A Swot Analysis and Marketing Plan of Peak Performance

In this proposal, we discuss the marketing plan of our athletic wear company Peak Performance. We begin with an explanation of how and why we have created our company the way we have, including our mission statement and objectives. The plan moves into an in-depth breakdown of our target market and how we plan to position our company for this target market. Also included is a SWOT analysis, a description of our product development goals, pricing strategies, and what an online shopping experience with us is like. We then explain how our promotion strategies work and how we evaluate marketing success at Peak Performance. The plan concludes with a glimpse at our limitations.

Who We Are

Peak Performance is an innovative, online retail company that was established in 2010 and specializes in comfortable workout clothing for all body shapes. Because the company celebrates the individuality and uniqueness of every human being, we have created a clothing line based on body shape and size. Using Body Mass Index Statistics, Peak Performance has developed an alternative sizing system for its clothing line to accommodate people of all different shapes and sizes.

Peak Performance’s sizing system is unlike other traditional clothing retailers. Sizes, based on body shape, correspond to colors instead of the traditional: “small, medium, large, x-large”. Feminine body shapes include: stringbean-green, carrot-orange, peanut-beige, pear-yellow, and apple-red (pictured in Figure 1 below). With both masculine and feminine sizing, as sizes get larger, the shade of each “size color” gets darker.

Figure 1

Masculine body types include: aubergine-purple, leek-green, beetroot-red, and parsnip-yellow (pictured in Figure 2 below). We provide charts and informational videos about body proportions (size measurements and body shape) and their corresponding color on our website to help new customers navigate our sizing system.

Figure 2

Peak Performance is a green-conscious company that uses recycled materials to create its products. Through innovative technology, Peak Performance has invented and patented a new, breathable material called polyethrinite. This material is perfect for workout clothes because it is lightweight, flexible, and does not shrink. Polyethrinite is also highly desirable because it is a low cost material, costing only $0.06 a square yard. This material is made and turned into the unique workout shirts that Peak Performance creates just three miles from our site, making our deliveries extremely efficient.

To create polyethrinite, Peak Performance holds collection drives all across America to gather used cotton and polyester shirts, which are transformed into polyethrinite through the chemical technology at Rev. To increase incentive for donations, Peak Performance has partnered with Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park. They offer free, three day admission to the parks as well as housing for three days and three nights for groups who donate over 2,000 used shirts to Peak Performance with each drive. Each group must consist of under ten people, and drives cannot last longer than eight days.

Vision

At Peak Performance, our vision is to see more Americans becoming active in their day to day lives and feeling more comfortable about their bodies through the clothes that they wear. We also have a commitment to recycling and keeping the earth green. Through innovative processes, we have created a recycled material that is perfect for both comfort and the environment.

Mission Statement

“Peak Performance’s mission is to care for the athletes to the everyday people who are trying to get fit by providing comfortable, sensible activewear and for the environment by giving used products new life through recycling.”

Objectives Starting From Current Year

1. Sales of one million shirts by end of year

2. Increase sales by 10% each year

3. Average 50,000 page clicks per week on web page

4. Reach three million people through social media each year

5. Reach an additional 500,000 people every year through advertisements

6. Receive A+ rating from Better Business Bureau every year

Market Segmentation

In order to pinpoint our target markets and match marketable benefits to each group, the entire market was segmented into smaller groups according to geography, the demographics of generation and self-perceptions, gender and ethnicity, income, and the psychographics of health or eco-friendly social trends.

Target Markets

Geography

Peak Performance is an American online retailer that conducts business solely in the United States. Because all materials and products are made and sold in America, feelings of patriotism move endorsers of American businesses that we target to purchase our products. We additionally donate a portion of our sales to maintain national parks, so adventurers who take national pride in the land are also moved to purchase our products while supporting an environmental cause.

Generation and Self Perception

Our target, generational cohort is millennials or Generation Y, both men and women, ages 18 to 30. We have found that the negative stigma that millennials are “entitled” has given us leverage in motivating them to make a positive impact on society. Through studying other companies that donate money to social causes (such as Love Your Melon, Toms, etc.), our research has shown us that 68% of sales come from millennials. It seems that millennials are eager to break from the negatively associated stereotypes by supporting companies that make social changes.

Peak Performance also specifically markets to those who are sensitive about their body type by emphasizing the lack of traditional size names—small, medium, and large—that often spark negative reactions. This includes the people whose body shapes fall among the minority and are oftentimes not carried by mainstream retailers, giving Peak Performance the ability to target a market segment that is currently being underserved.

Gender and Ethnicity

While lines with masculine body shapes are geared toward men and lines with feminine body shapes are geared toward women, both lines provide the flexibility to switch between the two. This means that if a person has a more vegetable figure (traditionally associated with men) than fruit figure (traditionally associated with women), she or he can choose items that best fit her or his body type without worrying about traditional sizing differences between the two genders.

Our company also stretches beyond the confounds of ethnicity by producing a range of clothing styles that appeal to different ethnic groups across America.

Income

Our target market is also people with middle class level income. We decided when creating our outfitting that we wanted our clothing to be expensive enough that we make a profit, can donate a sufficient amount of funds to our cause, and give our items the allure of being high quality simply through being more expensive than low cost retailers like Walmart. We would not consider our pricing to be premium pricing as the selling cost is not significantly higher than the cost to create each item; however, we consistently price our products slightly higher than our competitors’ pricing. Because our store is completely online, we also need to reach people who have the means to access our store to make online purchases.

Psychographics and Social Trends

Customers who want to be healthier and are trying to “get fit” but do not know where to start are a prime target market for Peak Performance. While doing research on post-purchase feelings after purchasing workout gear, we found that 88% of consumers feel little to no regret about purchasing workout gear, and 52% of consumers believe that their new purchases will motivate them to make a change in their lifestyle. This has shown us that customers feel psychologically gratified after purchasing workout clothing. Thus, our product fulfills both functional and psychological needs.

Fashionable activewear also helps consumers feel more confident about entering a gym and workout facility. A recent study done by the American Psychology Association found that people who wore workout gear that they felt was attractive were 32% more likely enter a gym and would stay in the gym twice as long as they would if they were not dressed in something they felt was attractive. This shows us that psychological views on physical self-image play a large role in compelling people to workout.

Our company appeals to those already focused on health and wellness concerns too. We have found that in the last five years, gym memberships have doubled since 2012, Sam’s Club grocery store has had a 42% increase in sales in produce, and Vitamin Shoppe has had a 60% increase in vitamin sales. While these results are not necessarily conclusive in proving that Americans are more health conscious now than they used to be, they certainly do appear to support this claim. We have also followed up with various studies by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and found that obesity, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes rates have each doubled within the last ten years, making healthy living even more of a necessity.

Peak Performance also follows eco-friendly social trends and appeals to those concerned about the environment. Our production process recycles used cotton and polyester t-shirts into new athletic apparel, and we donate a portion of our profits to national parks for their maintenance. Those who donate can take advantage of free three-day admission and overnight housing at these national parks while wearing their new eco-friendly athletic wear during their stay.

Positioning

To better understand our target market we conducted research on some of our competitors. The most noteworthy are REI, Duluth, and Tentree. Tentree is a company that we researched the most because like Peak Performance, Tentree donates a portion of their sales to an environmental cause, specifically to plant trees around the world. By looking more into these outdoor clothing companies, we were able to see who their demographics are, how they normally price clothing, and what they do for sales promotion. We could also see how our customers would rank us compared to these companies and make a comparison diagram to see where we stand amongst our competitors.

As an entrepreneurial business, Peak Performance has found it necessary to understand our competition so that we know where we stand in comparison to them. We stand apart from our largest competitor, Tentree, because both our shipping and returns are free to the consumer, and our products are recycled. We leverage these differences in our marketing campaign to showcase that we are the premium value, eco-friendly retailer.

Customer Excellence

Peak Performance is dedicated to making the customers its top priority. To make the customer experience the best it can be, we start with the employees’ experiences. We know that a happy employee makes a happy customer, so we continually strive to make our employees a priority. Each employee is treated with the same respect and compassion that we want our customers to be treated with, and we see the pay off every day.

Maintaining positive relationships with customers is essential. We want repeat, loyal customers coming back to do business with us because they are more than satisfied with our service. To facilitate these relationships, we have employees ready to answer concerns and questions 24/7 via an online chat or over the phone at 555-555-3429. We also have sizing experts who are ready to help customers figure out what “produce size” they are so that they do not have to worry about shipping products back.

In the event that an item would not fit correctly or was packaged incorrectly, Peak Performance offers free returns for any customer. This encourages new buyers to give our products a try because of the low risk associated with making a purchase, and it encourages loyal customers to continue to buy with us and try out new styles and colors of items.

We also offer a loyalty program to all customers who sign up with an email address to receive special price promotional materials from us -- that are not otherwise available to customers. Our program also rewards customers who fill their wardrobes with our products with a free shirt for every seven shirts they buy. These shirts have special branding on the front that we use only for these give-away shirts, marking the customer with a sort of badge of honor for purchasing with us. We develop new designs for each “level” a customer gets to (i.e. first design as the eighth shirt, second design as the sixteenth shirt, etc.). This program is beneficial to our customers because they receive a free shirt, and it also benefits Peak Performance because we receive free advertising from the shirts we give away. With each special edition Peak Performance shirt we give away, a hand written “thank you” note goes with the package. We think this is a special way that we can show our appreciation to our customers. It also limits the amount of postpurchase anxiety our customer will have because they feel good about the donation that their purchase created to help maintain our national parks.

As we create our shirts from recycled shirts, we also make a point to thank all the people who donate recycled shirts to our company. Every shirt donor receives a handwritten note thanking them for their donation to a worthy cause. We also offer them 20% off their next purchase to encourage them to shop with us again.

Peak Performance understands that customers want their products as quickly as possible. Just as the consumer is able to buy our products 24 hours around the clock, we pack orders around the clock—that way all our products are shipped as quickly as possible. While other companies’ products ship in 5-8 business days, we ship products the day they are ordered. Because Rev is located as close to us as it is, we see no reason why our shipping process cannot efficient.

SWOT Analysis

Internal Strengths and Weaknesses

As a company in the clothing industry valued at $225 billion in 2012, Peak Performance has heavily evaluated its internal strengths and weaknesses. One of the greatest strengths of the company is selling directly from our business to our customers online. Without intermediaries, we have the power to ensure the product reaches the customer, from easy ordering to on-time delivery. Our product and store are accessible virtually anywhere. Secondly, by selling solely in the United States, we are able to avoid tariffs, quotas, and exchange rates. Furthermore, our base location in the western United States is an advantage for us because we support three regional national parks. Many of our customers know the parks well and love to purchase from us because they want their local parks to remain in excellent condition. We also have ongoing research and development in place to make our product better and increase our product and company value.

While our online retail will be strong, not having a storefront for customers to physically experience our products and services could potentially reduce our number of sales and gross profit because of the number of consumers who do not yet shop online or prefer a traditional retail store setting. Additionally, while we offer an array of athletic apparel, our reliance on primarily producing and selling shirts could be a risk should those sales decrease.

External Opportunities and Threats

As we analyzed the external environment, we evaluated larger-scale opportunities and threats. With constant change in social trends like fashion, the demand for new products with new materials and designs remains. The market for online clothing sales is growing and is predicted to grow 10% every year for the next ten years. As population is said to increase five million people per year, we expect the quantity of clothing demanded to increase. As population increases, it may become more difficult for transportation to occur, which will also contribute to the growth of online clothing sales. All of this aligns our online position with the future of the market.

The United States is increasingly becoming a society that is focused on athletics and exercise, and as that is shifting, so has the demand for performance clothing. Unlike competitors, our goal is to become a revolutionary brand that clothes the athletes to the everyday people who are trying to exercise more. That is why our sizing system by shape is popular with the culture in the United States. Though we are starting in the United States, the opportunity to expand into any area of the global market remains an option for the future.

However, our company will own a small market share because we are a small, non global company. We will face fierce competition from international and national competitors’ brands, such as Tentree. Securing the brand and producing materials to have stock so customers get products as soon as possible will be and is also be a risk.

Product

At Peak Performance, we create breathable, stylish athletic gear for all body types. We are most known for our quality athletics shirts which come in long sleeve, short sleeve, and sleeveless so that athletes can stay at the peak of their own performance. We have sizing for both masculine and feminine body types, with crossover between to the two because we understand the unique sizes that humans are. We also carry twenty different colors that vary in styles as well. All of our products are made with our innovative, recycled, eco-friendly polyethrinite material.

Polyethrinite is breathable and comfortable. We often read customer reviews that are “thank you” notes to us for selling such a quality material. Polyethrinite is perfect for exercise because of the breezy nature of it. Customers feel confident working out in polyethrinite because it does not get heavy when it is wet, and it does not lock in body heat.

Research and Development

As Peak Performance works to stay innovative with its products, we continually strive to always keep up with our customers’ changing needs. As many of our customers are busy parents training for physical challenges, they are sometimes forced to be training in the rain, snow, or even at night. For this reason, we are developing shirts that contain reflective material so that athletes wearing our brands are visible to cars and are safer. When our customers’ needs change, so will our products. We work to keep our customers safe and satisfied.

For almost a year, we have been testing this concept and are taking steps every day to have our shirts be infused with reflective material. We have been working on this design with division one NCAA cross country athletes and gathering their input to incorporate into the designs.

The product is still being developed, and unlike normal reflective wear, we are working on it being ten times more reflective than any material on the current market. After market testing, we see that there is a chance for us to be at the top of the reflective gear market within the next six months. We hope to launch the final developed product in the next year, and when it hits the market, we expect our shirts to be the top-selling reflective gear.

Price: Pricing Strategy

Peak Performance is a value-based company that continuously develops top of the line, cutting edge products to give our customers the greatest value. We set our prices to be able to run our company efficiently, make a profit, and be able to donate a sufficient amount of funds to national parks. We first look to competitor prices, especially Tentree, knowing our shirt prices compete with theirs, and we then place our prices to be slightly more expensive price to give our products the perception of the higher quality associated with higher pricing. Additional discounts, sales promotions, and price deductions are offered in conjunction with our regular pricing, ranging from $15-$50.

Place: Partners, Supply Chain Members, and Delivery

Currently, we work with our corporate partner Rev, the manufacturers of our polyethrinite. Rev gives us an exceptional deal on its fabric because compared to other retailers that Rev sells to, Peak Performance leads in sales of polyethrinite. This has helped us develop a trusting, mutual relationship with Rev and has opened up opportunities to contract with them. We plan to write a contract with them in January of 2018. We also work with our second corporate partner, Bill’s Recycled Cardboard, the provider of our shipment packaging. We established a contract with them in 2016 and utilize their recycled boxes to support our desires of being a more Earth-conscious company.

When it comes to business to business transactions aside from our partners, we work exclusively with national parks, such as Yellowstone National Park. We do not allow other stores to carry our product because we want to remain a unique, independent online retailer and be able to control the way our brand is represented. An advantage of us conducting only business to consumer marketing is having a direct route to our customers, who can rely entirely on us. If anything goes wrong, customers know exactly where to go and who to talk to to resolve their problem. As some of our main marketing points are free shipping and return shipping, it would be difficult to provide and guarantee if other businesses sold our products. Working with fewer partners has allowed us to better manage the supply chain operations and maintain close relationships with our partners.

The supply chain of Peak Performance starts with Rev, our polyethrinite manufacturer. After they manufacture the fabric, they ship it to our company building. Bill’s Recycled Cardboard sends our shipment packaging to our company building where Peak Performance assembles, organizes, and packages the final products. Once the product is packaged, it is held until it is ready to be shipped out or is immediately shipped out to the customer.

Promotion

We want people to know what makes our company and product different from our competitors. With our promotions, we seek to excite and educate customers about our business and our offerings. We look to expose customers to experiencing our products and services and to keep them engaged as well as excited. We take pride in our biggest promotion of every day free shipping and return shipping.

Our main channels of communication to customers are through our website, customer service phone line, and social media. Our website is the source that contains the majority of our educational materials and exposes customers to experiencing our products and services. Any public information about our company and processes, our founders and chief executives, recent company events, our products and sizing, and any discounts or sales promotions can be found in written articles and reports, pictures, and video clips. Our website also has the 24/7 option to chat live with a company representative or to call a representative on our customer service line with any problems, questions, comments, or concerns.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our company blog are the most used form of communication, which we use primarily to excite and engage our customers. We get our customers excited by posting sales promotions or our newest designs and styles by offering rewards for engagement. We engage our customers in design contests, refer-a-friend programs, sweepstakes and giveaways, and by asking them to tell us what they think by answering polls, surveys, posting comments, pictures, or stories to share with the Peak Performance community. With hourly changes and updates, we stay fresh in customers minds as they come back to see what is new.

We believe that word-of-mouth marketing is the most successful form of advertising, and so we heavily utilize social media to reach out to our consumers. With “action posts” on our various social media platforms, we encourage our consumers to share, comment, and post pictures of themselves in our gear. We often offer random giveaways to people who actively promote our company on social media. Our goal is that fellow followers of our consumers will become familiar with seeing our name on social media, and that we will then become forefront in each customer’s internal search for information. This goal eliminates the potential of our competition, because we are the first company people with which people associate workout gear.

Our high quality clothing adds value to the customer experience of purchasing through Peak Performance. We are working on a marketing campaign that showcases the many attributes our products have to offer, while putting to rest any ideas that our customers may have about performance, financial, social, physiological, or psychological risks. This is another way our hand-written notes help us. These notes open a pattern for open communication with our customers, even if it not be through handwritten notes, allowing them to feel comfortable voicing their concerns to us about their purchases. We hope that this will eliminate any negative word of mouth that could occur if our customers feel that their needs are not being adequately met. By being personal with our notes, we show each customers that we care about them and want them to have a good experience.

Evaluating and Measuring Objectives

Understanding if we are reaching our goals is important to us as a company. We work towards our goal everyday, and we track our progress. We track all of our online sales through an automated system. At the end of every year, we post our annual sales and immediately work to increase the next year’s sales by 10% during the course of the following year. Based on the yearly sales goal, quarterly goals are set to monitor steady progress toward the yearly goal. We monitor the website itself very closely because that is where our sales transactions take place. Each week we look at our website clicks to ensure we reach our goal of 50,000 clicks per week. Peak Performance also monitors how social media and other advertisements perform by tracking the number of people reached through them to evaluate effectiveness. Finally, our most important goal is to maintain an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau to ensure future customers that they can trust Peak Performance, which we can confirm with award letters.

Conclusion

Peak Performance has objectives in place for the next five years to become a top competitor in the market. As the analysis of our market segmentation, target markets, and company positioning show, the need for our company’s product exists among various groups of people, and the level of profit we are seeking can be made by setting ourselves apart from our competitors. The weaknesses and opportunities that present themselves can be overcome, and are meager in comparison to the opportunities available. These opportunities to grow and excel exist within the company and outside the company as well, and we can make the most of these opportunities with the marketing mix and strategies we have planned and mapped out. As we strive to reach our goals, we also have means to evaluate and measure our progress while maintaining accountability.

Limitations

To eliminate possible bias from this marketing plan, it is necessary to report any limitations that would threaten the accuracy or quality of the research and information written. As a group we have combined backgrounds in management, business administration, and graphic design. We do not have strong backgrounds in research analysis or finance. We are looking to hire employees from the inside to assist us in these areas as we work to grow our business. We also do not have the financial means to travel around the country promoting our products, so presently our advertising is mostly geographically located in the northwestern part of the United States.