MANAGEMENT SERIES Fitness providers need to ensure
their offerings tick all the boxes for every population group in society
I find this lack of change frustrating.
The private sector has to be at the forefront of adaptation and change – and this change needs to be informed by need, not simply a new business idea.
Segmentation Once you’ve understood the actual needs of communities, you’ll be required to communicate with the different populations within those communities to get across the specific messages you require them to hear. Knowing what to say and how to say
it is crucial to ensure you’re getting your messages to the right receiver. For example, if you know that over 49 per cent of the local population has poor health literacy – a common challenge in the UK – and an average reading age of 11 years old, why would you plough ahead and use the same communication approach for the whole population? Using segmentation as a tool to
identify the ‘who’ and ‘how’ is therefore becoming the norm. There are many different ways to segment: for members you might segment according to attendance patterns, classes booked and so on, while Sport England offers a model of segmentation that might be appropriate for those wanting to better understand non- members – see
http://lei.sr?a=p0h0B; MOSAIC groups and types are another. In general though, the key is to find a
way to group people into segments that are small enough to let you be focused and relevant in your messaging, yet large enough that you don’t require hundreds of tailored marketing messages going out at an almost individual level. The more detail you can go into on your profiles the better, while keeping the number of segments manageable. If used correctly, segmentation can
also help you understand much more than marketing and communication techniques. It can help you understand social issues, prevalence of health issues, educational attainment, the type of work and therefore the disposable income available in a certain geographic
area of your catchment. It can help you identify sub-groups within specific population groups, to understand their very specific needs that you might be able to meet. The real opportunity is in using
segmentation to reach further into the untapped market, penetrating where very few competitors reach.
Impact Now you have all the above information within your programming design armoury, you should be better placed to design interventions that reach and respond to the needs – and likelihood of engagement – of both the population and specific population groups, creating programming offers that are fit for purpose and fit for the groups the sector currently struggles to reach. Hopefully these will match both the JSNA and PHOF priorities. Designing need responses into your
programming will also help you determine what it is you’re trying to achieve and provide you with some measurable outcomes to help you demonstrate your impact. Long gone are the days when simple numbers were enough to help you argue your service’s value: you really do need to begin to tell the story about impact and measurable change.
“The current programming approaches adopted by physical activity providers do not meet need”
62 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital
The difference being active makes is
relatively easy to measure. Proving impact across a population group, or for the whole population, is a different ball game completely. Knowing what to measure, and how to measure it, is extremely important. Deciphering data to enable you to transform raw numbers into reliable information – information on which you can adjust an offer to better match need – is of paramount importance.
The challenge If I look across the sector as a whole, I see that current offers and programming approaches adopted by the physical activity providers do not match need. Nor do they provide enough choice, opportunity or value-driven offers. It’s time to re-set the compass and do
things differently. Ultimately it’s a leadership decision to adapt and change to match needs rather than wants – and these have to be the needs of society as a whole, rather than the small percentage of existing gym-goers. ●
Carl Bennett FCIMSPA is a senior health improvement specialist and public health commissioner working for Stoke on Trent City Council. He is also a trustee (elect) and the current chair of the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMPSA). He has worked at the coalface of physical activity delivery and has supported many organisations to help them realise their value and impact.
April 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/TUPUNGATO
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