Research shows that the current model of putting on 6-12 weeks of free activity sessions (e.g. GP referral, Sportivate) costs over £500 per person more active 6 months after starting, which is much too expensive. This is because putting on new sessions is expensive, and signposting is hard without having a huge range of activities to signpost people to (different days, times, locations and activity types).
There is a way to provide enough activity choice for everyone without putting on hundreds of new activity sessions. You can build a database of all the existing activity sessions – and there are a lot more than you realise. According to our research there are over 250,000 activity sessions per week in the UK which want more beginners. These include:
- Swimming
- Gym
- Zumba
- Dance
- Aerobics
- Martial arts
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Circuit training
- Bootcamp
- Badminton
So if all these activities are going on already, then what’s the problem?
As I explained before the current model of putting on 6-12 weeks of free activity sessions (e.g. GP referral, Sportivate) costs over £500 per person more active 6 months after starting, which is much too expensive.
But surely you need to put on new activities.
One problem with this is that people want a bigger range of options than you can put on. Not everyone wants to do the same activity, on the same day, at the same time in the same place, so our marketing cost for these activities is overly high because we have to find the people who want to do these things.
Research from Sport England, Sport Scotland and Sport Northern Ireland shows us that different people want to do different activities. This is obvious of course, everyone likes different things. So we shouldn’t be surprised that not everyone enjoys attending a 12 week circuit class in a gym. Some will want to walk, play badminton, attend exercise classes or go swimming.
About half of people don’t want to attend a group activity, but want to get active on their own, so any group activities we put on aren’t appropriate for them.
There are already enough activities going on
There is a way to provide enough activity choice for everyone without putting on hundreds of new activity sessions. You can build a database of all the existing activity sessions. And there are a lot more than you realise. According to our research there are over 250,000 activity sessions per week in the UK which want more participants and are set up for beginners. These include:
- Swimming
- Gym
- Zumba
- Dance
- Aerobics
- Martial arts
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Circuit training
- Bootcamp
- Badminton
You’ll probably notice that traditional sports don’t feature heavily in this list. Unfortunately we have learnt the hard way that sports clubs are not that interested in reaching inactive people and getting them more active. We recently contacted 660 sports clubs in Buckinghamshire multiple times by email and phone and less than 10% of them wanted to be promoted to the public.
So if all these activities are going on already, then why aren’t people taking part in them?
People don’t know where to look. There is no central source of where all these activities are taking place. The leisure centre website will have some, the community centres will have some, some information will be on individual providers’ websites. The council might have a slightly out-of-date database, but it will be focused on sports clubs, and it won’t have the day, time and location of each session – just of the
You can’t rely on people going to look for something. You have to take it to them. [how can I bring this to life? Video? Quotes?]
People don’t know where to look. There is no central source of where all these activities are taking place. The leisure centre website will have some, the community centres will have some, some information will be on individual providers’ websites. The council might have a slightly out-of-date database, but it will be focused on sports clubs, and it won’t have the day, time and location of each session.
Plus – you can’t rely on people going to look for something. You have to take it to them. As Sport England said in their new strategy “We want to make it as easy to book a badminton court as it is to book a restaurant.”
p.s. you’ll probably notice that traditional sports don’t feature heavily in the list above. Unfortunately we have learnt the hard way that most sports clubs are not that interested in people who don’t play that sport already. We recently contacted 660 sports clubs in Buckinghamshire multiple times by email and phone and less than 10% of them wanted to be promoted to the public.