Healthy Strategy: Lifestyle Fitness Corp. Owner Gets Strategic With Marketing

(Friday, March 27, 2009) - The warning signs that the economic landscape was shifting beneath Steve Lichtman's health and fitness business hit home late last fall. His Stoneham-based company, Lifestyle Fitness Corp., owns three local franchise locations of the Colorado-based Fitness Together chain — in Dedham, Norwell and Westborough. Lichtman had spent $7,000 in one month on a direct-mail promotional piece that was distributed to 20,000 households.

However, the return on investment for that effort, says Lichtman, was far lower than he typically receives.

"We got just enough new business to pay for that cost," says Lichtman, 52.

Earlier in the year, Lichtman had projected revenue growth on the order of 15 percent. His company, which has 13 full-time employees, actually finished 2008 with total revenue of just over $1.3 million, compared with just over $1.2 million in 2007. Those totals include revenue generated by his three studios, as well as a separate business, an in-house ad agency known as Lichtman Marketing Group; revenue for his Fitness Together studios remained essentially flat year over year.

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