Former YMCA Members Provide Valuable Insights

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LRG MARKET RESEARCH HELPS GUIDE MEMBER RETENTION EFFORTS

With over 150,000 members and program participants and seventeen locations, the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee is one of the largest regional YMCA associations in the United States. As part of their efforts to continuously improve their members’ experience and increase member retention, the YMCA asked LePoidevin Marketing to design and implement a market research program aimed at determining past members’ impressions of a variety of service components of membership. In addition, the research study was developed to test several member retention program concepts and generate competitive intelligence.

We utilized a combination of research methodologies to help gauge the perceptions of recently terminated members. Participants were invited via an e-mail linked to our proprietary, online market research system, PeabodySM – an Interactive Intelligence System. For those individuals lacking e-mail addresses, a hardcopy mailed survey was used. A random drawing for a $200 Visa gift card was included as an incentive to encourage participation.

Our survey process was successful in generating a highly representative sample and resulted in a total response rate of nearly 14%. In addition, twenty follow-up interviews were conducted by LePoidevin Marketing to provide further qualitative insight into the perceptions and opinions of the survey respondents.

“The research conducted by LePoidevin Marketing provided us with the critical information we needed to grow and improve membership. We based our strategic decisions on the findings and feel confident knowing that they are grounded in solid data.”
–Donna Bembenek, Sr. VP, Marketing & Fund Development