Why Market Research is Essential in the Boutique Gym Business

What is marketing research?

Marketing research is the process of designing, collecting, analyzing, and reporting information to solve a specific marketing need. Market research is a business function that enables marketers to reach their consumers in a more productive and meaningful way.

Why is market research important?

Simply put, market research empowers a business to make better, more informed decisions using good information. Having the right information is key because it can allow a business to make the best decision. Market research is so powerful because it can enable a business to make decisions at any point in the life cycle: it can validate a business or product idea, track awareness of your brand, interpret consumer attitudes, or even help position or reposition your brand. You get the point; market research is a critical component in making any business decision.

Benefits of Market Research for Boutique Gyms:

Chances are, whether you know it or not, you’ve used market research to make some decisions for your gym. Perhaps you conducted a customer satisfaction survey, or maybe you

found an existing industry report that answered your questions and helped you make a decision. Whichever way you did your market research, I’m sure you can recognize how essential that piece of information was in making your decision. An uninformed decision will only lead you to problems down the road.

Market research is critical in the boutique gym space, just like any other market, because it has the power to help you make better decisions. For example, one issue many gyms struggle with is member retention. Not only is it challenging to build a solid member base at a gym, but it is even harder to keep it. Member retention is difficult because people lose motivation quickly. But gym membership retention is important because it costs 3x more to acquire a new member than maintain one. But, have no fear, this is where our friend market research comes in. There are many ways to go about solving this problem. One option is to design and distribute a survey to your members to identify your gym’s key weaknesses. Or you could take advantage of existing industry reports that teach you about the most significant impacts on gym member retention and then build your strategy from there. Or maybe you conduct interviews or small focus groups with your members to get a more in-depth feel for how your members experience your gym. The critical point I want to make here is that it all comes back to market research.

So next time you’re considering making a change. Do your research. Make an informed choice because better decisions lead to stronger and more successful businesses. I hope you enjoyed this brief intro to market research. Stay tuned for next week’s post where we’ll dive deeper into more helpful tips for conducting market research for your gym.