Marketing Plan For Bodybuilding.Com Essay Sample

Recommended Marketing Plan for September 2015

Introduction
The marketing plan is an important part of the business plan, as it describes as distribution is conducted, the price is set and products and services are promoted. For creating marketing plan Bodybuilding.com, the world’s major online fitness site, was chosen in order to increase its profit by 15%. It has wide range of products, including protein powders, fat burners, vitamins, creatine, pre-workouts, healthy food, different accessories, etc., and services, including programs, exercises, muscle groups, cardio, gyms, even personal trainers, etc. With 1.7 million daily visitors Bodybuilding.com is the chief sports nutrition e-retailer. Locating its business in Idaho, the company received many benefits, from the biggest part of male customers, which lives in this American state, to the greatest place for living and business.
Bodybuilding.com started its activity in 1997 as an online storefront by Ryan DeLuca, who was 19 years old layperson bodybuilder. In 1999 DeLuca bought currently well-known domain. In July 2006, Milestone Partners purchased a majority stake of Bodybuilding.com given the fact of its quick expansion. The amount of acquisition wasn’t disclosed. In addition, 2006 was the year of DeLuca’s recognition in the fifth position by Inc. Magazine on its list “30 Under 30: America’s Coolest Entrepreneurs”. Liberty Media Corporation paid more than $100 million for company’s controlling stake in January 2008. However, DeLuca remained company’s CEO.
Company’s mission is to satisfy its customers with the best assistance in fitness, health and appearance objectives, while delivering them appropriate information, inspiration and supplementation. Employing more than 750 people, Bodybuilding.com provides its customers with high-skilled and open-minded support. The most part of staff consists of UX/UI designers, systems engineers, IT support, database administrators, software developers, mobile app developers, etc. as the company is the leading in fitness e-commerce.
It carries out extensive advertising campaigns, which aim to attract new customers and to maximize attendance. To achieve this goal, the following types of advertising are used, namely advertising in social networks, television and in leading publications.
Bodybuilding.com protein powder is an extremely popular among its customers. Protein shake is the most important component of the sportsmen diet. It is not only a source of protein and complex carbohydrates needed for an effective workout, but also indispensable for the growth and strengthening of muscles, helps recovery after exercise and can reduce the loss of muscle mass while burning fat.

Current Marketing Situation

In the USA and Canada there are more than 56 million people or 10.2% of the population involved in fitness (50.2 million of them are in the USA), making the North American market the largest in the world. The market in monetary terms occupies one third of world. The number of fitness clubs in the United States (30,500) is almost equal to the number of clubs across Europe (46,000), with more than 14% of the US population involved in fitness, which is also a world record.
Company’s product (Protein powder) is aimed at customers, who aged 18-45 and it is interested for those clients, who maintain health life or actively do sports, including various fitness centers. Since products and services provided by the company are very diverse, they attract people, who prefer an active and comfortable pastime. However, the main purpose of protein powder is considered to still help athletes in maintaining a certain level of physical development. Thus, Bodybuilding.com presents its customers different types of protein powders for different purposes, for example, for maximum effectiveness (Pro JYM), muscle growth (Syntha-6 or Combat Powder), building muscle (ISO-100 or Whey-HD), etc.
Overall macro-environment in the USA is stable with 0.8% of inflation rate, which had a weak impact on the fitness market through a low general rise in prices, 5.6% of unemployment rate, which is a source of the customers’ inability to purchase goods due to the lack of income, high level of population growth, 40% of target audience and 5% GDP growth.
Therefore, dominating in the sports nutrition market Bodybuilding.com sells protein powder of high quality, which helps to normalize the digestive and metabolic processes. Its pricing policy is very reasonable depending on the bottle volume starting from $6.99. Consumption of protein powder helps athletes maintain a proper fit. Even doctors and nutritionists have long made food protein in the list of products that have curative properties.

Competition

The entry of new players only stimulates the demand for fitness products and services in general, and as a result increases the profitability of operators: appearing in the region, national chains begin to advertise their products and services. And thus, attract customers not only in their own areas, but also in other fitness centers. Bodybuilding.com operates in the monopolistic competition market. The main characteristics of the market are large number of competitors and the balance of their forces; differentiation of goods and services (from the point of view of the buyer products have distinctive qualities that are perceived by the entire market). It means that Bodybuilding.com should have unique features in order to remain competitive. Product differentiation creates the possibility of a limited effect on market prices, as many consumers remain committed to a particular brand and the company, even with a price increase. However, this impact will be relatively small because of the similarity of goods of competing firms. Bodybuilding.com offers lowest prices, fastest shipping, 24/7 live support and a variety of high quality products and services. Its main competitors are GNC Live Well, Vitacost.com, the VitaminShoppe and A1 Supplements.com. Defined competitors are also quite trendy in the market. In order to attract customers they apply advertising in social networks as well. For example, A1 Supplements.com operates in the market since 1999, GNC Live Well – since 1997, the VitaminShoppe – 1977 and Vitacost.com – 1994. However, the first position belongs to Bodybuilding.com. All competitors can provide with discounts if the customer is a member of some program. Despite the variety of protein powder customers prefer to select Bodybuilding.com product due to its positive reputation.

Strategic Analysis

SWOT-Analysis
After completed SWOT-analysis it is noticeable that Bodybuilding.com has more strengths than weaknesses and more opportunities than threats. Considering its positive reputation and work experience, favorable location, high-skilled and open-minded employees, wide arrangement of products and services and extensive advertising campaigns, the company is affected by political structure in countries of operation and unemployment rate in the USA. However, despite increasing the strength of competitors and opened to manipulation rankings, Bodybuilding.com will prosper due to the stability in the USA, its GDP growth, growing online retail market and social networking.
In order the company is going expand its activity and increase profit share, all opportunities and threats should be taken into account. So, potential investors consider a marketing plan as a critical point of success of the new venture. Marketing planning is the annual demand for the company and can be considered as a guide when making operational decisions.