Elevator Pitch

Curefit India's largest fitness company, offers a comprehensive range of fitness services and products through its two brands, cult.fit and cult.sport. With a mission to make fitness fun, easy and accessible, cult.fit offers group workouts, online classes, sports facilities, and personalized solutions at fitness centers & partner gyms across the country. By adopting innovative subscription-led revenue models and employing cutting-edge technological interventions to cultivate healthy habits, cult.fit has emerged as the go-to destination for fitness enthusiasts across the country.

Note: For the sake of this assignment, I'll be focusing only on cult.fit (and not cult.sport)

Understand your Product

Product Offerings:

1. Group workouts,
2. Gym Access,
3. Home Workouts,
4. Workout Plan
5. Weight Loss (Cult Bootcamp, Cult Transform)
6. Personal training (Offline, Online)
7. Nutrition Consultation

All of the above products can be accessed through the Cult App (Android, iOS) and the Web App

Subscription Plans:

1. Cultpass Elite
2. Cultpass Pro
3. Cultpass Home
4. Cult Transform
5. Transform Plus
6. Bootcamp
7. Luxury Gyms

Problem solved: Help people build strength, loose weight and get fitter in general through the power of community and technology.

Core Product Features:

On the cult app, a user can book Group classes, by selecting the "book a cult class" option on the home screen. They can also, explore gyms nearby and checkin once they reach the gym.

User can checkout different classes available at different cult centres nearby and book a class based on the availability, interest and time suitability.

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Interesting to note that, most of the features of the product are very much aligned to problem being solved. Cult provides thoughtful nudges (in-app) & through notifications to book a workout in-case you haven't and does a great job at positive reinforcement on showing weekly progress, streaks, etc.

Understanding Core Value Proposition

Make your fitness journey fun, easy and less lonely through community, great trainers and technology.

Get away with the monotonous workout routines, with a variety of different formats ranging from Yoga, HRX, Strength+ to Dance Fitness and Boxing.

Analysis for Cult.fit (Source: SimilarWeb)

The following metrics are for the month of July 2024

Total Visits: 1.5M

Bounce Rate: 22.27%

Pages per Visit: 2.90

Avg Visit Duration: 00:00:51

Website Traffic Demographics

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Understanding your ICP

Assumption: Since cult is currently present only in Tier 1 cities. ICPs belong to one of the major metropolitan cities Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai

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ICP Prioritisation criteria

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From the above table, all the three ICPs fit 3 out of 4 the parameters. It's also important in a way, since the product Caters to a wide audience and has a spectrum of solutions for every kind. However, the channels and targeting would differ for each of the personas above as highlighted.

Personal training, Cult Transform and Group workouts are generally performing well. However, there's a negative sentiment associated with the Cult Gyms especially (CultPass pro plan) For the users who just want to workout in a gym, they don't find cult as their first choice (based on my User Interviews). The reason being Cult Gyms are always extremely crowded, and this has come out quite a lot. Some old users shifted to other local gyms in the city.

To acquire and not lose on these set of users, the messaging should highlight Cult taking steps and initiatives like, coming up with new gyms and centres in areas which are densely populated.

Understanding Market

Competitors

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TAM, SAM, SOM for Cult.fit (just the fitness vertical)

Approach followed: Top Down

Currently cult is present in these cities: Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai

Total Addressable Population from the cities: 80M

Age distribution: eliminating 0-18 years of age (30%)

Addressable Population: 80M*0.7= 56M

Income based split: excluding BPL (20%)

Eligible Population: 56M*0.8 = 44.8 M ~45M

Not all of the eligible Population is into fitness, assuming a 30% cut here

New Eligible Population: 45M*0.7 = 31.5 M

Therefore SAM= 31.5M users

ARPU (annually) = 150 USD

SAM= $ 4.725 Billion

With expansion plans in Tier 2 cities like Lucknow, Indore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Pune, Nagpur, Patna, Surat, Kanpur, etc.

Population for these Tier-2 cities: 40 M (approx)
Therefore incorporating a multiplier of 1.5 (120M/ 80M) to calculate TAM,

TAM = $ 4.725 Billion*1.5 = $ 7.09 Billion

To calculate SOM, let's understand the market share of cult.fit

Assuming 35% based on local players, Online fitness influencers, and other competitors

Thus SOM= $4.725 B * 0.35 = $ 1.65 B

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Discussing Survey Results

I ran a quick survey for the current subscribers of Cult Fit to understand how they discovered Cult and what influenced their decision to subscribe
Link to Survey: https://forms.gle/JxiWtv4WguFs4jH86

Seems like, Word of Mouth has a very strong influence for people to discover about Cult

Trial class works the best to get that vote of confidence in Acquiring users who’ve already received TOMA about Cult through a friend/ colleague

Detailing your Acquisition Channel

Current Channels of Acquisition for Cult:

1. Organic Channel
2. Trial Class
3. Referral Program
4. Corporate Plans (B2B2C)
5. Paid Ads
6. 1. YouTube
   2. Google Search
   3. Instagram
   4. LinkedIn
7. Content Loops
8. Offline banners in the city across every cult centre
9. Queries at Offline cult centres

Organic Channel

Keyword search on Google:

The search results for Gym doesn’t list a cult gym/ centre on Maps, despite my location being close to a cult centre.

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Search results on Maps needs to be improved.

However the SEO lists for the cult website on searching gym, gyms near me, fitness centre, group workout classes near me. But cult doesn’t rank first in the list

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Youtube Search:

Can do a better job with the creatives for Youtube Sponsored search:

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No organic content appears from cult.fits YT channel on searching “best gyms in Bangalore”, A gym tour video can be uploaded for the best Cult gym/ fitness centres from every city so that people can discover those gyms and can be nudged further.

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Trial Class

Trial Class influenced the decision to purchase subscription for 54% folks based on my User Research survey. It's a great way for new users to learn more about the facilities and services provided by Cult.

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To understand more about how effective is Trial class for users to convert. I'd like to understand what % of users who sign up for a trial class actually end up buying the subscription?
Also, are the current follow-up methodologies working for the users to convert?
Centre Managers usually follow up after the class, explaining everything about the product, services and pricing. Sometimes a follow-up call is also made.

Double down on Trial class experience, by also letting the users talk to the trainers and centre managers, giving a good personal interaction touchpoint.

💡 Invest more and more in TOMA, by keeping the current users, engaged, happy and brag about the product. Cult's activities should become a topic of discussion amongst friends, and colleagues. Events like Fit Socials, Weekends at Cult, Cult Freshers Party, etc. are great ways to keep the users happy and brag about the fun fitness activities they did over the weekend. This would eventually lead to more TOMA and recall of the brand, and people on the edge-line would consider trying.

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Referrals

100% of the users from my User Research survey discovered cult through a friend/ colleague, yet only 15.14% of them actually bought the subscription through a referral from their friend/ colleague. Here are some of the reasons, why the referral program isn’t performing at it’s full potential

1. Discovery of the Cult referral program by the users isn't great
2. Rewards not good enough to take the pain/ labour of actually referring friends/ colleagues.
3. Better discounts can be availed from the Cultpass subscription from the Centre Managers than the referrers

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Breaking down Cult's Referral Program:

1. You can find referrals in the "View Profile" page, after clicking on your profile picture at the Top left.

2. Find the Section "Referral, Vouchers & Gift Cards" and click to expand it

3. You'll see the following screen on clicking "Refer a friend"

After selecting the card above

How it Works

Whatsapp link

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Some Hypotheses and experiments to improve the Referral program:

1. Introduce the referral pop-up after happy flows/ Aha moments. e.g. An Activated User Gives full rating to a group workout. Introducing an in-app pop-up card that says, "Enjoying Cult! Refer your friends and earn benefits worth more than Rs 500"
2. Since cult memberships are usually 14-15 months long, considering the extension from the offer. Addition of extra 15 days in membership doesn’t really create the picture of a great reward in the mind of the user.
   Suggestion: Make changes to the referral copy and quantify the value of the reward better. Give more options for users to choose their reward from. Currently, the platform currency cult is using is their subscription, unless the subscription is about to end, user won't value the addition of 15 days in the subscription. The copy can say "Choose a Reward worth more than Rs 500" and the options can be:
3. 1. Extension in the current subscription by 15 days
   2. Flat Rs 500/- off on purchasing from Cult store. Min order value Rs 2000
   3. Additional Rs 500/- off on CultPlay <This can be substituted with any complementary plan they haven't subscribed to>
4. The current message is basic and less exciting. Make changes in the copy & messaging, make the tone of the message more friendly. Something like you’d actually talk to your friend. e.g.
   "Aman (Referrer's name) gave you Rs 500/- to start your fitness journey with Cultpass"
5. Expand the channel of messaging from WhatsApp to others. Since, cult is one of the frequent points of discussion amongst colleagues especially in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, etc. While Referring cult to your colleagues, Whatsapp might not be the best channel always. Hence instead of just WhatsApp, add more common and easy to use ways like- Copy the message along with referral link so that user can paste it on a personal chat in Slack/ Discord/ Google Chat/ Microsoft Teams, etc.

Conclusion

• One of the strengths of Cult.fit includes it's diverse range of solutions across the entire fitness industry
• We discussed how, Cult's products and offerings are a great fit for all kinds of ICPs, right from someone looking for building muscle to someone trying to stay active through a variety of different workout formats.
• Undoubtedly, Cult is leading India's fitness space and has a strong offline positioning as compared to some of the other competitors. As cult expands to more and more cities, the SAM keeps growing ($ 5 Billion)
• The User Research survey pointed out some interesting insights:
• • All the survey participants, first heard about Cult through a friend/ Colleague. (Indicating WOM is extremely strong for a product like Cult)
  • 54% of the participants, signed up for a trial class and decided to purchase the subscription later.
  • 15.4% of the participants were referred by a friend or colleague, and
  • another 15.4% purchased the subscription, because their company offered it at a discounted price.
  • Thus, Trial Class, Referrals and Corporate Plans are some of the top acquisition channels for Cult
• After carefully examining the Google & Youtube search results, as part of organic channels, SEO. and Google map results can be improved to capture existing demand as pointed above along with improving ad copies for sponsored listings on YouTube.
• An important suggestion is to also put up some organic content for the city's best Cult Gyms/ Fitness centres to capture the existing demand coming from search queries like "Best Gyms in Bangalore"
• Referral from friends/ colleagues channel is underutilised at the moment. Recommended experiments can be performed to track the increase in acquisition from the redesigned referral programme.

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