Bellingham Fitness Gear and Training30 Minute Fit

Sarah HuntLori HealowCasey McEnryColin Jones

Marketing 3815/25/2011

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary……………………………2

Introduction …………………………....6

Data Collection and …………………………….9

Challenges

Results …………………………….12

Conclusion and

Recommendations………………………..19

1

Executive Summary

Introduction

In order to broaden their customer base and create a new alternative to the average

work out, Bellingham Fitness Gear and Training has decided to implement a “30 minute fit”

program. This program is built around having a group of trainees being directed through a

high intensity circuit of non-conventional training by one or more certified trainers,

depending upon the amount of trainees that come. Before they decide to fully launch this

program, the owner, Zac Palmer, expressed a need for market research to decide whether

this program is truly ready to be unveiled.

Bellingham Fitness Gear and Training has been around for a while, selling fitness

equipment to businesses and those who want equipment in their homes. In the past few

years, the company has begun to offer a range of personal training services. “30 Minute Fit”

is the first complete circuit program the company has offered, thus they have not

conducted any market research or decided on a set of demographics for this specific

program. Through our market research we hope to show the owner who their target

market should be, as well as exactly where and how they should allocate their funds for

marketing to increase customer base and revenues. Also because the company is relatively

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new to personal training and does not have much insight into the Bellingham market for

gym goers, our data will be extremely vital to the success of this new program.

The decision question has been defined as, “What specific target markets should “30

minute fit” be advertised to in order to maximize awareness, and what is the most effective

way to market it?” Based on this decision question, the following research questions will be

addressed in this report:

1. Would more people come into the program if they knew they could get a good

workout in 30 minutes?

2. Are people hesitant to go to the gym because they don’t know how to work out

properly?

3. Would people who work out prefer to have a personal trainer?

a. Would a personal trainer make people want to work out more?

In order to further describe the patterns of interest for this particular service, the following

hypotheses have been developed:

1. People with a lower income (less than $20,000) go to the gym less per week than all

other income levels.

2. People who classify as single go to the gym more times per week than people of the

other relationship statuses.

3. People who go to the gym three or more times per week place more importance on

equipment available than those who go two times or less per week.

4. A majority of people do not believe that they can get a good work out in 30 minutes

or less.

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5. People who go to the gym two times or less per week because they feel they don’t

know how to work out properly.

6. Females are more likely to prefer working out with a personal trainer than males.

Results

1. We found that we failed to reject the null hypothesis with 95% confidence, so we

cannot conclude that people with a lower income go to the gym less than all other

income levels.

2. We found that the difference of how often people who are single go to the gym and how

often those of other statuses go to the gym, is significant.

3. According to our research, people who go to the gym three or more times per week do

place more importance on equipment more than those who go less than twice per week.

4. The findings indicated that more people agreed with the statement, “I believe that I can

get a good workout in 30 minutes or less,” than those that disagreed with this

statement.

5. According to our findings, people who go to the gym two times or less per week are

significantly more hesitant to go than those who go more than two times per week,

because they do not know how to work out properly.

6. We found that there is significant difference between how men and women value a

personal trainer.However, we hypothesized that women would prefer a personal

trainer more than men, and our findings indicated the opposite; that men would prefer

a personal trainer more than women.

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The information that we gathered indicated that we had a problem that rendered our

first two hypotheses invalid. By analyzing our results, we were able to see that a majority of

our respondents had an income under $20,000 and that also, a majority of respondents

were in the “single” relationship category. We realized that due to our lack of resources,

our sampling method was a convenience sample, which meant a majority of our

respondents were students. Unfortunately, when we created the survey, we did not give an

option for students to indicate that they were in fact students, so we could not measure

anything from the student category.

Despite this drawback, the information that was gathered proved to be very useful in

that it allowed us to gain a grasp on certain target markets that “30 Minute Fit” would be

the best to advertise to, as well as what aspects of the program should be emphasized to

appeal to certain groups of people.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Based on our research our recommendations are to emphasize certain aspects of the

program to different groups of people in order to maximize overall interest in the program.

We also suggest conducting more research. The use of secondary data may be useful in

determining people’s attitudes towards other programs similar to “30 minute fit”. In

addition, gathering more exploratory research will be beneficial, especially research that

explores differences between students and other non-student groups. Due to constraints

based on the convenience sample, we suggest that samples that include non-students in the

Bellingham area are surveyed. Causal research should be done as well, to see how typical

target markets react to “30 Minute Fit”. According to our research, and based on the nature

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of the program, we came to the conclusion that the program should mainly focus on

advertising to people who feel they don’t have time to work out, live close to the location,

and prefer guidance while working out.

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Introduction

Bellingham Fitness Gear and Training began as just a small store where one could

purchase fitness equipment meant for in-home gyms, so they began as just Bellingham

Fitness “Gear”. However, throughout their 20 years of business and development they

have grown into a functioning private gym and equipment distributors that specialize in

private group and personal training. They have attempted to captivate the feel a “smaller

gym against the corporate gyms” that is embraced by the Bellingham community by having

private workouts and offering service that is built around the comfort and appeasement of

its members.

In an industry such as fitness, there are constant changes that take place and new types

of workouts that constantly go in and out of fashion. This being said takes us into the

actual reasoning of the research we chose to follow through with. After speaking with co-

owner and personal trainer Zac Palmer of Bellingham Fitness Gear and Training, the new

service that they would be providing is what is called “30 Minute Fit”. This style of working

out has become exceptionally popular with the introduction of such workouts as Crossfit

and circuit training. Basically it is the fastest way to work out but return great results.

Bellingham Fitness Gear and Training feels that their “30 Minute Fit” will give them an edge

over a group of people who have very little time to work out. Yet, there is still an issue that

they have come to realize and that is they are not sure of the particular target market to

aim towards to return a positive increase of members.

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Therefore, in order for 30 Minute Fit to be introduced we must first develop a target

market that will not only increase revenue, but also find out if there is even any significant

users who would find 30 Minute Fit beneficial. For this we defined the decision question to

be, “What specific target markets should “30 minute fit” be advertised to in order to

maximize awareness and what is the most effective way to market it?” Based on this

question, the following questions will be addressed in this report:

1. Would more people come into the program if they knew they could get a good

workout in 30 minutes?

2. Are people hesitant to go to the gym because they don’t know how to work out

properly?

3. Would people who work out prefer to have a personal trainer?

a. Would a personal trainer make people want to work out more?

From these questions we have developed the following hypotheses to view patterns of

interest for the new service to be provided:

1. People with a lower income (less than $20,000) go to the gym less per week than all

other income levels.

2. People who classify as single go to the gym more times per week than people of the

other relationship statuses.

3. People who go to the gym three or more times per week place more importance on

equipment available than those who go two times or less per week.

4. A majority of people do not believe that they can get a good work out in 30 minutes

or less.

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5. People who go to the gym two times or less per week because they don’t know how

to work out properly.

6. Females are more likely to prefer working out with a personal trainer than males.

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Data Collection and Challenges

Methods for Research

Since the research we are conducting will not be set an answer into immediate effect

the design of research we chose to conduct was that of an exploratory design. From this

we wished to gain an understanding of the types of markets that would be the most

beneficial to the growth of “30 minute fit”, and hopefully see patterns of information that

may help develop a target market for their business. No type of exploratory research had

been done by the company prior to our research, nor was there a way to specifically view a

secondary type data archive to properly gain some insight on what our research should

find. All our data was found through online surveys across social networking devices such

as Facebook, Twitter, and email to give us a wider variety of ages, social standing, and

educational background.

The sample frame to which we hoped to gain information on was that of a

convenience sample. We chose a convenience sample because “30 Minute Fit” was

hoping to get a broader view on the types of people that they would be able to bring into

their establishment. We felt that with a convenience sample like a questionnaire amongst

various social networking sites may not have any bias as to the types of people we talk to,

along with the ability to reach mass amounts of people without much expense or time.

The online survey was conducted beginning on May 10, 2011 and was spread across

social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Email and began getting successfully

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completed up until May 25, 2011. Several outputs helped increase the amount of people

that took the survey, like the use of Facebook, and being able to create a separate page

specifically for the “30 Minute Fit” online survey. Throughout this time period a total of

124 responses were gathered and viewed. This sample size provided us with a large

enough size to develop reasonable patterns. The online survey consisted of such questions

as:

How many times a person trains a week

A Likert scale of such items as Low cost, Location, Equipment, Atmosphere, and

Trainers available and the effect that they have on a possible customer

Whom do the customers work out with

The emotional feelings the customer has while working out

The feelings being tied with the actual length of the workout

Nominal information such as age, income, gender and race

Challenges in Research Method

Challenges did however arise in our gathering of information. A huge problem we

had with our research was since we had chosen to do a convenience sample of research;

the types of people that answered our questions became limited to those who have access

to such social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This gave us a biased view toward

younger age, technologically interactive users which were not the initial aim for our study

since our original study was to reach “all ages and aspects of the community”. Another

issue that we encountered where the email’s we sent regarding our survey. This would

give some researcher bias, and tester bias because most of the email’s we sent out were

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taken by those close to us such as family members and friends who may only be answering

the questions the way they do because they knew the results we were hoping to achieve.

We as well had some nonsampling error in some of our actual questions in our survey

such as:

Please indicate your marital status:

And the choices are as follows: single, married, separated divorced, widowed, and never

married.

This question was poorly worded for those to choose from because it was very easy for

those to get confused between being single, and never married. As well, there was no

choice for those who were dating which made this question what we call a

misunderstanding question. As well, since we only performed a survey via online, we

have some degree of random error because the validity is unsure and we do not know

whether those who answered our questions answered them truthfully.

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Results

1. Null Hypothesis: People with a lower income do not go to the gym less than all

other income levels.Lower income is defined by income less than $20,000 income a

year.

Alternative Hypothesis: People with a lower income go to the gym less per week

than all other income levels. Lower income is defined by income less than $20,000.

It is reason to believe that people that have a lower income do not have the extra

income in order to be able to afford to workout at a gym.

According to the T-test, there was a p-value of .430 which is greater than an alpha

of .05. Since the p-value is less than the alpha, we fail to reject the null hypothesis, meaning

that the alternative hypothesis is not supported. Unfortunately this hypothesis is not a valid

test because we took a convenience sample and since we are students, a majority of the

people that were surveyed were students as well. So, most students make under $20,000,

and since our results indicate that people who made under $20,000 do not go to the gym

less than other income levels, we are actually saying that students do not go to the gym less

than other people. However, this is still only an assumption and we cannot actually test this

because our survey did not include a place for students to identify themselves as students.

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2. Null Hypothesis: People who classify as any relationship status besides single are

more likely to go to the gym then those who are single.

Alternative Hypothesis: People who classify as single go to the gym more times

per week than people of other relationship statuses. This hypothesis comes from

the assumption that people who are single have more time to do such things as

work out. This information will be able to show us whether or not it would be

better for the target market in the area to be more towards those who are single

compared to those who are in a relationship, or if a group rate may be better.

According to the independent T-test we ran for this hypothesis the null

hypothesis for this test is rejected since the test showed a p-value of .000, which is less than

an alpha of .05. So we do have support for our alternative hypothesis that single people go to

the gym more times per week. This second hypothesis is similar to the first in that we

speculate that a majority of people surveyed were students, and students would classify as

single, however, we have no way to identify those who classify as students.

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3. Null Hypothesis: People who go to the gym three or more times per week do not place

more importance on equipment available than those who go two time or less per week.

Alternative Hypothesis: People who go to the gym three or more times per week place

more importance on equipment available than those who go two or less per week. This

hypothesis is based on the assumption that those who work out more often base gym

decision off of gym equipment than those who do not attend as often. This could be used

because if “30 Minute Fit” wishes to target more to those who are more consistently

attending, or a group of people who are not as consistent therefore they would not have to

update the equipment as often.

The can reject the null hypothesis because the p-value was .000 which is less

than an alpha of .05. For this test, it is also important to note the mean values. For this

survey question, a likert scale was used, so importance on equipment available was

measured on a five point scale that ranged from a value of 1=“strongly disagree” to

5=“strongly agree”. For the group of people who work out three times a week or more,

there is an observed mean value of 4.61 and those who work out less than three times per

week had a mean value of 4.20. Since the value of 4 corresponds to “agree” and the value 5

corresponds to “strongly agree”. The mean values for the groups’ show that those who work

out more, generally lean towards “strongly agree” more than those who don’t work out as

much (less than three times per week). As previously stated, this is supported by the p-

value.

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4. Null Hypothesis: A majority of people do believe they can get a good workout in 30

minutes.

Alternative Hypothesis: A majority of people do not believe that they can get a

good workout in 30 minutes or less. We assumed this based on our own

understanding of what we considered a good “full body” workout.

This analysis was tested by observing frequencies. The question “Please indicate

how much you agree or disagree with the statement: I feel like I could get a good workout in

30 minutes,” was analyzed using a bar chart. The “agree” option was chosen the most often

by those we surveyed. So, more people think that they can get a good work out in 30

minutes, which is opposite of our original hypothesis. It is important to note that “disagree”

was chosen the second most, and “neither agree nor disagree,” was chosen third. Both

“strongly agree” and “strongly disagree” were not chosen very frequently, so, from this data,

people may be unsure on this factor.

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5. Null hypothesis: People who go to the gym two time or less per week are NOT

more hesitant to go to the gym than those who go three times or more per week

because they don’t know how to work out properly.

Alternative hypothesis: People who go to the gym two times or less per week is

more hesitant to go than those who go to the gym three times or more per week

because they don’t know how to work out properly. We can draw this from the

assumption that people who go more consistently know how to work out better

than those who don’t go often. As well, those who don’t go as often may not have a

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background of working out compared to those who go more than two times per

week.

We tested this hypothesis using an independent sample T-test. The survey question

that we used to test this was, “please indicate how much you disagree or agree with the

statement: I am hesitant to go to the gym because I don’t know how to work out properly.”

The responses were tested on a 5 point likert scale ranging from 1 which corresponds to

“strongly disagree” and 5 which corresponds to “strongly agree”. It is important to note the

means for this test. The group who works out three or more times per week have a mean of

1.5, which means they chose between “strongly disagree” and “disagree” on average. The

group who went to the gym less than three times per week had a mean of 2.58, which

means that on average, their mean was closer to the agreement side on the scale than the

more frequent gym goers. The null hypothesis, “ People who go to the gym two times or less

per week are NOT more hesitant to go than those who go three times or more per week

because they don’t know how to work out properly,” was in fact rejected, meaning that we

have support for our fifth alternative hypothesis. The p-value for this test was .000 which is

less than an alpha of .05, so the null hypothesis is rejected.

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6. Null hypothesis: Females are NOT more likely to prefer working out with a

personal trainer than males

Alternative hypothesis: Females are more likely to prefer working out with a

personal trainer than males. We drew this hypothesis with the thought that more

women would want to guidance of a personal trainer compared to men.

The alternative hypothesis six, “Females are more likely to prefer working out with

a personal trainer than males,” was tested using a chi-square test, since both variables

involved are categorical. After performing this test, we found that the null hypothesis,

“Females are NOT more likely to prefer working out with a personal trainer than males,”

could not be rejected. We found a p-value of .004 which is less than .05, so even though

statistically it appears we can reject our null hypothesis, our alternative cannot be accepted

either. Something that is extremely important to note is that females are split nearly evenly

on their feelings of if they would prefer a personal trainer or not, while a majority of males

would prefer a personal trainer. The percentage of females who would prefer a personal

trainer was only 55%, while the percentage of males who would prefer a personal trainer

was 81%. These findings are opposite of what was hypothesized, but still very useful. We

suggest that more research should be done.

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Conclusion and Recommendations

In testing our hypotheses to find the work out habits of individuals, we found that

many people feel they don’t have time during the week to work out and that many people,

especially men, would prefer guidance while working out. These findings helped us to find

the target market to advertise 30-minute fit, the new program that Bellingham Fitness Gear

and Training has introduced. Zac Palmer, the owner of the company, wanted us to find out

who he should be targeting this new program too in order to bring in more customers. We

were able to let him know that it is in the company’s best interest to begin advertising to

people who don’t feel they have the time to work out during the week because making

them aware of the fact that there is in fact a program offered that will allow them to get in

their work out in a very short period of time. Also, by the responses we gathered we were

able to conclude that many people would prefer a personal trainer while working out. The

30-minute fit program offers guidance for people and takes them through different work

out in a structured sequence so people who want this guidance would also be perfect

candidates to advertise too. If they are made aware that the 30-minute fit program exists

then they will be likely to join because personal trainers can be very expensive and price in

our data was proven to be a major concern to people with regards to joining a gym.

With our survey questions we realized it would have been very beneficial to ask a

question of whether the participants were students or not. We found that the majority of

people to take the survey were in fact students and therefore it skewed the answers to rest

of our questions. For example, in regards to asking peoples income the students clearly

responded they made less than $20,000 a year, for the mere fact that they are in college on

their way to a career but do not have one quite yet. Also, some felt they did have the time to

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work out because they were students and didn’t have a 40 hour work week as well as being

single and not having a family to go home to.

Additional findings that we found to be extremely important were the importance

people place on gym location and price. We discovered that 63.9% of people said that the

gyms location is very important while 31.9 found it somewhat important. The most

interesting piece of our findings on this topic, however, was that not a single person said

that it was unimportant to them.

This could be another way to discover how to target advertising by only advertising to

people in a certain proximity to Bellingham Fitness Gear and Training. If they were to

advertise to people that were not necessarily close to the gym then they would just be

wasting time and money because people don’t seem to want to travel very far to work out.

As previously stated many people don’t feel they have time to work out during the week

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and location would be especially important to these people because travelling far to a gym

would just take up more time that they don’t feel they have.

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One of our interesting findings that we didn’t expect was the fact that men prefer

personal trainers and guidance in their work outs.

We had expected women to prefer a personal trainer more so than men because we

assumed men wouldn’t like someone telling them what to do or like the idea of asking for

help. We found that only 55.4% of women would prefer a personal trainer and a whopping

81.4% of men preferred a personal trainer. This will help again with discovering people to

advertise too. Advertising an inexpensive program to men who seek a personal trainer

would bring in more business to the company.

Our recommendation to Zac Palmer, the owner of Bellingham Fitness Gear and

Training, is to conduct further research, starting with reviewing secondary data. Secondary

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81.4%

55.4

data may be able to provide him with a better understanding of the demographics of the

area of the target market. Since location was a major importance to many people he needs

to do more extensive research to determine the relative distances that people are in fact

willing to travel so he can still to advertising to people in a certain proximity to the

establishment. Furthermore, we suggest conducting causal research as well such as a focus

group before and after a work out to determine peoples true mind sets at certain times. He

could also do in depth interviews with current clients to see what they find most beneficial

in the 30-minute fit program so he can use these enticers to draw in more customers. By

determining why current people like it he could see what possible clients would want to

know in order to join as well and aim his advertising toward those certain aspects. For the

in depth interviews he could offer the incentive of a free month of 30-minute fit. The survey

was an easy way to gather the data, so Zac could conduct another survey but this time

adding in the questions that we found would have been beneficial in our survey such as

whether the participants were students. By using what we discovered and adding in the

questions we found we left out or could have benefited from, he could gather more

accurate and useful data in the future.

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Appendices

1. Null Hypothesis: People with a lower income do not go to the gym less than all

other income levels. Lower income is defined by income less than $20,000 income a

year.

Alternative Hypothesis: People with a lower income go to the gym less per week

than all other income levels. Lower income is defined by income less than $20,000.

It is reason to believe that people that have a lower income do not have the extra

income in order to be able to afford to workout at a gym.

SPSS:

2. Null Hypothesis: People who classify as single status do not go to the gym more

times per week than people of other relationships

Alternative Hypothesis: People who classify as single go to the gym more times

per week than people of other relationship statuses. This hypothesis comes from

the assumption that people who are single have more time to do such things as

work out. This information will be able to show us whether or not it would be

25

better for the target market in the area to be more towards those who are single

compared to those who are in a relationship, or if a group rate may be better.

SPSS:

3. Null Hypothesis: People who go to the gym three or more times per week do not place

more importance on equipment available than those who go two time or less per week.

Alternative Hypothesis: People who go to the gym three or more times per week place

more importance on equipment available than those who go two or less per week. This

hypothesis is based on the assumption that those who work out more often base gym

decision off of gym equipment than those who do not attend as often. This could be used

because if “30 Minute Fit” wishes to target more to those who are more consistently

attending, or a group of people who are not as consistent therefore they would not have to

update the equipment as often.

SPSS:

26

4. Null Hypothesis: A majority of people do believe they can get a good workout in 30

minutes.

Alternative Hypothesis: A majority of people do not believe that they can get a

good workout in 30 minutes or less. We assumed this based on our own

understanding of what we considered a good “full body” workout.

SPSS:

27

5. Null hypothesis: People who go to the gym two time or less per week are NOT

more hesitant to go to the gym than those who go three times or more per week

because they don’t know how to work out properly.

Alternative hypothesis: People who go to the gym two times or less per week is

more hesitant to go than those who go to the gym three times or more per week

because they don’t know how to work out properly. We can draw this from the

assumption that people who go more consistently know how to work out better

than those who don’t go often. As well, those who don’t go as often may not have a

background of working out compared to those who go more than two times per

week.

SPSS:

28

6. Null hypothesis: Females are NOT more likely to prefer working out with a

personal trainer than males

Alternative hypothesis: Females are more likely to prefer working out with a

personal trainer than males. We drew this hypothesis with the thought that more

women would want to guidance of a personal trainer compared to men

SPSS:

29

30

31

32

33

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