[Case Study] How and Why We're Revamping Cricket Matters

In today's episode of our podcast, we embark on an adventurous journey through the revitalization of Cricket Matters, our beloved sister fitness company. Through a detailed case study, we dive into the why and how of transforming a simple test project into a leading name in the fitness industry. If you're intrigued by the process of breathing new life into a business, curious about the intricacies of strategic growth, or simply a fan of cricket, this episode is tailor-made for you.

Timeline Summary:

• [00:01:00] Initial Success and Setback
• [00:02:00] The Lean Startup Approach
• [00:04:00] Strategic Revamp Plans Unveiled
• [00:06:00] Defining Services and Google Strategy

Key Takeaways:

1. Cricket Matters started as a lean startup experiment, quickly proving its potential by attracting clients through simple digital efforts.
2. After a brief hiatus, the decision to revamp was driven by newfound inspiration and the realization of the unique position Cricket Matters holds in the fitness and cricketing worlds.
3. The revamp strategy emphasizes speedy, content-rich website design and clear definition of services to improve Google rankings and user experience.
4. Focused content creation, including blog posts, podcasts, and a strong YouTube presence, are identified as key tactics for engagement and authority building.
5. Understanding the difference between strategy (the overarching plan) and tactics (individual actions) is crucial for effective digital marketing.
6. The journey promises to be a "warts and all" adventure, offering transparent insights into the challenges and solutions encountered along the way.
7. This episode is an invitation to listeners to learn and apply these strategies to their businesses, regardless of the industry.

Websites and Links Mentioned:

• Strength Matters
• Free Website Audit

 Quotes:

"We're not just peddling ideas; we're showing you, step by step, how we grow." - James Breese

"It was a lean startup approach... It did its job." - Andrew Wallis

"Blogging is far from dead. Google sends a lot of traffic to businesses via blog posts." - James Breese

"Strategy is the overarching theme... Tactics is the individual implementation." - James Breese

"Make sure you're passionate and do something yourself that amplifies what you're trying to do." - James Breese

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Chapters

• 1:00 Initial Success and Setback
• 2:00 The Lean Startup Approach
• 4:00 Strategic Revamp Plans Unveiled
• 6:00 Defining Services and Google Strategy

Transcript

James Breese: [00:00:00] Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts. Today's a case study about how and why we're revamping cricket matters. Now, for those who don't know what cricket matters is, it's our sister fitness company. And that is the business we're using as a real life case study to show you how we're growing our fitness business.

Cause we want to be seen at the forefront of the industry. Not peddling ideas and philosophies. We're going to show you exactly step by step of how and why we're growing the business that way from scratch from it's kind of ongoing at the moment, but we're revamping it in a big, big way. Why are we revamping it?

Well, just a quick backstory. Last year, we set up Cricut Matters as a test project to see if it would fly. That was all we did. We set up a very quick website in less than a couple of hours. It was a terrible like design build on my end. However, it was just a simple, quick and easy get up there. Will it work?

Will it rank? We [00:01:00] then started to create some of the, some content around it on TikTok and on Instagram. And it started to take off. We got clients from it, right? Fast forward to the season where I got really busy playing cricket myself, and also with the revamp of Strength Matters. It kind of sat on the shelf doing nothing, collecting dust.

Is that a fair way to describe it, Andrew? 

Andrew Wallis: Yeah, I think so. And I think you're being a little harsh on yourself. It was the perfect lean startup approach. You know, we got the simple webpage set up just to see that, well, a, to have something there that if, when people were, were visiting that there was content available, was it up to the quality of, um, of your usual websites?

No, but it, it, it did its job. Um, but now I think it's time, well, we know it's time, uh, to, uh, to really invest some quality time into making this how we want it to be and showcase it to the world. 

James Breese: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's fair. It was a lean startup [00:02:00] approach. Definitely. We, that's exactly what we did.

And like I said, I'm a bit of a sickler for stickler for getting things right, if that makes sense. So for me, yeah, I wanted to do it. So we did the website. I wrote. Eight blogs to go on to it and just put them up there, shared the blogs a week, did some podcast episodes and that was it. Now, what we realized, and this, the reason why we're revamping it and know it's the right time to go back is because when I was in South Africa playing cricket in the world cup, I did a number of vlogs, those vlogs, went out to over 100, 000 people in the cricketing community to watch them.

And there's a lot of awareness driven around it. I always knew there's something around cricket matters and what I wanted to do and build out and focus on that because that's what we're doing. I play, I coach cricket. I'm training a lot of cricketers at the same time. So that's where we want to try and amplify it.

So the why we're revamping it has become as a, I've been a bit rejuvenated in seeing the reach we got within the cricketing community after the vlogs in the world cup, but secondly, realizing that [00:03:00] no one else is talking about this in the world right now and how we're approaching it and the system and the style of stuff that we're doing, nobody's doing it in cricket.

So that's why we're going after it. And I feel we've got the authority to do it as a coach, as a player, myself still playing to a high level. My ripe old age of 41 years old, you know, we've got a lot of authority to speak about it, which is a lesson in itself for people who want to become an expert in their field.

Make sure you're passionate and do something yourself that amplifies what you're trying to do. Right. So I wouldn't go and start talking about rugby or professional football anytime soon. I don't really do them anymore, or do I? I've never really done them to be honest, so let's, let's get that right. So the point is like, it's passionate to me.

I'm passionate about it. And I can talk about it with authority. Now, the question is, how are we revamping this? What is the philosophy behind it? Well, first of all, you have this idea of strategy and tactics, right? Strategy is the overall arching theme of what we're going to do. Tactics is the individual [00:04:00] implementation of how we're doing it.

Example of that is, A website architecture of what we're going to talk about is the strategy. A video on YouTube is the tactics. Is that a good way to explain it, Andrew? Is that good? I 

Andrew Wallis: think so Yeah because I think a lot of people get lost with what strategy is and what tactics are and they Mistakenly think that the tactics that are employing by being consistent and posting on social media Is a strategy it's but it's as we as we know, it's not it's just one tactic to help you Achieve your 

James Breese: overarching strategy exactly.

So You Going back to the strategy idea. So this is more about the strategy of how we're doing it today. So we have gone back into the website and I'm in the middle of a rebuild of that website. Now we can rebuild it fast. That's not a problem, but it's the structure of the website and knowing what we're offering.

is the key to it. So why are we revamping it? Because it's not fast enough. The current speeds I looked at this [00:05:00] morning before we, we jumped on is about 45, 50 percent on Google to Google speed check is 45, 50%. It's not good enough on desktop. It's about 75%. We need that to a hundred percent. So the website has to be built.

For speed, firstly, secondly, it has to be built for blog content. And WordPress is what we're using for this to make sure we can create a high engaging blog posts that get ranked and are engaging enough for people to keep on reading. Yes. Our strategy is going to be blog posts. Most people think blogging is dead far, far from it, right?

Google sends a lot of traffic to businesses via blog posts and via information because people are searching for that information. Okay, so that's the initial strategy, build the website for speed, set it up for blogs. And the second thing is we're defining our services architecture. Now, what do I mean by that?

Google wants to know if you're a business, what are your services that you offer? Right? [00:06:00] For us in Cricket Matters, we offer personal training. We offer online training. We offer team training, right? We manage teams and work with teams. We do mobility training. We do a variety of different things, but more importantly, we do strength and conditioning coaching for them at the same time.

So we, we're going to, you can see the website in the next few weeks when we launch it and it goes live, you'll see the architecture of how we've listed our services and how we're building out the pages around it. Why? Because it's telling Google exactly who we are, what we do, and the services we offer.

And that is often a big mistake that people make. They build a website and don't clearly define what services they offer because they think they don't need to. Whereas Google needs to know this information as much as possible. So why are we ramping it? Well, I'm passionate about cricket. I can see the Potential of the business to grow it.

Right. And I want to help people and share all the information that I have with people. So we're [00:07:00] doing that. That's the starting point. Well, how are we going to revamp it? So it comes with a website. We're then going to start launching, relaunched the podcast for Cricket Madness podcast. And then we're going off to YouTube in a big way, not the other social media channels, YouTube, right?

So that's our three pronged attack in terms of revamping cricket matters and doing it that way. And that's hopefully you guys will be able to follow along and watch us. So you can learn and apply it to your fitness businesses, whether it's a gym, personal training, yoga studio. You can do the same thing for you guys too.

Andrew, anything you want to add to that? I've missed out. 

Andrew Wallis: Yeah, no, I was going to say it's going to be an incredible and exciting journey. And we're inviting, um, the listeners and those on YouTube, the viewers to follow along. It's going to I guess it's going to be a warts and all adventure that we will be able to showcase because I'm sure there'll be obstacles and challenges that we come across, but by, by breaking them down and sharing them here on the podcast, hopefully that'll help [00:08:00] everybody else, um, to, to avoid them.

But, um, no, it's going to be, it's going to be a great journey. And I'm excited about this because I think one of the key takeaways from this is. Going back to the start, being clear on who your audience is, um, what your passions are and aligning the two, because then you're going to have some quality content, you're going to have a quality service, and you're going to have an ardent fan base that wants to be a part of it.

James Breese: Exactly. And that's exactly what I do. I think I love that phrase, warts and all, because that's exactly what I'm going to try and share with you is documenting this journey from the very start with you guys. So stay tuned. And again, if you guys want any more help with your website, go to strengthmanners.

com forward slash audit We'll happily do a free audit for you and have a look at the website to see how fast it is or what you need to change with it Just like we're doing with the cricket matters website right now So as always thanks for now guys and make sure you to like review and subscribe