TruFusion: How Data Is Changing Our Strategic Marketing Plans and Tactics

We asked Steve Rockman, Chief Marketing Officer at TruFusion, a Las Vegas-based workout studio: “As the role of big data in strategic market planning grows, how does it affect your long-term marketing plans, forecasting, efficiency/ROI of your media spend, or other parts of your marketing?” Here’s what he had to say.

At TruFusion, we market primarily to the Millennial, specifically females. Because of this, we are talking to the most highly connected generation yet, with their access to instant information. Millennials speak in data, and if we can collect, analyze, and react to this data in a timely and accurate manner, we will greatly increase our chances to develop a long-term relationship with these consumers.

Our entire business model is predicated on technology, from our POS system, which tracks member sign-up and class check-ins, to every purchase members make in one of our studios. And, in trying to stay ahead of our customer’s needs, we recently introduced TruConnect, our member app that integrates mobile and beacon technology.

By analyzing and processing this data, we are able to determine new marketing campaigns and one-to-one communication strategies. A specific example is a member who takes three physically demanding boot camp classes in one week. Based on this data, we offer them a discount on cryotherapy, a recovery therapy we provide.

Each day we are looking at key pieces of data and making decisions based on that data. We are overlaying third-party data to give us a better member profile. Our marketing cycles have shortened, and the technology has made us much more proactive in our communication. It has allowed us to build relevancy with our members and has improved our customer service dramatically.

We are intensely focused on driving ROI and new customer acquisition. However, we realize that our consumer is heavily distracted because they have access to information 24/7, multi-tasking mentalities, and busy lifestyles. Because of these factors, big data allows us to work through media fragmentation by targeting them with personalized messages based on unique variables we have captured.

Our marketing will be based not just on demographic or geographic information, but also on contextual likes or dislikes to allow us to deliver our marketing messages to the right person at the right time through the right media channel. We can now deliver messages by email, direct mail, or weekly magazines to the right city block, or even homes, based on the data. Additionally, we can deliver a digital message to try TruFusion to a potential member when they walk into a competitor’s studio. This is done through our ability to collect big data, analyze that data in real time, and based on that analysis send relevant messages immediately.