Running a club is often like a full time job with coaching, officiating and training centre stage for all our volunteers. Yet for clubs to survive and thrive in today’s competitive sporting market, marketing and promotion is crucial and should not be looked upon as yet another burden.
Making a success of your club’s marketing and media can help your club to:
- Attract new members and retain existing ones
- Become a hub of the community
- Grow sponsorship revenue
- Increase media coverage
- Introduce new revenue streams
But how do you do all this on top of everything else involved in running your club? Below are 4 quick top tips for effective and efficient club marketing and media!
Understand your audience
Who are you communicating with? Is it your riders, volunteers, committee or parents? Think about tailoring your communication to its audience by considering what they want to hear and how they want to hear it. Social media is an effective method of communication but perhaps your targeted audience would prefer a newsletter or a poster? The most effective method may be a combination of both!
Images
Use images to engage your audience and make your communication look exciting and appealing. Images can help your audience relate to what you are saying and feel involved and motivated. Remember to credit all images to the photographer and get parental consent if you are using images of under 16s.
Club Brand
Your club is not the only one out there and cycling is not the only sport, so how do you persuade potential members to come to you? Answer … by developing your business identity or ‘brand’, which will not only help your club to stand out from the crowd but reinforce what your club is about. Your club brand should reflect your clubs ‘personality’ and its values – create a tag line too! Your brand should be consistent across your club jerseys, website and all communication!
Work With Your Local Press
Create a template press release and use this for all your media communication. Email press releases within the body of your email to journalists and as an attachment. Observe journalists’ busy times of the day/ deadlines. CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESSES – whatever they are and remember to send your press releases to Scottish Cycling too!
