SparkPeople.com offers premium services for free
The move is significant in an emerging $200 million industry, led by subscription-based players like Weight Watchers Online and eDiets.com, which charge between $100 and $300 per year for their services.
02/01/06 SparkPeople.com, a leading diet and health website, has announced that it will begin offering its services to consumers for free. This move is significant in an emerging $200 million industry, led by subscription-based players like Weight Watchers Online and eDiets.com, which charge between $100 and $300 per year for their services.
Only a few days after switching from a subscription-based to a free site, word of the announcement is spreading quickly in health and diet blogs and message boards. Diet-Blog.com featured the news this week with a homepage article about SparkPeople exclaiming “A Truly Free Weight Loss Program!” The story went on to explain “(SparkPeople’s) tools are every bit as powerful as eDiets (or better depending on your opinion).”
SparkPeople’s goal is to give away at least $100 Million worth of online services in 2006. Before switching to the free, ad-supported model the company charged users approximately $100 per year for membership to their premium diet and health site.
Chris Downie, SparkPeople.com’s founder who sold his first company to eBay in 1998, commented on his company’s decision saying, “The free, ad-supported model fits our mission of helping millions of people reach their goals using health and fitness as a springboard to success.” Downie explained that “a convergence of factors including the dramatic increase of online ad spending, a growing obesity problem, a strong consumer demand for personalized online programs, and our expertise managing large online communities all played heavily into this decision.”
The company has been further encouraged by the early success they have seen with their healthy pregnancy website, BabyFit.com (www.babyfit.com), which made a similar move in February 2005.
Online diet and fitness sites like SparkPeople.com, Weight Watchers Online, and eDiets.com, help users lose weight by providing them with personalized fitness programs, interactive meal plans and calorie counters, support message boards, healthy living tips, motivation, and information. Upon registration, users customize their nutrition and fitness programs to suit their personal goals, body type, and preferences.
Online diet user Kelly Elle from Ontario, Canada commented on her results using an online program saying, “I've been on SparkPeople for about 5 months and, gratefully, have lost about a pound a week. Far more than that, though, I have made some big adjustments in the way I live my life. I have lost a total of 26 pounds—that's 12.6% of my weight. I realized though, that I have stopped striving to lose weight. Instead, I live a different life. It's not difficult. It's not deprived. It's healthy.”
The elusive lifestyle change that Elle mentions is what SparkPeople wants for their members. Rather than teaching users to stay on a diet or continue counting points, SparkPeople gives members specific nutrition and fitness plans that are easy to follow, gradually helping them transition to a healthier lifestyle as they gain confidence and learn new skills. Becky Hand, R.D., SparkPeople’s lead dietician, explains that “this is the approach that consumers must take if they want to get off the diet rollercoaster forever.”
A recent survey of over 1,000 SparkPeople.com members supports the idea that people have indeed been on a rollercoaster of weight-loss ups and downs. The survey revealed that SparkPeople’s average member has tried four other diets before joining (44 percent had tried Weight Watchers, 18 percent tried eDiets, 32 percent gave “low carb” diets a chance, and 53 tried and failed their “own version of a diet.”)
SparkPeople.com is a premium weight loss and healthy living website that guides and supports people who are ready to stop dieting for good and make the transition to a permanent, healthy lifestyle. The SparkPeople philosophy, combined with smart motivational strategies and a collection of personalized online tools, has helped thousands of members lose weight and keep it off. SparkPeople.com is the only premium diet site to offer their services for free.
