Sports clubs, at all levels need to be better run and more welcoming if they are to survive and indeed grow. This presentation is from Sports Marketing Network's workshop on how to make your sports clubs vibrant, visible and viable. 2,000 clubs across Britain have particpated in one these workshops

1. Grow Your Sports Club
How to make
your sports club
vibrant, visible and viable

2. Svend Elkjaer
o Dane, handball, MBA,
o publishing, events,
o passionate, creative, bad manager,
o even worse politician,
o Bedford, event/marketing
consultancy business...
o now Norseman returned to Yorkshire
o always in the experience business

3. Skål…the welcoming Retriever

4. Where is all this coming from…
o Grow Your Club workshops for
n Rugby Football Union, Football Association, Sports
Council Wales, England Squash, Scottish
Association of Local Sports Councils, Rugby
Football League, Amateur Boxing Association,
SkillsActive, Sport England, ISRM, England
Athletics, England Netball, Welsh Rugby Union,
British Speedway, UniBond League, Universities,
12 County Sports Partnerships and 45+ local
authorities and more than 1,800 sports clubs
Lots of good club visits, brilliant experiences and
great people…and some less so!

5. Yourself
+
The challenges faced by
sports clubs?

6. Today
o Sport and clubs in context
o From club to enterprise
o Improving the customer experience
o Developing exciting events
o Becoming a HubClub
o How to become a visible club
o Working with sponsors and partners
o Managing a vibrant club

7. “Unwelcoming clubs”…
a word from the Secretary of State
o “Let’s be honest, a lot of our clubs
have got a very unwelcoming
environment. They must develop a
more supportive environment,
making people feel more
comfortable.”
Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture,
Media and Sport (England Netball magazine)

8. Welcoming clubs…more
members and more money
o Focus on your customers i.e. parents,
players, supporters, sponsors, Council
etc. and their needs and then work to
attract and retain them to support
your club
o Your membership and revenue will
then grow and long-term you will
have a winning club, both on and off
the pitch

9. Grow vibrancy, visibility and
viability of sports clubs
o A successful club is
vibrant through the activities and
events the club and centre creates
visible through its communication
with members, supporters, sponsors
viable - with funding under pressure
clubs must diversify their revenue
streams

10. My Club
Child
Protection
Social Facility
Sport
Equity Funding
Community

11. Community Sports Enterprise
SPORT
Elite, participation, social,
kids, etc.
BUSINESS
SKILLS
FACILITIES CULTURE
VISION,
Utilisation Revenue/Costs
STRATEGY &
Design Financial Mgt
LEADERSHIP
Funding Marketing
People/Volunteers
Technology
CUSTOMER & COMMUNITY
Innovation
Sustainable engagement
Satisfaction, loyalty, relevance
“more than just a sports club”

12. The benefits of becoming a
Community Sports Enterprise
o You become better equipped to deliver sport
o You become vibrant and visible
o It will be easier to attract and retain good, skilled
volunteers
o You become more relevant as a Hub for your
Community
o Your migrate from fund-raising to income
generation
o You will have freedom and independence to make
your own decisions and define priorities
o Become more sustainable with reduced
dependence on the availability and priorities of
external funding streams
o You’ll have more time to devote to the enterprise
instead of grant applications and bureaucratic
reports

13. Are you all rowing in the same
direction..and at the same speed?

14. What is a/your club for?

15. Six words you rarely see
in sports plans
Fun
Trust
Passion
Customer
Innovation
Technology

16. If Stelios ran golf…EasyGolf

17. If Stelios ran golf…EasyGolf
o 5 holes maximum
o You had to play in jeans and orange T-
shirt
o There’d be a coffee shop at each green
o No reserved car parking spaces
o When I arrive someone says hello and
welcome
o Kids and women would get preferential
treatment
o Laughing would be obligatory

18. Club ‘marketing’ so far…
o “We’ve got somebody who does our
marketing, we haven’t seen him for a
while”
o “We printed some flyers last year, I think
they are in that box over there”
o “Do we really want all these new people
here, in my club?”
o “I just want to play sport”
o “The Government/Council/governing body
should give us some more money”

19. What is ‘marketing’
’listening to people’s lives’
‘everything you do’
We are ALL marketers

20. The WHOLE experience
o Think of the whole experience of
joining your club: (Moment Mapping)
n Decision to attend
n Seek information
n Booking
n Transport
n Experience at your club
n Do you make them love you
n Follow up
n Ask/listen

21. Dirty / Clean? –
Cheap / Quality?

22. The hard core is not enough…
o If you retain 90% of your
members/supporters per year, you’ll
have lost more than one third in year
4. You will have lost almost 60% if
you retain 80% every year
o David Lloyd retains 72% per year
o What’s your retention rate?

23. Customer service
A Welcoming Club:
o More than just a sports club
o Would you have your birthday party
at your club?
o Note: change of pub landlord can
mean 50% increase in turnover
o Learn from Disney, Starbucks and
Tesco
o Greet and welcome newcomers

24. The three 2s
2 seconds
2 minutes
2 hours

25. The sports club
…a hub for the community
…develop a
Community Engagement Plan

26. Non-Sports Partners
Schools
Primary Care University/
Trusts College
Community Housing
groups Association
Your Club
Police Council
Local Local
businesses media

27. A view from an English National
League Rugby Union Club
“I have to admit that trying to get the
management team to agree that we
need more community involvement is
difficult. There are entrenched
views and it is taking time to get long-
standing members to realise there is no
future for "just a rugby club“
Malcolm Tempest, ex-Commercial Manager (volunteer)
Hull Ionians

28. How can a/your club develop
mutually beneficial
relationships with
community partners?

29. SMN’s 4Com model
o Community Marketing–
Packaging the passion
n Community
n Communication
n WelCOMing
n Computer

30. Community
o Become a focal point within your
community and go to the places,
from schools to Women’s Institutes,
wherever your target audiences are

31. Communication
People are being bombarded with literally
hundreds of messages every day
Flyers in libraries or inside sports
centres, have very little effect
Develop strong and relevant
communication programmes
Speak their language

32. Communication?

33. WelCOMing
o Sports must ensure that they are places
where newcomers feel welcome and
recommend to friends and family.
Remember, we are competing with Sky,
Starbucks and even B&Q

34. Computer
We must embrace new technology and
use whenever we can to communicate
with our target audiences.
Use new media to
Inform and Engage

35. Know Your Club and your
Community
You’ll probably be amazed
what skills and contacts are
available to you

36. Develop a vibrant club for the
WHOLE community
Develop an exciting events programme:
Three objectives for events:
Generate money
Attract new people
Develop a welcoming club
4 key areas:
Sport
Social
Community
Corporate

37. Developing events
Segment Social Events Sporting Events
Athletes Awards Dinner ‘Fun’ Tournament
VIPs Lunch/Dinner ‘Vets’ Tournament
Businesses Lunches/Network Community/
meetings Corporate Games
Minis/Junior Halloween/Birtday Festivals
Party
Parents Mother’s/Father’s ‘Try It’ Days
Day
‘The community’ Festival/ Fun Run
Summer Ball Tag Tournament

38. Imagine if you did just ONE of
these…(or two or three)
o Beer Festival (involve o Monthly network
CAMRA) meetings for local
o Summer Ball (Black businesspeople
tie/live music) o Award Ceremony
o Corporate Days (Player of the Year)
o Mini/Junior Festival o Racing Night
o Halloween Kids Party o Doggy Walk
o Quiz Night o Stars in Your Eyes
o Ladies Lunch o Schools initiative
o Auction of Promises o Migrant population
o Food and Wine (Polish Lunch or
Festival Curried goat)
o Casino Fun Night

39. All night handball…the coolest show
in town (or the village)
The handball club in Haarby Denmark
(pop. 5000) organises twice a year an
all night handball festival aimed at
16-20 year olds (both boys and girls)
It starts at 8pm Friday and finishes at
8am Saturday
250 people play and they all share
breakfast in the morning

40. 12,339 dogs (and their ‘owners’)
participate in the Great North Dog Walk

41. Lymm RFC earn £25k from their
panto (oh yes they do)

42. Become a HubClub
“I almost live down here,”
twelve year old ball boy at
Wharfedale RUFC

43. o What events
o Sporting
o Social
o Community
o Corporate
could your club organise?

44. Getting to know you…
…this is NOT about instant
love

45. Close the loop
o There’s no point getting people
through the front door if the back
door is wide open:
n Lack of follow up
n No place for feedback
n No evaluation
From out-reach to in-reach

46. Getting to know you…
First visit Second visit First week
Prospect Put info in Phone call
gives database
contact info
Send
email/text
Ongoing Every 6 weeks First month
Newsletter Newcomer Follow up
Birthday card support
Prior/post
Christmas
call
card

47. What do people think?
o How big a percentage of your local
community know your club exists?
o How many know where you are?
o How many have been?
o What reception would they get and
would they want to come back if they
came to a game, class, function or
just to have a look?

48. Your club’s image
Rate from 1 to 10
1. Club life is vibrant _____
2. Facilities are good _____
3. Innovative _____
4. Welcoming/Positive atmosphere _____
5. Good sporting experiences _____
6. Ambitions are well communicated _____
7. Open _____
8. Flexible and willing to change _____
9. Good managers _____
10. Good coaches/instructors _____
Total _____

49. Where’s your customer focus?
1. We are completely focused on our customers, and we are
aware of their different needs and we work hard to satisfy
those needs. We constantly listen to our customers and
make improvements whenever we can and when we can't we
explain why.
2. We are getting increasingly customer focused although the
whole club may not be as customer-focused as we would like.
We know how we want to improve and we are working hard
to get there
3. We need to focus less on internal and political issues and
more on the customer
4. We rarely talk about customers - do we really know who they
are?
5. We are a sports club - why are we talking about customers?

50. Growing your centre/club by providing great
experiences and creating ‘raving fans’
A great sports Advocate
club spends
money/time here Client
Customer
Prospect
Suspect Traditional
advertising

51. Developing a Visible Club
Remember, you are
now a vibrant community
club with a
strong customer focus!

52. Train in a roundabout!
o Combined training session with other local
clubs
o Local charity link ups
o Invitations to local celebrities / MPs / MEPs /
sporting personalities
o Schools visits – photocalls
o Demonstration in town centre
o Match against the media!
o Being available and ‘out and about’
o A4 pdf poster to everybody on database for
pubs, offices etc.

53. The new media habits
Life of a 12-24 Life of a 25-54
o Will never read a o Read offline newspapers
newspaper but attracted and magazines
to some magazines o Like mobile for voice but
o Will never own a land- do not see their world on
line phone mobile phones
o Will not watch television o Are beginning to delve
on someone else's further into new media
schedule much longer o Trust experts on factual
o Trust unknown peers information
more than experts o Care GREATLY about
o Social media is crucial sources of news and
information online
o Email is for their parents
o Heavy into email

54. Your club’s notice board?

55. The Notice Board is Dead!
o Girl, aged 8, gets treatment for
RSI due to her excessive texting
o Friends of Ripon Cathedral, York
Brewery Club
o King’s Lynn Speedway – 3,000
mobile numbers 4,000 email
addresses = three times the
average gate

56. The ‘old’ media world is dying
o Brighton Argus from 125,000 circulation in
1986 to 36,000 in 2008
o Yorkshire Post: Circulation 47,000
Sheffield: 1058 = 0.5% of households
Boroughbridge: 123 = 10.3% of households
o 40 m photos uploaded on Facebook every
month
o Stephen Fry and Shaq O’Neil each have
250,000+ followers on Twitter

57. The New Media World
o Paid (posters, flyers, ads)
o Owned (Website, texts)
o Earned (Social media, PR)

58. Who are connected?
o Number of fans on Facebook
Primark 671,477
Marmite 236,803
Peter Andre 97,839
Netball 1,233
40% of Facebook users
are 35+

59. YOU
Power no longer with editors
but with YOU
New media are just channels.
YOU provide the content

60. How do you communicate?
Website Chat room
Email Podcast
FaceBook Rating sites
MySpace Forum
Bebo YouTube
Text PR (off/online)
‘Phone RSS feeds
Twitter Flyers/letters
Blog Posters
Word-of-mouth Ads

61. Data Capture/Database
o Anybody who comes to your club MUST be
asked for contact details (raffle for
restaurant vouchers etc.)
o Set up contact management database
ACT 9 costs approx. £ 175. Managed by
local IT student
o Edited programme notes are emailed to
database
o Mobile numbers are texted from computer
o Campaign: Text your mobile number and
win!

63. Korfball 1m + views
Underwater hockey
500,000 + views

64. The Online Clubhouse
where friends, members, fans,
never-beens, community, etc.
can chat, learn, get involved…
exactly like in normal clubhouse
but…
whenever and wherever they
want and in much
bigger numbers

65. Getting the media interested
o What gets into the media?
o What do they really think of your
sport / your club?
o What do you have to sell?
o How can you challenge their
perceptions?

66. Sponsorship in the 21st Century
How sports clubs can attract
sponsorship through their
community engagement

67. Where are you going…
what’s your story?
“Clubs without strategic direction
will find it very difficult to find
sponsors”
Simon Robb, Chairman
Waterloo RUFC

68. Understanding your sponsors
o Four different types:
n Calculators and Commercials
n Cynics and Short-Termers
n Carers and Communals
n Innocents and Indifferents
Your Choice:
Chameleon or love-us-as-we-are?

69. Non-Sports Partners
Schools
Primary Care University/
Trusts College
Community Housing
groups Association
Your Club
Police Council
Local Local
businesses media

70. Asset analysis
o It is not only about first team
o Paid up members
o Associates and “friends” of the club
o The Players
o The parents of the youth and junior sections
o Business contacts
o Your wider stakeholders:
§ Town Councils
§ Neighbours
§ Politicians
§ Local and regional press
§ Sporting press
§ Local schools and colleges of HE

71. Grow your value to sponsors
and community partners
Strength of relationships
X
Number of relationships
=
VALUE

72. Why should anybody want to
sponsor your club?
What is your story?

73. People and Cultures…
the NEW volunteer

74. Skilled FireBellies
o We do need passionate people who are
willing to drive their club forward: We
call them FireBellies. However, what is
crucial is that they have the right skills
and attitudes.
o FireBellies without the right skills and
a ‘closed mind’ can do more damage
than good. It is not good enough to
love your club and sport

75. Sports club volunteering so far
o Mates and former players (“he was a
good pole vaulter and he’s retired, so
he can do the accounts”)
o Too much pressure on and work for
too few people
o Focus on who is available within the
club and NOT on what skills and
attributes are required
o Fiefdoms, egos and no thank yous

76. Would you like to volunteer with this lot?

77. New skills =
training and new people
o What does your club stand for?
o Would you, hand on heart, recommend it?
o Volunteers are good at social and
sports/coaching skills, less so at:
delegating, motivation, handling conflicts,
IT, marketing, building teams,
communication, strategic thinking, in short:
Leadership and Management

78. Would you join your own club
as a volunteer?
o Do we think and act strategically?
o Do we set achievable targets?
o Are we organized?
o Do we get our priorities right?
o Do we motivate volunteers, members and
others to play an active role in the
management of the club?
o How well do we communicate with the
people around us, both within and outside
the club?

79. The NEW volunteer…
the Community Sport Leader
o Has got specific skills etc. that the club
requires
o Will volunteer to give something back and
develop their skills. There has to be something
in it for them
o Requires other volunteers to be as professional
as they are
o Will probably volunteer for a few years
o Sources: Sponsors, colleges/universities, public
sector, specialists
o Get younger people involved – sustainability
o ‘Search for the Stars’ programme.

80. The NEW volunteer…
how to manage him/her
o Two hours a month
o One limited project
o Belonging
o Fun and excitement
o Speak his/her mind
o Needs managing like any other
group or team

81. Are you all rowing in
the same direction?

82. The only person that likes change
is a baby with a wet nappy
o Change
n Can hurt
n Can bring conflicts
n Is always hard work
n Will take time
n Is inevitable
If you don’t like change, you
will really hate irrelevance

83. So what you are going to change?
Tomorrow
Fortnight
3 months

84. Workshops for sports clubs run by
the Sports Marketing Network (1)
o Grow your club
How to develop a vibrant, visible and viable club
o Growing your club income
From fundraising to income generation
Identifying projects which can help grow your income
Making money from your clubhouse
How to run your bar better
o How to make your club more visible
How to raise the profile of your club
Working with the media – both online and printed
o Developing community sponsorship and partnership
How your community sports club can attract sponsorship
and community partnership and work with and retain your existing sponsors and
partners

85. Workshops for sports clubs run by
the Sports Marketing Network (2)
o Marketing your club
How to develop a marketing strategy for your club
How to become a hub for the community
How to create a welcoming club and grow your
membership
Getting to know your members
o Recruiting and managing your volunteers
How to recruit, recognise, retain and reward vibrant
volunteers who can really help grow your club
o New media and sport
How sports clubs can improve their
communication by using mobile, social and digital media

86. Grow Your Sports Club Manual
o The comprehensive manual on how to make your sports club
vibrant, visible and viable
167 pages - real examples, real action, real benefits
...advice you can use today.
15 Action Plans - 89 case studies…now you can learn from the
best
Here's the Manual which gives guidance, ideas and tips on how
you can make your sport club vibrant, visible and
viable…whatever your sport, or size of your club
How to attract new members and retain the existing ones,
become a hub of the community, grow sponsorship revenue,
increase your gates, improve the social life of the club, increase
media coverage, attract funding from public and private
sources, benefit from new technology, introduce new revenue
streams…this Manual tells you how
+ 40 minute DVD with real live stories

87. Our credentials
o Sports Marketing Network is a member of the Bradford
Consortium which is
o Centre of Excellence for Leadership and
Management
o Development Centre for Community Sport
Enterprise
with SkillsActive’s National Skills Academy The
consortium also includes Bradford College , University of
Bradford Management School and Bradford Community
Sport Network and others.
o SMN is also a validated supplier under Business Link

88. “Man who doesn’t smile, should
not be involved with sport”
Chinese proverb
(from Boroughbridge)

89. Do get in touch…
Svend Elkjaer
Sports Marketing Network
5 Station Terrace
Boroughbridge
YO51 9BU
Tel: 01423 326 660
Email: svend@smnuk.com