Developing a marketing strategy
Contents Brief introduction to Club Leaders The key stages in developing a marketing strategy: 1. Analysis - Where are you now? 2. Objectives - Where do you want to be? 3. Developing your marketing strategy 4. Marketing Tactics 5. Your actions 6. The controls 2
Introduction to Club Leaders Club Leaders background Part of the Places People Play Olympic legacy programme Uniquely focused on helping club leaders on business aspects of club Tailored for sports clubs Delivered by PwC working with Sport England Available to all clubs and it s all free! What s going on Available to fewer clubs Where to find us www.sportenglandclubleaders.com Mentoring Seminars club.leaders@uk.pwc.com @Club Leaders www.facebook.com/clubleaders Online Resources Website Available to all clubs 3
The key stages in developing a marketing strategy 4
Marketing strategy contents Marketing Strategy Marketing Plan Where you are now Objectives Where do you want to be? Strategy How do we get there? Tactics What are the tools and tactics to achieve your objectives? Actions What action plans do you put in place? Control How do you know if all the effort is working? 5
Benefits of having a marketing strategy A well thought out marketing strategy: Adds more structure to what you do Makes the most of your time Is value for money Enhances your club s reputation 6
Analysis Where are you now? 7
Analysis Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Before developing any given marketing strategy it is important to conduct some form of to consider Where you are now? External Analysis (MACRO) External Analysis (MICRO) Internal Club Analysis 8
Internal Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control What marketing activities are you currently doing? What marketing works for your club / what doesn t? Internal Club Analysis What are you trying to achieve with your marketing? Do you know what your current Club membership looks like? Are there groups outside your current Club membership that could benefit from your services? Does your Club have the right image to recruit new members / sponsors etc? 9
External: MICRO Analysis Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Consider factors close to home Who are your key competitors? Other sports? Other activities? External Analysis (MICRO) What are the key opportunities locally? How is your club perceived in the area? Is your target market local? Does your sport have the right image to recruit new members / sponsors etc in your area? 10
External: MACRO Analysis Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control External Analysis (MACRO) Your external MACRO factors include some of the wider environmental factors that may influence what the overall decisions you make and what your marketing options would be. Political Economic Societal Technological Environmental Legal 11
: SWOT Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Strengths: What does your club do well? Weaknesses: What could your club improve? Internal External Opportunities: What opportunities could your club exploit? Threats: What are the threats to your club? 12
Exercise - SWOT Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Exercise 10 mins Where are you now? In the context of your marketing... What is the current position of your club? What do you do well and what could you improve? Where are your opportunities and where are your threats? Action: Undertake a SWOT for your club 13
Objectives Where do you want to be? 14
Vision Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Before you set your objectives, you need to be clear about what you want your club to be known for - your vision sets this out. What is the vision for your club? It may be to: Add value to your members by providing a valuable experience that they cannot get anywhere else. If so, what is this experience? Be the go to place for tuition or purchase of merchandise or equipment Succeed in competitions and events, being known as the Centre of Excellence for specific elements of the Sport Create a buzz or excitement about the sport and exploit marketing channels to achieve this Be a club who prides itself on social inclusion 15
Vision - examples Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control A vibrant, healthy and progressive club that thrives on providing enjoyable tennis playing opportunities. Promoting and encouraging the playing and enjoyment of tennis for all ages, abilities and backgrounds for the community and the visiting public. To give good quality instruction in a safe and friendly atmosphere with well trained and highly motivated staff. To cater for any standard of client, so enabling all abilities direct access to this great sport and pastime, all of which is set in the beautiful countryside of Wiltshire. XX RFC is a community sports club driving rugby success, sporting participation and performance across all ages, genders, and cultures within our community, ensuring an enjoyable experience for members, families and our sponsors both on the pitch and in our community. XX Riding Centre is British Horse Society approved and offers superb equestrian facilities, well schooled horses and ponies and top class tuition at its 25 acre site in the heart of east London. 16
Vision Exercise Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Exercise (10mins) A vision for your club Where do you want your club to be in the future? What is the vision you have for your club? What are the key words that underpin this vision? Action: Draft a mission statement for your club that you believe in and are proud to share with your members 17
Objectives Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Your objectives are targets that you want to achieve in the short to medium term that underpin your longer term vision. When developing objectives, they should be SMART: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely General: Grow our membership SMART: Increase our competitive membership by 10% over the next year 18
Objectives Exercise Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Exercise (10mins) Marketing objectives What are the key marketing objectives you have for your club? Are these SMART? Do they help achieve the clubs overall vision? Action: Outline the key marketing objectives for your club? 19
Developing your marketing strategy 20
Strategy Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Strategy summarises how to achieve the objectives and guides all the subsequent detailed tactical decisions. Your strategy should be clear. The following framework may help: Who / what is your target market? What is your club offering? Is this a compelling proposition? How do you communicate this effectively? 21
Strategy Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control An example looking at growing membership: Who are your current members? Who are your potential members? What is your club offering? How do you communicate this? 22
Strategy Current members Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control What does your current membership look like? Why do they come to your club? How can you break it up? For example: Age 25-40 Locality to club within 5 miles Participation level social Reason for joining keep fit meet friends Sex female Marital status married Do they have children? yes Employment professional How did your members find out about your club? 23
Strategy Potential members Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Do you want more of the same type of member? Are there any other groups outside your current membership that could benefit from your club? How many new members can your club manage? You can research potential members via a number of channels: o Interview current and lapsed members o Research other clubs o Hold open days o Use the Sport England Market Segmentation tool http://segments.sportengland.org/ 24
Strategy Club offering The 5Ps (also known as the marketing mix) Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control 1. Product - includes the quality and accessibility of the services your club provides, for example, competitions and social functions. Consider the characteristics of your club Quality coaches Good facilities Club Mark accredited Social events Sense of community Good development Accessible Facilities Available at right times Friendly, welcoming people Right price of membership 2. Price includes the cost of membership fees and discounts offered. You may have different prices to different member groups e.g. social, competitive, junior, families. 3. Place includes the clubrooms or the facilities where training, competitions or events are conducted. 4. Promotion includes advertising of the club or group, a promotion at the local shopping centre or an article in the local community newspaper. 5. People - includes the individual skills or capabilities of your staff and volunteers. Your overall club offering should align to your vision 25
Exercise your offer Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Elevator Pitch Imagine you are stuck in an elevator, and asked about what your club offers...this is someone who you club is targeting a potential member or sponsor perhaps... What would you say? Exercise Elevator pitch - 10 mins Try this exercise straight away with the person next to you... How did it feel? Did you get across your key messages in less than a minute? Spend some time thinking about what you want to say and then try again... 26
Strategy Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control You need to ensure you match what you offer to your potential members, whilst ensuring you still meet the needs of your current members. Now you know who you want to tell, and what you want to tell them, the next step is to figure out how to tell them. Bear in mind that different groups of people will be best communicated through different channels. 27
Marketing Tactics 28
Marketing Tactics Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control The following are a mix of tactics that sports clubs could consider: Events Word of mouth Local Media Sponsorship Tactics Piggy Back Marketing Club website Social Media Leaflets / Posters 29
Tactics: Sponsorship Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Sponsorship is a two way thing. In return for funding or services, you need to be able to provide value to the sponsor. What you can offer them? Logos printed on your: Kit, equipment, minibus, sideline banners Their logo on your: Website, email headers/ footers, Letter heads Mention the company name in any events, team publicity, and end of season reports Hold an event under the name of the sponsor: E.g.: The Generous Pub Co. Cup Hold an event at your sponsor s venue What they can offer you? Finance- in return for promotion Kit, with their logo or company colours Discounts e.g. money off equipment or supplies ordered from a specific shop, a reduced admission price to events when taking all of your club or society along, or a discount when hiring specific services or facilities Facilities or a venue to host events 30
Tactics: Piggyback Marketing Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Piggyback Marketing is when two or more organisations promote ones another s complementary (but non competing) products or services. As a sports club you may consider engaging with the following groups, as they may have an interest in promoting your club: - Schools. Colleges and Universities - Community groups - Local leisure centres - Council - Local businesses 31
Tactics: Working with the Media Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Is the story topical, timely and relevant? Plan ahead so your news stories relate to and capitalise on what the clubs plans to do over the next season. Do you have any events, competitions coming up that you want people to come along to? Have you had any successes you want to share? Let the local press know and they might even send a photographer along to capture your club in action. What is unusual or even more unique about this story? A good media story is unusual - people haven t seen or heard this before. That s why they will be interested - this is not familiar, not the same old, same old. There is an unusual angle or aspect, or a new creative element. Real news is all about people - news is created by and affects people. Celebrities and sporting personalities do of course attract media interest. But real people, who have done something heroic or extraordinary, who have an important or interesting story to tell are just as good, in fact usually better. 32
Tactics: Social Media Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Social media involves the building of communities or networks and encouraging participation. It is also a quick and effective way to keep interested parties up to date. Social media works best when there are real people, with genuine intentions and quality content behind every profile, tweet and tag. Do: Listen Be authentic Credit others Don t: Criticise Reveal (personal information) Misrepresent Be consistent 33
Tactics: Social media accounts Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control For social media to be effective, you need to give users the freedom to openly communicate and share their views, experiences and ideas. However, you need to consider the risks of lack of control. There are pros & cons of open content (where you give your users and followers the freedom to post messages): Pros Increases visibility More engaging for users Open discussions can built trust Facilitates knowledge sharing Cons Open to negative comments Gives way to spamming Viewed as simply all push 34
Tactics: Major platforms Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Key facts: Twitter is a Micro-blog tool and platform Estimate s of use vary 140m active users worldwide / 10m in UK Allows a user to send a text-based message ( tweet ), up to 140 characters in length, to other users who have requested to receive updates from that user Users can post public or private (direct) messages to other users Do s Be yourself, be original Disclose who you work for / represent Participate regularly Be human and have fun (but remember it is a public record) Give credit to others Include links, photos and videos to keep things interesting Become an authority and provide value Don ts Metweet all the time think 90% about others / big ideas / resources and 10% about you Retweet without knowing what you are endorsing Tweet too much spamming people will turn people off Tweet not enough try several times a week if not daily. Creates a base and keeps interest 35
Tactics: Major platforms Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Key facts: Considered most popular social network on the internet Users expect you to interact with them more like friends than businesses Works best if you are happy to adopt a more flexible and friendly tone in your communication Can build a very strong and loyal following who will click, view and share your content so you reach continues to grow Do s Be yourself, be original Be friendly and show personality through your content Share business milestones like you would share milestones with family / friends Regularly post and share updates Don ts Ignore it your customers may well already be talking about you Just focus on the business and push out business content Forget to update regularly an out of date page looks like an out of date business 36
Your Actions 37
Actions Planning Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control What are you going to do when? Action Owner J F M A M J J A S O N D Agree plan with marketing plan with committee Run membership e-survey Build campaign content Banner on sponsor s site Press release Members e-shot Members event Schools visit Facebook/Twitter Evaluate plan 38
Exercise - planning Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Exercise 5 mins Spend a short period listing what marketing actions you might do in your club and when 39
The controls 40
Controls: Monitoring activities Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control How can you track the success of your marketing? When new members join the club, ask them how they heard about you (e.g. Through a friend, open day etc.) Ask them what it was about the club that attracted them to you does your marketing show this When members leave, ask why are they moving to competition that is offering something else? 41
Controls: Marketing budget Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions Control Do you have one or need one?...might simply be a line in your overall budget A general finger in the air exercise for businesses is that you should allocate between 5 10% of your total revenue to marketing spend. However, this depends on the size of your club and your overall objectives. The key thing is to come up with a general figure to aim towards and stick to 42
Controls Key metrics Examples: Objectives Strategy Tactics Actions 2010 2011 2012 Members at beginning of year 198 238 298 Members at end of year 238 298 279 54 75 21 27% 32% 7% Members lost 14 15 40 % lost members 7% 6% 13% Marketing budget 200 300 25 Marketing per new member 3.70 4.00 1.19 New members % new members Control 43
Recap 44
Marketing strategy recap Marketing Plan Marketing Strategy Where you are now Objectives Where do you want to be? Strategy How do we get there? Tactics What are the tools and tactics to achieve your objectives? Actions What action plans do you put in place? Control How do you know if all the effort is working? 45
TITLE Thank you and good luck! www.sportenglandclubleaders.com club.leaders@uk.pwc.com @Club_Leaders www.facebook.com/clubleaders This seminar has been prepared to give general guidance for sports clubs as part of the Sport England Club Leaders programme. It does not constitute professional advice and you should not act upon the information contained in these slides without obtaining specific professional guidance. These slides are not to be used outside of the Club Leaders programme unless delivered in conjunction with Club Leaders or with the written agreement of Sport England. No representation or warranty (express or implied) is given as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this publication, and, to the extent permitted by law, Sport England, its members, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability, responsibility or duty of care for any consequences of you or anyone else acting, or refraining to act, in reliance on the information contained in this publication or for any decision based on it. The English Sports Council - Sport England