Running head: MARKET AND CONSUMER ANALYSIS

Market and Consumer Analysis

Jacob Otto

Full Sail University

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Abstract

Higher Power Athletics is a youth athlete training facility, the company is currently struggling to

get new athletes in their facility. In an effort to do so they are launching a new social media

campaign to show the benefits of their training. The target market is a small group of people with

a very specific problem, through research of the benefits offered by their training Higher Power

Athletics has the ability to solve the markets problems.

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Capstone Thesis Project

Introduction

When it comes to youth athletics the world is changing quickly, with athletes training at a

younger and younger age. Leading to the need for many athlete training facilities for the worlds

top athletes. But when it comes to training is there a right and a wrong way to go about this?

Should you athletes specialize in a sport or train for multiple sports? This has been a big question

and will continue to be a question for years to come. Higher Power Athletics is a facility

designed to help overall athletic performance without the need to answer that question. Does this

benefit a facility by not requiring an athlete to be specialized or not specialized? The researched

performed in this paper shows the benefits Higher Power Athletics has and the possible

downfalls they will be facing as a business in the Springfield, Missouri area. The area they are

located in provides a smaller market, through targeting the proper consumers this market will

become even smaller. So is there a market for this specialized business in the area they are

located? Yes we have shown the research highlights the market, the buyer, and even the realm of

training the business is using in order to determine the proper campaign strategies to use moving

forward.

Thesis Statement

For parents of youth athletes, Higher Power Athletics is the premier training facility in

southern Missouri. Providing the top youth athletes training in the area Higher Power Athletics

has a combined 40 plus years of coaching experience in 4 different sports.

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Situation Analysis

Company Overview and Current State

Higher Power Athletics is a youth athlete training facility in Springfield, MO. They currently

only have one location and the company is currently being ran by Doug Shockley. Higher Power

Athletics is attached to a church and consists of a basketball court, Weight training area, and a small

section of turf. This facility allows the company to train athletes in many different ways and to focus

on the needs of an athlete.

The company has the goal of bringing more athletes in to train. Whether this be through team

training, individual training, or even mixed group training. The goal of this campaign is to bring

awareness to the surrounding areas that the gym is here and is open to help train athletes. Through a

social media campaign, the company feels like they can gain attention and in turn bring in more

clients.

The company started out very fast with help from big name local athletes doing training for the

youth in the area. As the athletes continued their careers, and lives the company lost all but 1 of their

trainers. This trainer worked very hard to keep the business afloat but in turn was struggling. This

cause numerous clients to leave and go elsewhere. Currently Higher Power Athletics is on the rebound

and looking to rebuild their reputation in the community. Since the loss of all the trainers the company

has rebuilt into what it is today, by gaining new trainers, adding in team training, and going mobile to

help the youth of the area.

Higher Power Athletics lost control of their Instagram and twitter accounts when one of

the trainers left, leaving them using Facebook only on the social media world. When not using

social media the only other communications they use is word of mouth. The company has not
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spent money on there advertising and has been able to get their name out into the community a

little bit.

The campaign plan is to show the benefits of using a service like this. Through client

testimonials, press releases, and live footage from a training session we hope to build awareness.

The company agrees that they need to show what they are doing is working and get more people

to see the benefits. One of the big things the company is hearing about their service is that it is to

much for the kids and they are going to end up with over-use injuries. This campaign will help

ease the minds of those thoughts and show how they are actually helping to prevent injuries.

SWOT Analysis

(Use the “SWOT Analysis Worksheet” template to help complete this section.)

Figure 1: SWOT analysis chart. It will look something like this:

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Higher Power Athletics has a few strengths to help their campaign. First, they employee

over 40 years of coaching experience. This experience helps them know what training helps

athletes in different sports and how it helps the overall athletic ability. Then, they have a big

facility with multiple areas to use when doing training. This allows exercises that take up more

room, or bigger group sizes when training a team. Finally, the gym has a huge following in the

basketball world around the area and is known for training one of the top organizations. This

allows people to spread the word about what they are doing with a knowledge base of the results.

While the company has a some strengths there is also some weaknesses. When you look

at a company and see that it is not super organized it put a bad taste in your mouth. Higher Power

Athletics lost their help in the administrative side and decided to have the coaches handle this. It

turned out to be a back track and has become very disorganized. They also lost 90% of their

training staff and could not handle the load they had built. This lead to clients leaving and going

elsewhere to be trained. The past has been a huge weakness for the company and is a major

reason for this campaign. Finally, the staff has built a more relaxed environment and has created

a more relaxed client group. This means the clients only come to the gym when they want to, or

are pushed to by a parent or coach. This has proven to be a weakness as new clients think they

only have to show up sometimes and creates poor results.

Higher Power Athletics has a ton of opportunities to build on and create a new image for

their brand. The company has not tapped into the world of athletic training outside of basketball

until recently. This opens up a ton of new possible clients and an entire new market. Over the last

3 months the company has worked to rebuild their brand image and have seen positive thoughts

coming out of their effort. This leads to the opportunity to regain some of their old clients back.

They are also still in the middle of building their image again and can make that image what ever
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they want it to be. This allows them to focus on what they want to focus on and forget about

what they no longer want to focus on.

When operating a business such as Higher Power Athletics there are many things that can

come as a threat. First, the market is saturated with many different competitors training the

athletes of tomorrow. Second, when a team begins to get a reputation and builds bigger, they

start to adjust their training. This means many of the top teams are doing their own training

program instead of using a gym for that. Finally, the reputation of the company is going to be a

threat for months or even years. When athletes are turned away from their training and cannot

get the work, they were expecting it takes time to build that trust back. Higher Power Athletics

has to combat that reputation and not let it take business from them.

Competitive Analysis (This section should include 3-5 sources of research.)

Higher Power Athletics has one main competitor in the area Redline Athletics and many

other smaller competitors. Redline Athletics is a franchise company with a location in

Springfield, MO. The company currently trains over 150 youth athletics in the area and has

continued to grow over the last 13 months starting with 15 athletes in early 2019. While the other

competitors do not have nearly those numbers, we have been given a rough estimate from them

of about 10-15 athletes at another 5 facilities. Redline currently has over 35 locations nationwide

and the backing to prove results to their clients.(Redlineathletics.com, 2020) The estimated

income of Redline is around 1.5 million dollars according to owler. (Owler.com, 2020)

Higher Power Athletics competitors are offering a very similar product grouping. With

Group training being the main focus, then 1-on-1, sport specific training, and camps.

(Redlineathletics.com, 2020) These are all training services that a parent can get their child into

in order to better the abilities, strength and knowledge of being an athletes. Then Redline offers
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team training a service design for a team to come into their gym and workout as a team instead

of individually or in a mixed group.

The campaign is designed to show what Higher Power Athletics offers, and how they take

a different approach to their training. As most of the competition is working on similar abilities,

Higher Power is taking the time to focus in on each athlete and work them in the areas they need

most. This is different because most training is generic and suited for a group setting. Higher

Power also gives out home workouts to help the athletes when they are at home. The campaign

will focus more on how Higher Power Athletics cares about each athlete as a person not just a

source of income.

Problem Statement

Over the last year Higher Power Athletics has experienced a barrage of changes to

include lost coaches and staff. These changes led to a decrease in athlete participation and

offered services. Through the period of change the company has regained staffing and is looking

forward to helping the future athletes of the world train. Through small class sizes and frequent

training Higher Power Athletics will train the future entertainers in the sports world.

Target Market and Buyer Persona

Target Market

The target market for Higher Power Athletics is Men and women ages 34-44 in southern

Missouri. They are parents of children who play sports, and annual income of $45-75k. They

need Higher Power Athletics to keep their kids in shape during the offseason and to take their

skills to the next level.

Parents between the ages of 34-44 tend to be the parents that can afford the lifestyle it

takes in order to have a top-level athletes. They tend to be more stable in their careers and have
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an income between $45-75k, these parents tend to want their children to have a better

opportunity to succeed. This means with their income and stability they have the ability to afford

the training required to get to the next level. They are willing to take the time out of their day to

drop the kids of at a facility, then pick them back up later. They possibly have 2-3 athletes in the

house and can get some time away by sending them to training. These parents understand what it

takes to be successful in life and want to instill these ethics into their children.

This target market usually works what is considered a typical 9-5 job with weekends off.

They spend their weekends at sporting events throughout the region as they have some the

regions top athletes. With their busy schedule they can be found frequently spending weekday

evenings at a practice for one of many different activities their children. The parents take the

time to make sure their children have every opportunity to do what they love.

Higher Power Athletics is currently one of two gyms in town in which offers this target

market a place to better their athletes. Higher Power Athletics currently has a good relationship

with a small portion of the athletes in the area. These athletes generally consist of basketball

players from the local team the Springfield Tarheels. The remaining portion of athletes have

either left the facility due to prior changes or have not even heard of the facility. The relationship

is close to non-existent in the area with most of the target market.

Buyer Persona

David Smith is a Service Manager at Reliable Chevrolet. He is 38 years old lives in

Springfield, Missouri with his wife and 3 kids. He makes $65k a year and enjoys hunting and

fishing in his spare time. David is a family man who loves spending time with kids and wife. He

has 3 kids one who plays basketball, one plays football, and one plays softball. He can be found

on Facebook and Instagram sharing pictures of his family. He can use the services of Higher
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Power Athletics to keep his kids in shape, teach them new skills, and help them live out their

dreams.

Jacob Otto (2019)

Secondary Research

Higher Power Athletics is located in Springfield, Missouri and is surrounded by

numerous other smaller towns. The area is mostly rural, and the population is spread out across

most of southern Missouri. This means that finding the clientele requires targeting the

surrounding areas not just Springfield. According to the census the 3 biggest communities

around the gym comprise of about 50% of the population in the area. With around 165,000

people in Springfield itself and another 60,000 plus in Branson/Joplin. (Figure 1) There is a good

number to target by combining those three areas.

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Figure 1. Demographics

The company only provides services to youth athletes that means the population is

narrowed down greatly to only the athletes in the area. Between the three cities we have found 6

football leagues with an average of 20 teams per league, around 50 baseball teams, 80 basketball
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teams, and numerous other competitive sports leagues. Each team has a different number of

athletes which can be seen in figure 2. Now some athletes will play on multiple team for

different sports bring that total closer to 4500 athletes at the youth level. Adding in high school

sports will bring the total athletes closer to 3000. This means that the target market is only

around 7000-1200 depending on family sizes.

Sport Players Per team Total player

Football(20 teams x 6 leagues) 16 players per team on average 1920
Baseball(80 teams) 12 players per team on average 960
Basketball(90 teams) 7 players per team on average 630
Other Sports Estimated number 1400
High school Estimated Number 3000
Total 7910
Figure 2. Athletes in the area playing competitive sports.

Before producing a campaign, you must know whether or not the service provided

benefits the market or finds a solution to a need of the market. Higher Power Athletics provides

athletic training which has many benefits. Excelsior Orthopedics says there are four benefits to

include health, improvement, injury risk reduction, and social benefits. (Excelsior Orthopedics,

2018) While many people in the area might think additional training is not beneficial there is

some points made in this article. They say that spending time learning the proper movements and

techniques will help prevent injuries. The training will help reinforce healthier and active habits,

most athletes quit exercising when sports or done. Then they can improve and increase their

chances of making it further within their athletic career. All of these benefits are huge for youth

athletes.

While there are benefits there are also concerns, most athletes are specializing in a single

sport and this can create some problems. According to The Official Journal of the American

Academy of Pediatrics specializing in a sport leads to physical and emotional concerns. A

specialized athlete will begin to loss social interaction with others not in their sport and cause
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altered relationships with family. There are also over-use injury concerns from the athlete doing

the same motion over and over. (Brenner, 2016) These injuries are becoming more common in

youth sports causing parents to avoid too much training.

Finally, where should the company focus a majority of its time putting media out? When

researching this topic, it was hard to find social media statistics for the area. So, I decided to

conduct my own form of research on this topic. During my research I found that the community

interacted more on Facebook than any other platform. Then I went to see how many times I

could find a post in the area on other platforms. I found that the community was not using

hashtags or location services making the post hard to find. While a test post got close to 5000

interactions on Facebook, the same post would get 200 combined between Instagram and

Twitter. The focus of this campaign will be on Facebook and then grow into Instagram and

Twitter.

Primary Research Design

In order to perform the research for this project the goal is find a group of parents aged

25-35 with a lower income then the desired target market. Then for find a group of parents in the

desired target market aged 34-44 with a higher income and stable careers. This will allow for a

range of answers during the research and allow for a good amount of data. The goal is to get each

participant to fill out a survey about the services, the results, and whether or not they would send

their athletes to a training program such as High Power Athletics.

The survey will be put out through the gym itself and throughout Facebook in order to

attempt to get enough responses. Survey will be built through a platform such as SurveyMonkey

then distributed. The survey will ask for age, gender, income, and allow the participant to remain

anonymous. Then it will get into whether or not their children are athletes. What sports they
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play, and whether they feel additional training would benefit their athlete. Next, the survey

would ask the participant which training they think would be most beneficial and provide

options. Finally, the survey will ask how much they think a training service such as this would be

worth. This will allow Higher Power Athletics a full insight into whether or not a gym such as

this will be able to survive in an area such as Springfield, Missouri.

Note: I will give you feedback on this section right away and let you know if it is

approved. Once approved, you will implement the plan immediately. You will be reporting on

the results of this primary research in Week 3, using the next section.

Primary Research Findings

Please refer to the Case Study in week 2 as a sample of how PR professionals publish findings.

Introduction

Paragraph 1: Describe the reason for the primary research. Discuss all relevant secondary

research that has bearing on the primary research.

Method

Paragraph 1: Recruitment. Who was selected to participate (include all relevant details)?

How were they selected? How were they notified of the selection?

Paragraph 2: Procedure. How was the primary research conducted? How many

respondents were there? What happened in the course of the primary research?

Paragraph 3: Analysis. How were the results gathered? How statistically significant was

the data (this should include statistical terms and demonstrate an understanding of basic

statistical reporting)? What was the make-up of the respondents (include all relevant details)?

Results

Paragraph 1: Report all relevant findings.

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Infographic 1 Infographics should be inserted directly into this paper, not done as an

attachment.

Infographic 2 Infographics should be inserted directly into this paper, not done as an

attachment.

Conclusion

Paragraph 1: What will be done with this information? What are the next steps for

primary research? When and how will the next survey or focus group be conducted? NOTE:

You will add to the paper any additional primary research you conduct following this format.

Conclusion

Conclusions wrap up of the paper. After moving from general to specific information in

the introduction and body paragraphs, the conclusion should begin pulling back into more

general information that restates the main points of the thesis. Conclusions may also call for

action or overview future possible research. The following outline may help conclude the paper:

In a general way,

 Restate the topic and why it is important,

 Restate the thesis/claim,

 Address opposing viewpoints and explain why readers should align with the position,

 Call for action or overview future research possibilities.

Remember that once you accomplish these tasks, you are finished. Done. Complete. Don't try

to bring in new points or end with a whiz bang(!) conclusion or try to solve world hunger in the

final sentence of the conclusion. Simplicity is best for a clear, convincing message.
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References

4 Benefits of Summer Athletic Training for Young Athletes. (2018, June 2). Retrieved March 8,

2020, from https://www.excelsiorortho.com/blog/2018/06/02/4-benefits-of-summer-athletic-

training-for-young-athletes

Brenner, J. S. (2016, September 1). Sports Specialization and Intensive Training in Young

Athletes. Retrieved March 7, 2020, from

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/3/e20162148

Occupational Employment and Wages in Springfield - May 2018 : Mountain–Plains Information

Office. (2019, September 24). Retrieved March 7, 2020, from

https://www.bls.gov/regions/mountain-plains/news-

release/occupationalemploymentandwages_springfieldmo.htm

Springfield MO Demographics data. (n.d.). Retrieved March 7, 2020, from

https://www.towncharts.com/Missouri/Demographics/Springfield-city-MO-Demographics-

data.html

U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Branson city, Missouri. (n.d.). Retrieved March 7, 2020, from

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/bransoncitymissouri

U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Joplin city, Missouri. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2020, from

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/joplincitymissouri

U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Springfield city, Missouri. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2020,

from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/springfieldcitymissouri/IPE120218