Case Study #1 Ashley Halley-MOVE 
Part of the marketing professionals’ job is to help businesses organize themselves better. At Playbook Public Relations, we often see small business owners drowning as they try to juggle everything they “think” they should be doing. They may be blogging, handling social media, writing newsletters, developing ads, and graphic design without any clear vision supporting these marketing efforts.
We recently helped our client, Ashley Halley, develop her business strategy in an organized manner ensuring long term growth. Here is a look at how we improved this business:
Overview
Ashley Halley owns her own business as a freelance yoga instructor and personal trainer. She loves her job but was unsure and overwhelmed by how to grow the business. Her marketing efforts to date had been sporadic due to the labor intensiveness of her busy teaching schedule.
Business challenge
Our client was unsure of the direction her growth would take her. There were many thoughts in her mind for growing the business including having web-based yoga classes and opening a new studio. Although she had been teaching for a long time, she did not have high visibility in a very competitive marketplace. Her website was out of date, and no social media campaigns had been established.
Our Plan
We knew the first step was organizing and establishing business direction. We did a SWOT analysis to clearly map her strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within Tampa Bay’s highly competitive yoga and fitness marketplace. This discovery process helped us to develop a customized “playbook” for Ashley Halley.
1. Establish a Brand Identity
We used a two-pronged approach; Ashley Halley is an expert in her field, having trained with a large number of well known yogis and fitness experts over the past 10 years. We needed her target audience to see her in this light. So we embarked on a campaign to educate the community on Ashley Halley’s expertise.
We also encouraged Ashley to partner with a philanthropic cause. Playbook arranged the partnership between her and the non-profit organization, Feeding America Tampa Bay (a charity that is dear to her heart) and the ensuing fundraising events which gained coverage in both the Tampa Bay Times newspaper and Fox 13 TV news.
2. Logo Creation
In order to effectively grow her business, Ashley needed to have an umbrella approach uniting her yoga and personal training to one strong brand identity. Playbook Public Relations worked with our client to develop this into the concept, “MOVE” based on her persona and beliefs. To support the MOVE business model and brand identity, we created a new logo and tag line. The new brand image helped Playbook develop additional marketing and promotional materials like location specific posters to help grow the MOVE brand.
3. Develop a Social Media Strategy
For any business, social media is an important tool in public relations strategy. Ashley was merging personal life and business life together by using her own personal blog page and personal Facebook page to reach potential clients. This strategy was confusing and ineffective. So, Playbook established a MOVE business page on Facebook, a MOVE Twitter page, and a MOVE Pinterest page all with tabs accessible from the Facebook page. Daily posts on all mediums support a cohesive and organized social media strategy that supports her new brand image.
4. Public Relations
Playbook wanted to reach local audiences and gain national exposure in the fitness/ yoga marketplace. Establishing Ashley as the expert meant an informative, yet personal newsletter and getting her articles on health and fitness published. We also created a media kit that showcased the new brand and Ashley’s expertise. The media kit helps Ashley reach out to other fitness and yoga spaces to offer her classes as traveling workshops.
Note: A media kit offers the end user a thorough and professional overview of your business’ brand and expertise.
Outcome
The MOVE model is going strong. Since working with Playbook, Ashley has been able to add in 6 additional classes allowing for more exposure and revenue. Her Facebook page has grown from 0 followers to over 600 fans in less than 6 months with triple the reach through interactive and informative posts. Her newsletter continues to link Ashley in a positive way to her clients and future clients. Ashley and her brand, MOVE, have gotten local and national exposure through Playbook Public Relations’ media contacts and press releases. She was published in the national yoga magazine, Origin, with a full page layout in the March 2014 issue. And for her charity efforts to bring yoga to underprivileged schools, Ashley was recognized by Fox13 news. Her articles on stress and eating right were published in online resources, exposing her brand to a completely new demographic. We feel the potential for growth will continue if the MOVE brand stays solid and focused.
