Why Criticisms are a Potent and Great Thing for A Workout Program

If you hang around internet forums, message boards and sales review sites as much as me, you feel like you should be given an advanced degree in what I call internet studies. Even though this is  currently a fake major that as far as I know doesn’t exist in any curriculum in the world, I think I should be able to get equivalent hours towards a degree.

My goal is always to understand the patterns and hopefully the demographics of the people doing the criticizing.  The major patterns that I hone in on are the adjectives used and the behaviors of the people who have used a particular product or program toward it.

When looking at Six Weeks Body Makeover from Michael Thurmond, I see one group of customers wholly satisfied for the results and I see another group that couldn’t make it and are harshly critical of certain aspects of the program.  Now if given the choice, I’d prefer as a marketer of any product that the results be like the early returns on George Saint Pierre RushFitwhere it seems like everyone is gushing. That makes life easier. For one thing you can simply take the great reviews and repackage them as part of your marketing campaign.

However this does not mean that with the existence of criticisms all is lost if you are bringing a product to market. In the case of Six Weeks Body Makeover,  the basic criticism has been that the food calendar is far too restrictive and boring. People are saying that the food choices as prescribed are boring.  What this has done for the folks at Provida is very positive and potent.  First, they have been able to successfully remarket recipes and online communities sharing recipes.  With the way the internet functions, any excuse to push free valuable content ultimately means more sales.  The company has been able to reposition itself as responsive and timely.  

In the area of marketing message and target audience, the critics have greatly illuminated what Provida should be talking about and who they should be talking to. For example, the pattern of negative feedback says that people don’t like the tedium of the creation of the weight loss blueprint that you must do at the beginning of the workout. Basically this has given the makers the ability to crystalize the idea that you can’t lose weight without a plan that is based in emerging science on what to eat and when. This plays into the trend found in many other programs where content is watched more closely than quantity.