Melissa Schafer & Bruce Foerster, owners of Temple Fitness in Medicine Hat, Alberta, have experienced a transformative journey with the Digital Economy Program (DEP). With the support of the program, Temple Fitness has enhanced its online presence, providing a modernized experience for their clients.
Melissa Schafer and Bruce Foerster established Temple Fitness back in March of 2008. What began as a response to a church member's request for fitness assistance soon grew into a thriving business. Since opening, the duo have moved into a larger location to accommodate their growing client base. Their new facility offers 11,000 sqft of training space, which includes 2,900 sqft of turf, 14 squat stations, 8 kickboxing locations, specialty bars, and a variety of cardio equipment. Along with a team of passionate coaches, the mission for Temple Fitness is to make training accessible to everyone who walks through their doors, serving the general population to professional athletes and anyone in between. Throughout their journey to fulfil this mission, Melissa and Bruce have seen clients from beginners in fitness to military members, competitive dancers, professional hockey players, physique athletes, and more.
The decision to join the Digital Economy Program (DEP) arose from Temple Fitness's need to upgrade its current website and learn ways to streamline operations. They felt that their current site was outdated and could be challenging for some clients to navigate, leading to increased inquiries and wait times for responses. Working closely with their Digital Service Squad member from Community Future Entre-Corp, Grace, Melissa and Bruce experienced a seamless collaboration to work towards making a more efficient website for their business.
“Grace was a pleasure to work with. She listened to our ideas and helped bring them to life as well as offering advice that was welcomed with open arms. She was able to do all of this in a timely manner as well.”
By working with Grace, Temple Fitness was able to strategically focus on eliminating redundant content, condensing sub-pages, and creating pages that are more intuitive to navigate. This change now allows Melissa and Bruce to focus more on operating their growing business and continuing to provide top-quality service. Other changes included learning how to create new graphics for their website, strategies for seamlessly incorporating quality photos online, and connecting social media feeds to the main page. These changes have helped Temple Fitness to create a more modernized design that better reflects its business and makes it easier for clients to navigate, reducing the number of inquiries and, thus, wait times for responses. Commenting on her updated site, Melissa explained:
“It allows people to get answers to the questions they might have a lot faster than before. Rather than waiting for their call or email to be returned, they can find everything they are looking for right at their fingertips.”
When asked about advice for other small business owners looking to transform their digital landscape, Melissa emphasized:
“Do not be afraid to reach out to groups like Community Futures (Entre-Corp), as they can be very valuable and help keep costs down for your business.”
The support received from the DEP has helped Temple Fitness bring its online presence to the next level. As Melissa and Bruce continue to grow their business, they now have an updated website and digital mindset that will allow them to deliver a quality experience for their clients from the moment they land on the website. When asked why other businesses should join the program, Bruce and Melissa responded:
“Everyone's reasons might be different, but to get quality help with issues like tech that can be quite challenging for some without having to pay expensive rates to do so speaks for itself.”
To learn more about Temple Fitness and how Melissa and Bruce are helping the Medicine Hat area reach their fitness goals, visit their website here.
To learn more about Digital Main Street and how our Alberta Digital Service Squads can help your business, visit here.
*This article is courtesy of Andrew Bonk, Digital Main Street.
About Digital Main Street
Digital Main Street was created by the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) with direct support from the City of Toronto. DMS is also supported by a group of strategic business partners, including Google, Mastercard, Shopify, Meta, Intuit QuickBooks, Square, Lightspeed, Ebay and Canada Post. Digital Main Street and Business Link have partnered to deliver the Digital Economy Program in Alberta. Through Digital Service Squads, the Digital Economy Program aims to help small businesses adopt digital technologies to grow and stay competitive. The Digital Economy Program is funded by the Government of Alberta and Prairies Economic Development Canada.
