Communication Strategies for Stakeholders in the Fitness Industry

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
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Introduction
In order to provide communication to all stakeholders, their individual needs have to be analyzed
(Bortree and Seltzer, 2009, p 318). Being a member of the State Fitness Industry Association, the
code of conduct will need to be developed along with several governments appointed members.
The Association's stakeholders comprise of gym owners, personal trainers and exercise
professionals. A consultation with the various stakeholders to get their feedback on the moral
and ethical issues will enable the committee to communicate the outcomes. The scope of current
discussion analyses the different communication needs for each group to draw from
communication theory and recommending communication strategy for each group.
Communication Needs
In order to recommend appropriate communication strategies, the varied internal stakeholders in
the group comprise has to be known, comprising of personal trainers, gym owners, and exercise
professionals, consumers, the State Fitness Industry Association and the local and state
government.
The personal trainers, gym owners, and exercise professionals can be grouped as a single
stakeholder group of people who conducts the business or business owners. The communication
consideration for this group is that they need to clearly communicate regarding the ethical and
moral areas which they failed to address. Types of communication consideration include
analyzing their clarity of communication made and understanding if any negative body language
regarding the ethical or moral code is present (Rybalko and Seltzer, 2010, p 338).
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The second group of stakeholder is the consumer, who directly uses the services of the gym. The
consumer might express several concerns over ethical and moral conducts which have not been
followed for them. The communication consideration for consumer includes realizing their
stress, anxiety or negative feeling relative to the gym.
The third group of stakeholder includes the committee for State Fitness Industry, local and state
government. The core aim of this group is to develop effective moral and ethical codes for
consumers. Hence, they are the policy developers in the stakeholder group. The communication
consideration here includes analyzing the areas of extensive focus and those which are not given
much importance.
Communication Models
Post analysis of relevant stakeholder needs and considerations, an appropriate communication
model has to be identified and applied such that suitable recommendation strategies can be
developed. Interactive model is an appropriate communication model which can be applied to
this situation. The model states enable a two-way communication process to ensure effective
communication takes place (Walther, J.B., 2011, p 450). Feedback is crucial in this model, which
enhances the effectiveness of the overall model.
Applying this model to the current situation, it can be said that mostly face to face
communication will be absent while gathering individual needs from varied stakeholder groups.
There might not be any meetings conducted with the stakeholder group taken together, this might
hinder the effectiveness of the communication. Consumers might state regarding their moral and
ethical issues through social media (Frandsen and Johansen, 2011, p 350). Another stakeholder
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