VENTURA, CA (BRAIN)—SmartEtailing.com has partnered with MapMyFitness to bring cutting-edge fitness applications to its clients’ Web sites.
The joint venture gives retailers with SmartEtailing-powered Web sites the opportunity to offer a unique array of tools to their customers. MapMyFitness offers users a highly developed and fast mapping application, community-based fitness content, a searchable database of training routes, an online training log, global event listings and fitness calculators. All of these offerings add value and get customers to return often to their favorite shop's site.
“We know how challenging it can be to get into cycling and, for some time we’ve looked for an easy-to-use, fully featured utility for our clients that helps people find the best rides, log their miles, meet other riders and essentially hooks them on our great sport. We’re delighted to partner with MapMyFitness, a company that can offer all our customers all those features, and then some. It’s sure to be a huge hit with our retailers and their customers,” said Mark Graff, SmartEtailing’s co-founder.
Graff said SmartEtailing began talking with MapMyFitness at Interbike last year. The company added a version of the MapMyFitness software to its library as a preliminary step. Graff estimated that several hundred retail clients have picked up the application at this point.
Graff said the new integrated partnership would involve working with MapMyFitness to develop some custom applications. “We’ll be involved in helping to shape development and they’ll be seeking our counsel on what really works best for the retailers. Applications that come out would be highly tailored to retail stores we work with,” he said.
For example, applications that MapMyFitness provides to SmartEtailing client sites will be free of advertising, which could compete with the brands carried by any given store. “We had to be sensitive to what a store wants to present,” Graff said.
Widgets under development include tabs that could be customized with favorite local rides based on the store zip code. Other applications in the works include one designed for smart phones that will push out store coupons based on the user’s ride route. Graff expects to release custom applications by Interbike.
“We are thrilled with the opportunity to bring our innovative training applications and dynamic online community to the SmartEtailing Web casting network. These retailers and their customers are exactly the type of active individuals that we believe will get the most out of our services,” said Robin Thurston, MapMyFitness chief executive officer.
MapMyFitness applications are available for no additional charge to the majority of SmartEtailing clients that already have access to its content libraries.
—Megan Tompkins
