How a Digital Fitness Tool Leverages Maps to Support Student-Athletes
The Company
Founded in 2013, PLT4M is a digital training solution designed to help coaches and teachers improve fitness training for high school athletes.
Co-founders Sam Breslin and Alex Relph set out to improve the quality of fitness training student-athletes receive in high school. Inspired by their experiences playing football, coaching and teaching, the former Division 1 athletes developed a curriculum focused on fundamental exercises and training workouts to elevate high school athletes in their sport or personal fitness plan.
The Goal
PLT4M started as a general training program for high school football teams. Over time, it evolved to include partnerships with entire schools, athletics departments, and physical education classes. Today, PLT4M’s team of dedicated performance coaches specialize in fitness training curricula for all types of student-athletes and sports.
The Challenge
To demonstrate the importance of a lifelong commitment to fitness, PLT4M wanted to inspire athletes and coaches with real-life training stories.
As PLT4M grew, the team realized they needed to reorganize and visualize their data. Because the company depends on a small but mighty team, PLT4M knew it wanted to arm its staff with powerful resources for success.
The more fitness experts engaged in one-on-one conversations with school educators and coaches, the more they understood the importance of sharing real-life success stories that demonstrate how similar schools use the PLT4M curriculum to boost engagement, accountability, and fitness results.
However, PLT4M’s customer success specialists quickly discovered it was time consuming to Google a school’s location, then map its distance from other participating institutions. Unable to quickly access the data they needed for potential partners, the team was wasting time and resources. To continue crafting genuine partnerships with educators and schools across the country, PLT4M needed a little help.
However, PLT4M’s customer success specialists quickly discovered it was time consuming to Google a school’s location, then map its distance from other participating institutions. Unable to quickly access the data they needed for potential partners, the team was wasting time and resources. To continue crafting genuine partnerships with educators and schools across the country, PLT4M needed a little help.
“A private school in Chicago has a different set of needs than a public school in Boston. Educators want to hear how PLT4M helped athletes with a student body just like their own. Mapline gave us the tools we needed to share the regional stories and data that matter most to our partners.”
The Solution
Choosing Mapline helped PLT4M team members plot school partners on a map, strengthen marketing initiatives, and access data at a glance.
Doug Curtin, director of school partnerships at PLT4M, uses Mapline to anticipate questions and prepare personalized answers for educators interested in revolutionizing workouts and classrooms with the PLT4M curriculum. Before Curtin connects with a potential partner, he references a Mapline-generated map to locate partners within a given distance of his destination.
“Mapline helped us fine-tune the way we interact with potential partners,” said Curtin. “I’m more prepared for conversations because I can share the data educators are most interested in—for example, if a nearby school with 300 students utilized a specific program, what was the outcome? How could their students find similar success? These are some of questions I’m empowered to answer quickly. Because Mapline organizes the geographic data for me, I can bring the story to life.”
Not only did Mapline help Curtin and his coworkers enhance relationships with school partners—its practical, user-friendly features resulted in a variety of benefits, including strengthening marketing initiatives, outbound sales, and onboarding practices.
“Most of the other mapping software options we looked at were expensive and impractical for our needs,” said Curtin. “They had some advanced features, but they would charge us for functions that we didn’t necessarily need. Mapline’s features were our ideal solution.”
“Mapline helped us fine-tune the way we interact with potential partners,” said Curtin. “I’m more prepared for conversations because I can share the data educators are most interested in—for example, if a nearby school with 300 students utilized a specific program, what was the outcome? How could their students find similar success? These are some of questions I’m empowered to answer quickly. Because Mapline organizes the geographic data for me, I can bring the story to life.”
Not only did Mapline help Curtin and his coworkers enhance relationships with school partners—its practical, user-friendly features resulted in a variety of benefits, including strengthening marketing initiatives, outbound sales, and onboarding practices.
“Most of the other mapping software options we looked at were expensive and impractical for our needs,” said Curtin. “They had some advanced features, but they would charge us for functions that we didn’t necessarily need. Mapline’s features were our ideal solution.”
“When we found Mapline, we realized it would solve our challenges without confusing features or silly ins and outs.”
Gain Visibility with Segments
PLT4M plots its school partners and their locations on an easy-to-read map. With Mapline’s segment tool, Curtin and his team gain better visibility into their partners’ locations—which are represented by pins. Segments make it easy to hide pins Curtin and his team don’t need to see, and they provide the ability to group or regroup data.
The PLT4M team takes its data mapping to the next level by using pins and segments to create multi-layered maps—showing school addresses, color coding, and more.Organize with Custom Labels
Custom labels not only help PLT4M tell a better story with its data but also organize multiple locations and countless pins. According to Curtin, plotting hundreds of school partners gets confusing, but labels help him identify schools by name at a glance. With detailed, organized visuals, Curtin has been quick to share his maps with educators and coaches to more clearly communicate how PLT4M helps nearby schools and institutions across the country.
Map labels also transform the way PLT4M’s team organizes school data and stores essential information at their fingertips. Instead of housing datasets in a bulky Excel spreadsheet, the PLT4M team utilizes custom labels that pop up on their maps, allowing them to view school enrollment size, number of students in the program, and whether a partner-school is public or private.Uncover Marketing Opportunities
Custom images are a powerful way to enhance presentations, sales pitches, and conversations with clients. By placing a custom image—such as a logo, brand, or symbol—on a shared map, Mapline users increase their brand awareness.
“We’ve added maps with custom images to our email signatures,” said Curtin. “Being able to visualize PLT4M’s impact geographically goes a very long way, especially when partners want to get a sense of our reach and depth.”
Custom images also help mark locations on a map for a more personalized user experience, especially when teams or clients need to analyze hundreds of pins in varying regions, territories, or markets.
“Custom images are something we didn’t envision leveraging at the beginning. They ended up being an impressive addition to conversations with teachers and coaches.”
The Results
Mapline gave PLT4M the tools it needed to hone marketing strategies, outbound sales, and onboarding initiatives essential to the growing business.
With Mapline, the team at PLT4M has discovered new ways to optimize its geographic data and streamline partnership procedures. The fast-growing small business found the necessary tools to successfully manage data, organize partner locations, and onboard new team members quickly. By leveraging maps, PLT4M has implemented new, fluid campaigns that save time, promote the brand, and position the company for growth.
“Mapline has made it easier to onboard new hires. It’s led to us discovering, scheduling, and acquiring new schools to partner with—not at a faster rate—but at a more efficient and easier rate, especially as our business grows.”
