Whether your aims are to increase visitor numbers, expand demographic reach, build brand engagement, or grow revenue, understanding your audience is vital to reach and engage them efficiently. The DJS Research culture, heritage and leisure team can deliver actionable insight to unlock the potential of new and existing audiences and help you make informed decisions that achieve your goals.
What's happening in the culture, heritage & leisure sector today?
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a lasting impact on leisure behaviour with a sustained shift away from regular 'out of home' activities. Streaming services continue to grow in popularity – two thirds of the UK population have at least one SVoD (Streaming Video on Demand) subscription and 80% of all UK music sales are via streaming. These subscriptions are attractive to cash-strapped consumers who want to manage expenditure and maximise value. They divert disposable income into a fixed cost and inertia means they’re easily retained when people reassess their spending.
And audiences are considering their disposable income very carefully. Economic growth has been sluggish and sporadic, leaving consumers uncertain about future prosperity and unwilling to take risks with their personal finances.
Reaching audiences is also difficult. Erosion of trust in traditional media outlets drives audiences to the increasingly fragmented arenas of social media platforms, where popular content is prioritised, and it’s increasingly hard for less well-known brands to 'cut through'.
And there’s also the challenge of an audience with increasingly diverse needs and expectations. As the ageing population grows, and there's exponential growth in technology, there’s a perceived widening gulf between how different generations interact and experience the world.
Leisure spend may be discretionary, but investing in market research to understand your audience is essential.
Leisure spend is discretionary. It isn’t guided by legal requirements like car insurance, and it’s less likely to be habitual, like regular food or household goods purchases. It’s also highly dependent upon context. The same visitor will behave differently with different groups in different settings for example, with friends compared to with family; on an international one-week holiday compared to a local short break; when they’ve instigated a day out compared to when they’re invited to join a trip planned by someone else.
To navigate the complexities of context, audience needs and expectations, you require a research partner that has:
The research partner you need is DJS Research.
Why DJS Research?
We know your sector inside and out. Our work with some of the UK’s most well-known and well-loved institutions, as well as industry bodies and support organisations, has given us a depth of knowledge and experience that sets us apart. Our clients include:
Cultural and heritage attractions: Such as Tate, The National Gallery and the British Library.
Heritage and nature preservation organisations: Including the National Trust, English Heritage, Canal & River Trust and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Festivals and event organisers: Such as the Greater London Authority and Royal Docks.
Industry bodies: Including London & Partners, the Collections Trust and the Strategic Content Alliance.
Leading advisors to the sector: Such as Cultural Consulting Network and Flow Associates.
DJS Research is also a member of the Museums Association and the Visitor Studies Group.
We’re passionate about helping you achieve your goals: Your project will be delivered by sector specialists, with decades of experience and a genuine passion for the sector.
We can place your brief in the wider context: Because DJS Research works with commercial, public sector and not-for-profit clients, we know more than just culture or heritage, we’re in touch with the full range of drivers shaping behaviour. We contextualise research data to generate deeper insights about your market and audiences.
We guarantee quality approaches for actionable insights: As a full-service agency we can control all aspects of your project. We don’t do 'off the shelf' – every project is crafted to meet your needs. We take the time to get to know your specific context, so our recommendations are relevant and actionable; and we work closely with you and can flex our approach if circumstances change.
Ask us about…
Segmentation, market sizing and audience development: We can accurately size and profile your potential market and develop bespoke segmentation to fuel your growth.
Brand development and tracking: Whether you need qualitative insight into how your brand is understood or quantitative measurement of performance in the market, we can support you to develop your brand and measure your success.
Membership and donations: We work with many cause-led organisations to help them understand what prompts people to join and what makes them stay. We can help you maximise member-acquisition and retention, as well as donations.
Visitor profiling and satisfaction research: We run visitor profiling and experience tracking for some of the UK’s most popular attractions.
Formative development and proposition testing: Whether it’s a new exhibition, events programme or a whole new site, we can test your ideas with your current and potential market to help you make informed decisions.
Summative evaluation: We can help you demonstrate impact to funders and learn from both successes and challenges to improve your practice.
Schools and families: With experts in education, children and young people we can help you develop or refine your schools and/or families proposition, programme or communications.
To find out more about our expertise in the culture, heritage and leisure sector and discuss how we can provide the actionable insight you need to meet your business objectives, contact our team today.
"We recently worked with DJS Research to inform the redesign of three permanent galleries at the National Army Museum. Rebecca went above and beyond to ensure our stakeholders were involved in the process... the team are incredibly happy with the detailed findings from the project and the actionable report, which will help them plan the next phase of the project."
"DJS Research worked with us to research our current and potential audiences across the museum-visiting market. They used those insights to produce a bespoke segmentation model, breaking our visitors and online users into family and independent adult audiences grouped by their core motivations. We have used the segmentation to ensure our activities, events, exhibitions and resources are audience-focused and that we have a shared understanding, across departments, of the key wants and needs of each segment. DJS Research also organise our onsite and online visitor surveying, sending us the data on a quarterly basis to use for internal and external reporting. In all cases, we’ve been very pleased with the work that the team at DJS Research have done for us. They took the time to understand our requirements, were very responsive to feedback, offered lots of advice based on previous experience, and have always demonstrated great attention to detail."
"It was a real pleasure working with DJS Research. Their enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the museums and galleries sector stood out from the start and made them the obvious choice for this project. The team brought a collaborative spirit and real rigour to the work, and their insights during the early data review phase sparked some genuinely useful internal conversations. The forecasting model they delivered not only exceeded expectations for accuracy – it’s now an integral part of how we plan across the Gallery."
"It was a fascinating insight and your professionalism of approach and understanding shone through.”
"DJS Research exceeded our expectations throughout the project providing a flexible and genuinely efficient service. They clearly have expertise and were very happy to share it, always providing ideas about how we could meet our targets. In our view they provided value for money and needed virtually no management."
"DJS Research fully understood the complex higher education market we were dealing with, and their flexible, focused approach gave us thought-provoking insights and solid recommendations for how to develop our services."
"We reached out to DJS Research to support us with better understanding our members and the potential benefits we could offer to aid us in member acquisition and retention. Their proposal was well thought out, grounded in strong statistical techniques and analysis, and they were an obvious choice for the piece of work. They worked diligently, with care and at speed to deliver a really thorough and detailed survey, working across the teams seamlessly to ensure we could achieve the responses we needed. They became part of our team. The final report is thorough, thoughtful with key messages and takeouts and really leans into DJS Research's expertise and knowledge of the sector. They understood really clearly what we wanted and the final report was clear, and gave us real insights which we can take action with. Further, we were confident in the quality of the research. I would not hesitate to work with them again or to recommend them to others in the sector for similar research."
“We reappointed DJS Research because they understand the sector and work with us to deliver insight that’s genuinely useful – not just data collection, but interpretation, context, and practical recommendations. As public institutions, we have a responsibility to listen to our audiences and ensure our decisions are shaped by evidence. DJS Research helps us do that. Their insight supports both strategic planning and day-to-day decision-making, while the flexibility of the portal and the collaborative nature of the relationship mean we’re able to adapt as our needs evolve.”
"DJS Research took the time to understand what the National Army Museum wanted from our research project. They went above and beyond in speaking to our internal stakeholders, which really helped ensure we got the most out of the research. The methodology worked really well for our needs and what we got out of it were two insightful, nuanced and interesting reports, with clear actionable recommendations and guidance. I would definitely use them again and would recommend them for any research requirements."
"I would absolutely recommend working with Steph, if you have a design project that would benefit from a designer who is great with infographics, interpreting guidelines quickly, meeting a brief, working collaboratively and pulling out all the stops to deliver on time."
“Elliot really understood our objectives and what we wanted to understand and achieve from the research and designed a project which met all of our needs. The final report was visually very impactful and well-presented and was really well received by internal stakeholders. DJS Research provided an excellent service from start to finish. They understood the brief and objectives perfectly and the final report was excellent.”
"It was fantastic working with DJS Research on a bespoke audience segmentation. They took time and care to understand our needs, were full of advice and ideas, consistently went above and beyond in delivering updates and insight, and ultimately produced a clear and comprehensive analysis which can be applied across the organisation."
"DJS Research were there to help when I had an extremely short deadline to turn around some research for the business. They were very enthusiastic and supportive and provided a great debrief at the end of it. I'd definitely use them again!"
We build small, director-led, teams of sector experts who are with you from brief to debrief. As an employee-owned company, every one of us is invested in delivering quality, value, and long-term impact.
From agile testing to deep-dive strategic studies, we design research to meet your specific objectives. The agility of our in-house operations team and strength of our UK-wide recruiter network enable seamless execution at scale.
Our sector-focused teams have decades of experience understanding audiences and the complexities of the markets in which our clients operate. Working collaboratively we deliver actionable insight which drives positive change.
We build small, director-led, teams of sector experts who are with you from brief to debrief. As an employee-owned company, every one of us is invested in delivering quality, value, and long-term impact.
From agile testing to deep-dive strategic studies, we design research to meet your specific objectives. The agility of our in-house operations team and strength of our UK-wide recruiter network enable seamless execution at scale.
Our sector-focused teams have decades of experience understanding audiences and the complexities of the markets in which our clients operate. Working collaboratively we deliver actionable insight which drives positive change.
Contact Director Rebecca Green today to discuss your next market research project and discover how we could become a valuable extension of your team.
Contact Rebecca
Contact Associate Director Vicky Mullis today to discuss your next market research project and discover how we could become a valuable extension of your team.
Contact Vicky
Contact Director Rebecca Green today to discuss your next market research project and discover how we could become a valuable extension of your team.
Contact Rebecca Contact Associate Director Vicky Mullis today to discuss your next market research project and discover how we could become a valuable extension of your team.
Contact Vicky 
