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Steal This Marketing Idea!

The other day I got a postcard from Cuts, the male version of Curves.

VOLUNTEERS WANTED!
Cuts Fitness Needs 50 Volunteers to Participate in a 21-Day Fitness Study!

They’re looking for men between 25 – 73 who don’t regularly exercise to agree to a supervised 21 day training program at 30 minutes a session. They’ll measure you before and after the session and give you a "supervised fitness profile." There’s a $20 fee that’s refunded upon completion of the study.

Although there’s no requirement to join Cuts, once they get you hooked on fitness, and getting into a regular routine, I’m sure many test subjects will end up joining. (Personally, I find having women around is a motivator to work out more often, so we’ll see.)

On top of increased membership, Cuts will have all this unique data that they can use as fodder for press releases, which in turn will increase their mind share and generate new business outside of the people who originally signed up. Who knows, they may even learn something from all the data they collect.

This is a great marketing plan. It gets people to try their product for 21 days, gets them mind share in their test subjects and those who spread the story, and gives them material for press releases.

Cuts has put a nice twist on the free trial by not calling it a free trial.

How could you use this in your own business? Could you engage prospects and customers to trial your product under the banner of research or a study? Do you have a vitamin supplement, a yoga course, or anything else that once people start it they won’t want to stop? And it doesn’t have to be health-related. It could be a new business method, or a way of saving money on gas, or a product that helps your baby sleep through the night. (Don’t I wish!)

Rich Brooks
25 – 73

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I didn’t link to Cuts above because it’s got music pumping out of the home page from…Moby? Does Moby inspire me to get fit? However, if you want to hear a looped snipped from Play, go ahead.

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  • http://www.acornservice.blogspot.com Jim Symcox

    There's no doubt that when you offer a no-brainer free trial more people are tempted to try your offer. It's then up to you to tempt them to return to your shop, gym, food outlet so that it becomes a habit.

    Look at Waterstones – the UK bookshop chain. They were one of the first chains to make buying books an experience and make it a habit. Although I'd argue that Foyles in London used to be the experience that Waterstones has systematised – think book piles and browsing!

  • http://www.acornservice.blogspot.com Jim Symcox

    There's no doubt that when you offer a no-brainer free trial more people are tempted to try your offer. It's then up to you to tempt them to return to your shop, gym, food outlet so that it becomes a habit.

    Look at Waterstones – the UK bookshop chain. They were one of the first chains to make buying books an experience and make it a habit. Although I'd argue that Foyles in London used to be the experience that Waterstones has systematised – think book piles and browsing!

  • Robin

    BTW…I think you might want to know that this promotion is a copyrighted product of Powerful Promotions in Plano, TX and you just might want to remove the post from your blog…you know, copyright infringement and all that!

    And you are encouraging others to steal the same product?????

  • Robin

    BTW…I think you might want to know that this promotion is a copyrighted product of Powerful Promotions in Plano, TX and you just might want to remove the post from your blog…you know, copyright infringement and all that!

    And you are encouraging others to steal the same product?????

  • http://www.flyteblog.com Rich Brooks

    Robin,

    Are you kidding me? What copyright am I infringing?

    By telling people they should steal this idea I'm obviously telling them that the marketing plan is clever, not that they should actually steal anything.

    I'm sure anyone clever enough to come up with this marketing idea would be clever enough to understand that. Right?

  • http://www.flyteblog.com Rich Brooks

    Robin,

    Are you kidding me? What copyright am I infringing?

    By telling people they should steal this idea I'm obviously telling them that the marketing plan is clever, not that they should actually steal anything.

    I'm sure anyone clever enough to come up with this marketing idea would be clever enough to understand that. Right?

  • Walt Bakes

    You must be kidding — call a spade a spade. A free trial is exactly that, and calling it a "fitness study" is misleading. It makes someone think that this is a scientific study, much like drug trials or university studies. Selling gym memberships is a sleazy business, and only made sleazier by techniques such as this.

  • Walt Bakes

    You must be kidding — call a spade a spade. A free trial is exactly that, and calling it a "fitness study" is misleading. It makes someone think that this is a scientific study, much like drug trials or university studies. Selling gym memberships is a sleazy business, and only made sleazier by techniques such as this.

  • http://www.flyteblog.com Rich Brooks

    Thanks for the feedback. Certainly I don't have any skin in the game as I don't have a Cuts franchise nor did I create this campaign. However, I did find it clever. Also, it was a fitness survey, as they collected information from around the country to determine whether their methods reduced weight and improved fitness for their target audience, and they came up with a clever way of getting people to contribute their time for free, and even land a few extra clients as well.

  • http://www.flyteblog.com Rich Brooks

    Thanks for the feedback. Certainly I don't have any skin in the game as I don't have a Cuts franchise nor did I create this campaign. However, I did find it clever. Also, it was a fitness survey, as they collected information from around the country to determine whether their methods reduced weight and improved fitness for their target audience, and they came up with a clever way of getting people to contribute their time for free, and even land a few extra clients as well.

  • rj

    kudos,
    its what many of us need for ideas in developing our own strategies in fitness sales. Thanks for the help- it is very clever!

  • rj

    kudos,
    its what many of us need for ideas in developing our own strategies in fitness sales. Thanks for the help- it is very clever!

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 12th, 2006 at 8:58 am and is filed under Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.