An Introduction, ninth edition,2010) If it is put in my own words, the strategy decision might simply be a process of knowing or making sure who to sell, how to sell and what kind of image the company will form in their consumers’ minds.

II. From STP perspective to analyze Qianren Fitness Club’s success

2.1 Segmentation types that Qianren Fitness Club resorts to

It indicates that ‘market segmentation involves dividing a market into smaller groups of buyers with distinct needs, characters, or behaviors that might require separate marketing strategies or mixes.’(p143) As is often the case, marketers seldom limit their segmentation analysis to only one or a few variables. Rather, they often resort to multiple segmentation bases in an effort to identify smaller, better-defined target groups. Qianren Fitness Club divides their customers mainly through three types of market segmentation, namely gender segmentation, occasion segmentation as well as usage rate segmentation so as to satisfy their customers’ needs and wants to the most.

2.1.1 Gender segmentation

Gender segmentation means dividing a market into different groups based on gender. Songjiang University Town is made up of 7 universities including Shanghai International University Studies, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Shanghai Institute of Visual Art, Shanghai Lixin University of Commerce,

East China University of Political Science and Law Donghua University and Shanghai University of Engineering and Science. From the formation of university town, we can easily find that 5/7 of the universities are colleges of liberal arts which boasts more girls than boys. So Qianren Fitness Club set bound courses attended for female club members ranging from Latin dance, i-step and belly dance to yoga in accordance with the gender composition of the university town. There are no particular courses intended for male members but the club has installed many health and fitness facilities such as dumbbell, rowing machine, chest expander etc. As is demonstrated here in graph 1, we can easily notice that the members taking courses are all female. Graph 2 shows us the health and fitness facilities for male members.

Graph 1 Graph 2

2.1.2 Occasion segmentation

When it comes to occasion segmentation, as what is put in the book Marketing: An Introduction, ninth edition written by Armstrong and Kotler, ‘buyers can also be grouped according to occasions when they get the idea to buy, actually make their purchase, or use the purchased item. Occasion segmentation can help firms build up product usage.’(p147).

In this case, most students have classes in their daytime but rarely have evening lessons. And all the schools finish their daytime lessons at about 4.35pm. Therefore, Qianren Fitness Club starts their fitness courses at 5pm and finishes them at 8.50pm. By setting their courses in the evening, Qianren Fitness Club wisely avoids conflicting with the lessons they have in school.

2.1.3 Usage rate segmentation

The third method of market segmentation which will be discussed here is usage rate segmentation. Markets can also be segmented into light, medium, and heavy product users. Heavy users are often a small percentage of the market but account for a high percentage of total consumption. Since the undergraduates accounting for the biggest proportion in Songjiang University Town, Qianren Fitness Club only has 2 types of cards namely the card with validity separately of semester and academy year according to the schedule of students.

2.2 Targeting

Market segmentation reveals the firm’s market segmentation opportunities. The firm must evaluate the various segments and decide how many and which segments it can serve best. In evaluating different market segments, a firm must look at three factors: segment size and growth, segment structural attractiveness, and company objectives and resources.

According to the different definition of undifferentiated marketing and differentiated marketing, I think Qianren Fitness Club uses a differentiated marketing or we can say segmented marketing strategy to target several market segments and designs separate offers for each.

As we discussed earlier in this essay, Qianren Fitness Club classifies their customers using different strategies. And they correspondingly set various fitness evening courses mainly attended for girls. For the minority of buyers namely the male students, they do not neglect them but install a number of fitness facilities to attract male memberships. By offering service and marketing variations to segments, Qianren Fitness Club hope for higher sales and a stronger position within each market segment thus developing a stronger position within several segments creates more total sales than undifferentiated marketing across all segments.

2.3 Positioning

Beyond deciding which segments of the market it will target, the company must decide on a value proposition-on how it will create differentiated value for targeted segments and what positions it wants to occupy in those segments. A product’s position is the way the product is defined by consumers on important attributes-the place the product occupies in consumer’s minds relative to competing products.

Through investigation, I find that there are many fitness clubs in Songjiang University Town for instance, Will’s Fitness Club, Yidu International Yoga Club, Linyi Yoga Club and so on. Taking Will’s Fitness Club as an example, through investigation, I have observed that there are mainly 6 types of card in Will’s with the validity ranging from one year to 10 years. The price is accordingly fluctuating from RMB 2880 to RMB 21000. But Qianren Fitness Club only charge 380 for semester card and 580 for academy year card. The following two pictures namely graph 3 and 4 are screen-shots from Hankow Thames.

Graph 3

Graph 4

From the sharp comparison of prices between Will’s Fitness Club and Qianren Fitness Club, we can easily see that Will’s Fitness Club has adopted a ‘More-for-more’ positioning because it provides the most upscale service and charge a comparatively higher price to cover the higher costs. But Qianren Fitness Club employ a kind of ‘The Same for Less’ which is a powerful value proposition because everyone like a good deal. The two pictures bellow namely graph 5 and graph 6 are separately Will’s and Qianren, we can see they do not have many distinct differences. We can draw a conclusion that Qianren bases their pricing on peers’ competition and customer value oriented.

Graph 5

Graph 6

What’s more, I think Qianren Fitness Club has made a brilliant choice of its location. It is located in Wenhui Road just in the University Students’ Gymnasium precisely at the center of the University Town surrounded by Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Donghua University and Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts and not far away from the rest of schools. Therefore, each of the students in the Songjiang University Town has an easy access to the club.

III. Conclusion and recommendation

All in all, I have to say Qianren Fitness Club has achieved great success in Songjiang University Town when it is analyzed by STP analysis strategy. The reason why I insist that it is of great success is that Qianren has accurately target their customers that is the undergraduates in school, and clearly segmented them through three types of market segmentation, namely gender segmentation, occasion segmentation as well as usage rate segmentation. After having made clear classification of their customers, they target the female students mainly setting a wide range of fitness courses accordingly. Qianren has also reasonably fixed the price of the fitness cards with regards to the undergraduates’ power of consumption and offer the customized and good service as a medium-sized fitness club. Last but not the least, Qianren wisely chooses its place which is located exactly right in the center of the Songjiang University Town so as to make it more convenient for each potential customers to join their club.

If there is something for Qianren Fitness Club to improve, I think firstly Qianren might set some health and fitness courses attended for male members. By doing so, I think they can preserve the male customers. Secondly, they might give discount to their regular customers or we can say heavy users to make a friendly and good relationship with customers.

References

Armstrong and Kotler, Marketing: An Introduction, ninth edition, China Renmin University Press Aug. 2010 Dianping about

‘http://www.dianping.com/search/keyword/1/0_%E5%8D%83%E4%BA%BA%E5%81%A5%E8%BA%AB’ Dianping about

‘http://www.dianping.com/shop/10349901’