Retail & Entertainment

Case Study: Ecosystem Audit for Fitness Equipment Retailer

Business Challenge

Top five U.S. fitness equipment retailer wanted to “break through the clutter” and boost its relevance to customers and prospects by maturing its nascent social media efforts.

Role

As engagement partner, advised CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) on fitness business’s optimal social media engagement approach. Designed and conducted ecosystem audit to pinpoint stakeholders and their workstreams. Made recommendations based on ecosystem audit findings.

Rollout

In rapid iterations, developed stakeholder profiles, and worked with client engagement team to prioritize them in terms of importance to the brand. Developed each stakeholder’s key characteristics, and used them to design filters that would find them online. Programmed, tested and iterated each stakeholder filter in tight cycles. Utilized SNR Analytics tools and processes to rank highest priority digital social venues that would enable the brand to interact most efficiently.

• Worked with engagement team to conceptualize and rank importance of stakeholders’ key activities (“workstreams”) most relevant to the brand. Programmed, tested and iterated filters for each workstream.
• Synthesized workstream and stakeholder filters to rank digital social venues (sites) based on high priority stakeholders and their workstreams. Developed Top10 and Top20 rankings of digital social venues.
• Created Ecosystem Audit Report with stakeholder profiles, metrics, links and specific recommendations for how to engage. This included detailed analysis of stakeholder motivations, activities such as: why and how to work out; the practicalities of working out and juggling other obligations; what stakeholders really thought about fitness clubs, equipment and brands; the importance of nutrition in overall results; the fail points of stakeholders’ programs. This became their blueprint for adding value through interaction.
• Created Ecosystem Map, which is a visual representation of the 125-page report; it uses CSRA algorithms to place Top10 and Top20 according to rank, topic, stakeholder, workstream and several other metrics.

Results

None of the “big three” platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) were optimal social venues for starting and nurturing the highest value conversations for the brand, so the Ecosystem Audit was a wake-up call for the business that enabled it to interact more efficiently.

• The brand learned where to interact to engage individual stakeholders most easily and efficiently.
• The engagement team saw what optimal conversations looked like, based on real interactions in various venues.
• The team significantly improved its understanding of how to engage by focusing on stakeholders’ highest value workstreams. By seeing and understanding stakeholders’ activities in terms of their desired outcomes, the team saw how the brand could be relevant at a new level.
• Competitors’ investments focused on offering [general content in the big three, so the brand was able to engage its highest value stakeholders at a lower cost than competitors.
• The CMO wowed the business’s New York agency with the Ecosystem Audit’s findings and was able to avoid a long, expensive agency proposal to provide far less detailed results.
• The brand shared the ecosystem audit insights to with their SEO team to improve cost/benefit of SEO investments.