One of our customers has developed a comprehensive suite of fitness and wellness solutions, which it provides for corporate and insurance companies around the country struggling with health related human resource concerns. By absorbing all of the administrative efforts for these programs, they allow companies to both provide an attractive benefit to employees, and reduce health care costs and employee turnover.
Are There Enough Fitness Centers Near Client Office Locations?
Convincing private companies and health care providers that paying for access to fitness centers makes sense is not an easy task. ”Everyone knows that going to the gym makes you healthier, but measuring the impact in financial terms is a soft science at best,” explains Bridget, a senior member of this firm. “To make decisions, people need to see the cost-benefit ratio, i.e. how much will it cost me and how much will it save me?”
Calculating the impact or benefit for some customers depends on a few hard numbers, including how many employees live close enough to the participating fitness clubs to use them. “That is sometimes one of the first questions we are asked: ‘are there clubs close enough to our constituents to warrant this investment?’,“ according to Bridget. “I recognized early on that there was no selling them until they had an accurate, numerical answer.”
Do-It-Yourself Solution Was Not Effective
It was precisely this question that set Bridget on an extensive search for a geographic solution. “I had a program I could use myself to roughly map the locations of our existing fitness clubs around the country, which total around five thousand, but beyond that we were out of luck. I would have to print a map of the prospective customers’ employees on a clear over head slide and overlay it on top of the map I had created of our existing locations in the region. And that was definitely NOT what they really wanted: the numerical answer upon which they felt they could make a decision.”
Aware of this, Bridget continued researching. After several conversations with experts, she realized that she would need a full-blown Geographic Information System (GIS). Unfortunately, she also learned that this software and data would run her 20-25 thousand dollars, not including the training she or one of her coworkers would have to go through in order to use it properly. Having neither the time nor the line-item in her budget to invest in creating her own GIS capabilities, she searched for a mapping service bureau that could inexpensively handle her needs on an ongoing basis. ”Luckily, I found Maponics,” she explains. ”To be frank, most of our 5 thousand clients in the United States did not require this kind of information in advance of signing on, so investing in internal GIS capabilities does not make sense. But for the ones who do, we have to have a quick and easy solution!”
The Key to Profitability: Stick To What You Know
Bridget was eager to try out Maponics, after an extensive conversation with a Maponics representative. “I sent a list of all of the ZIP Codes that potential users live in. Maponics was able to send me back the percentage that had club access within 10, 20 and 30 miles. Usually, as long as we are able to show that 80-85% have access within 20 miles, we are golden. Our clients love the hard numbers, and I love that it literally takes me about half an hour to organize getting the data to Maponics, and costs only $200-$600, depending on the size of the job. Over the last 2 years we have done 9 projects with Maponics, spending a total of $3,760. This is much less than the cost of the GIS software I would have needed to do it myself. What’s better, I haven’t had to become a mapping expert, because they already are.”
Of the 9 projects Bridget has done with Maponics three have already translated into contracts with her clients. As Bridget explains, “Those are just the ones from whom we have a definitive response. We have other prospects with whom we have used the service that seem to be close to closing. Because of the nature of our industry, the sales process is VERY long so we may have done a geo-query last year for a prospect who won’t sign on until next year. The three that have closed already provide annual revenue on the order of $100,000, so the investment of $300 dollars to get them the information they needed was well worth it!
Outsourced Mapping Services Improves ROI And Closes Large Deals for Fitness Network
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