We caught up with Dr Rushana Khusainova, Senior Lecturer in Marketing about her recent experience at 4Slam Tennis Academy in Barcelona. Dr Khusainova’s teaching and research focuses on mindset, marketing and soft skills and so, fascinated by the success and popularity of the academy despite limited use of promotional marketing, Dr Khusainova interviewed 4Slam CEO and co-founder Jairo Velasco about the academy’s marketing strategies.
The academy utilises slow organic marketing, quality product and prioritise user experience as the keys to their success – in the blog below Dr Khusainova shares her findings.
This spring we travelled to Barcelona for a week, so that my twin junior tennis players could train in an international performance tennis academy. We found this small Spanish academy accidentally through a YouTube video of Andrey Rublev, world number 6 where he was being interviewed on the background of 4Slam Tennis Academy logo, so I became curious.
Tennis is one of the most reputable sports in the world. It is estimated that about 4.7 million people play tennis in the United Kingdom alone. According to British Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), there are 3.63 million children between the ages of 4 and 15 play tennis in the UK, with 49% of them being female.
It seems Spain is naturally a great country for tennis training. Excellent weather and a long love of sport, coupled with their rigorous approach to fitness, makes it a perfect place. The country has given the world such tennis super stars as Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz. And of course, our own British tennis super star Sir Andy Murray moved to train in Spain at the age of 15.
So, Spain felt like an obvious choice. With only 2 hours flight away and budget airlines being plentiful, we headed for Barcelona.
The academy felt friendly and peaceful. Yet students worked hard on the academy’s robust and rather serious training program. The coaches worked hard, too, putting in a lot of passion into the drills and serves and returns. They looked like they knew what they were doing. The academy in April was at the full capacity with many junior tennis players from all over the word from ages of around 9 through to adult professionals.
How did they all know about this place? You would not find any special commercial or even a promotion of their training programs anywhere on the internet or offline. Nor do they do big program launches or special offers. I wondered, how with such little marketing a small tennis academy based on Casteldefels area of Barcelona, was able to become so successful?
Looking at the core elements of marketing, the so-called Marketing Mix, I started thinking about what they do in and with their business. Armed with my curiosity and with a marketing “hat” on, I spoke with the academy’s CEO and co-founder Jairo Velasco. Mr Velasco told me that 4Slam Tennis Academy was founded by three friends, all ex professional tennis players: himself, Galo Blanco and Fernando Vicente. They noticed that tennis academies were growing in popularity and thought it was a good idea to start one. But they wanted to do something different than others. They decided to create a boutique academy.
I was curious if running an international tennis academy was challenging for him as an athlete, as opposed to a businessman or a trained manager. But Jairo says that running a business is very similar to “running” a tennis career. “When I was a professional tennis player, I didn’t have a sponsor nor large inheritance. So, I had to be my own business manager, to manage my own travels, budgets, and so on. As such running a tennis academy is very similar to managing one’s own professional tennis career.”
With that question out of the way, I was interested to learn about their marketing strategies – there must have been some juicy secret to marketing a sold-out program! But it turns out, what they do is focus on what in marketing we call, user experience. “Our main focus has always been to make sure that each child who trains with us is able to achieve their best potential, whatever that is for them”, says Jairo. And that philosophy dictates in whom they hire, how they organise training and how they operate the grounds. For example, they don’t allow any external court rentals. “We want the children to feel like they are part of the family, and it’s safe and supportive atmosphere where everyone knows each other. Like a family”, hence no strangers wandering the grounds.
Mr Velasco admits that like any business, starting up was not easy. “We hired coaches, got a place, but no one knew about us back then.” So, some marketing had to be done.
“What helped was that we were not in a rush. The aim was to ensure that each athlete, regardless of how long they spent with us (whether it’s one day or a month), left the academy feeling happy with their progress and their experience. They will them tell their friends. So, slowly, bit by bit, the word of mouth did it’s magic”, he says.
Now the academy has tennis players from all over the world: Europe, Asia, Latin America, North America.
And they are still not in a rush. “We are not after rapid growth”, says Jairo with a smile. “Let’s say we start advertising. And 100 junior tennis players will come in rushing to our doors – we simply will not be able to handle this. This is why, we organically grow and develop, firmly maintaining focus on the day-to-day development and experience of our athletes”.
Really impressed with this newfound sense of Mediterranean-style slow marketing, I ask Mr Velasco about his long-term plans for the academy. “Our plan is to continue with progressive growth focused on low-capacity centres but with a personalized service. To achieve this, we are working every day to do things well and provide an excellent service.”
I was truly grateful for the opportunity to speak with Mr Velasco. As we were finishing our conversation in his first floor office I wondered how many ways out there to do business. It was a beautiful and sunny day and the place already felt like home.
We were sad to leave Barcelona with its beautiful beaches and warm sunny weather. The boys were super happy to have met their favourite tennis player, Andrey Rublev and so proud of themselves that they had managed to take on a life of a professional tennis player. And I left impressed and curious how slow marketing, high quality product and word of mouth can lead to great business success.
By Dr Rushana Khusainova, Senior Lecturer in Marketing.
Find out more about research at the University of Bristol Business School.