Empower yourself to succeed in Season 2019/20
I am currently working with sports teams and clubs to help meet their business challenges, through understanding their audiences and making budgets stretch further.
Undergoing activities such as:
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Defining your clubs purpose
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Brand and club identity design and development
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Marketing campaigns
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Website development creation
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Social Media channel management
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Social media graphic creation
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Helping you understand the clubs role within the local area or community
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Conducting perception surveys
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Competition analysis
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Exploring alternative methods of creating revenue
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Revisiting sponsorships strategies
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Reviewing and determining the success of any current activities or communication channels.
The aim is always to help sports teams and organisations continue to bring joy and passion to all of those involved.
Get in touch below and I would love to chat to you about your challenge with no strings attached.
PROJECT EXAMPLES
Refocusing sponsorships
Background
The premise of sponsorship is dying out, with clubs finding it harder and harder to attract money to drive their ambitions. Often the Club Directors have to put forward ever increasing amounts of investment to keep the clubs afloat and competing.
Approach
This is not a quick process, as mainly sponsorships have been money-in and nothing out. With a board or advert hoping to attract new customers for a sponsorship. However, changing the focus to partnerships is the only way forwards, working together with your corporate partners to help deliver valuable and meaningful communications with the fans. Providing reasonable return on investment evidence and increasing the use by the partners across the clubs communication channels. Not by just advertising but by supporting and showcasing
Results
Clubs should put the pressure on the partners to play a more active part in the club. Keep communications open and regular. Don't have a bookend partnership with your partners that is only at the start and end of the season.
Creating a media team
Background
The directors at Frome Town had found themselves in a position where volunteers were becoming less involved and those that did overworked. The running of the marketing communications for Non-league clubs are often reliant on good will and help. With the clubs ambitions on and off the field things had to change.
Approach
The aim is to create a structure and processes for the club that can survive people's busy lives. We wanted to attract locally based support, however this would not come over "quality". Geographic location would become less of an issue by updating the club to communicate more effectively through Slack and help everyone stay informed.
Results
I was able to create a volunteer media team of 8 people by reaching out to ambitious up and coming professionals looking to gain insights and experiences but more importantly have a playground for their ideas. I was able to recruit a club designer, PR manager, Writer, Social media manager, commentator, website manager and videographer. Whilst retaining strong links with the club's photographer. This provided huge support to give the directors to develop the club whilst the fans experienced the best level of coverage the club has ever seen.
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Creating a community (increasing gates and involvement)
Background
The focus of many football clubs is either striving for promotion or avoiding relegation. However in reality most of the time clubs remain in the same league whilst having a variety of highs and lows during the season. So how do you continue to attract fans to come to games?
Approach
The first step is to create more involvement and content to keep fans happy and informed across social media (more interviews, statistics, updates). However the second step is to make the events around the matches exciting, different and involving your community.
Results
At Frome this season, I have driven the selection of a local charity partner, who give free tickets to those in a "poverty" position who would not normally be able to attend games. Followed by activities such as the launch of "we are #BA11" (Frome's postcode), launched with over 200 people joining us for an amazing drone photo as the club started it's 5 year plan to re-engage with the local community. The matchday experience has been livened up with halftime competitions and even live music from local bands and musicians.
Website creation
Background
Frome Town's website had become stuck in too many iterations and with well intentioned website developers keen to help the club. However, the website needed to be taken internally and given the flexibility to meet the clubs needs without further development costs.
Approach
The main focus was to provide fans a site that they could be proud of and to provide the "one-shop-stop" location for all club latest news and further information. We used the "Wix" site building platform to allow all of those within the club to have the ability to update and use the the site to great effect.
Results
The changes bought in have led to significant developments that club could not have predicted. A large rise in the amount of visitors due to the site offering more content than just relying on social media. More sales of merchandise due to the inbuilt shop feature. Increase in player sponsorships purchased and more awareness of club activities. However the promotion of the ladies team and their results, led to the closure of the separate ladies site. With the Under 18s and more teams following... this really is becoming a site for anyone involved in Football with Frome Town F.C.
Programme redesigns
Background
Frome Town's programme was often unloved, unread and the rising costs of printing with the existing supplier were becoming issues. So how do you look to modernise a matchday programme with less money and a falling readership.
Approach
Asking the fans was the immediate first step. The plan was to update the programme to a full colour magazine produce more content unique content from the team and fans. Working with Kane McGuiness design and a separate columnist allowed the programme to breathe more life.
Results
The quality of the programme has improved and readership has increased. However, the nature of football and timeliness still remains an issue. After speaking to the club and fans the decision was to continue to the new design, but as the club moves forwards the programme will be digital only. This allows more time between games for content to be written, plus the programme will be free for fans to enjoy either via the website or on their app.. The digital copy sees an increase of 400% readership to the delight of the programme sponsors.
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