After involvement at different levels of sport, I can say with some experience that local sporting clubs are unfortunately misunderstanding, or underestimating the true value of an online presence.
It is often pushed aside because of a lack of time and resources, after all local sporting clubs rely so heavily on volunteers.
But for the clubs that see the opportunity and I hope this post might just change a few opinions, a strong online presence is a great way to make your local sporting club more efficient and more effective.
It is a great way to engage your supporters and encourage membership, increase attendance at matches and events, but perhaps more importantly it will strengthen your sponsorship credentials.
Now is a great time to step up your clubs online presence and to help you out, here are nine online marketing ideas to adopt.
Website
Most local sporting clubs will have a website. If you have one or you’re looking at getting one, then get it right. Do not accept the free generic system that is offered by your administering league, they are often restrictive and very, very ugly.
Your website needs to be functional, it needs to integrate all of your online activities and it needs to project a professional image to potential members and sponsors.
If I am a sponsor and a club contacts me, one of the first things I do is to check out your website. This will be one of my first impressions of your club and give me some insight into how I will be treated as a sponsor.
It should most definitely be a responsive website.
Make sure you use Google Analytics to track your website statistics, this will provide you with invaluable information as to what pages people are viewing, where they are coming from and more. The website statistics will also be valuable in selling advertising to sponsors. Your website can really become a massive asset to your club in generating revenue and support.
There are so many reasons why your local sporting club should have an active Facebook presence.
As a local sporting club, you are not going to achieve the lofty standards of Manchester United with more than 34 million ‘Likes’, but it is still well worth your while. A Facebook page is a great opportunity to create conversation around your club, promote events, update fans with news and run competitions. Remember, once you get to 25 ‘Likes’ claim your username, i.e. facebook.com/yourclub for all of your promotion.
With new developments, the way we interact with Facebook will continue to evolve. For this reason it may be worth looking at a Facebook application Payvment. It allows you to add e-commerce functionality to your Facebook page. Basically create a club PayPal account and setup your online store and you can sell memberships, tickets to events and merchandise.
If local sporting clubs have put the toe in the social media water, it is generally Facebook. Local sporting clubs often struggle to find the relevance with Twitter, with the tool restricting you to short, sharp messages of just 140 characters. But there is merit in Twitter.
Create an account and make sure you use a simple username, one that will be easy to promote, i.e. twitter.com/yourclub. Start following local media outlets and journalists, hopefully they follow you back and eventually pick up some of your news stories. Follow all of your supporters, your sponsors and locals in general, eventually your numbers will grow. Start tweeting all club news including who’s playing on the weekend, details on an event, links to website pages and your Facebook page.
Email Newsletter
An email newsletter can be one of the cheapest and most effective forms of communication. Use an email service, it will look a lot better and you have set a standard by now so stick to it. Campaign Monitor has great software to create your email template, manage your newsletters and track all of your results.
Your email newsletter can keep players, friends and families, members and supporters, and even past players updated as to the clubs activities. This will provide valuable promotion for membership, events and more. Once your email database increases, you may be able to sell it as another sponsorship property.
QR Codes or Augmented Reality
Depending on who you talk to, QR Codes are still in an infancy stage or they may very well be dead before they even started. There are opportunities for local sporting clubs however. QR Codes are great little two-dimensional codes that can be scanned with your mobile phone. QR Stuff is a great resource to generate codes.
A local sporting club can place a QR code on posters and other collateral on match days, think of putting into the match program. When scanned the person will be directed via their phone to a link to ‘Like’ the club’s Facebook page. A QR Code can be placed on membership information that can be used to send a person straight to a PayPal form where they can immediately make payment for a membership, merchandise or donate money. You may even want to include a QR Code on sponsorship information that delivers an online video.
Alternatively and for the more progressive sporting club, look into Augmented Reality applications.
Foursquare
Register and claim your sporting club on Foursquare. Encourage supporters to check-in each weekend and eventually introduce a special to encourage sales at the bar or kiosk or promote discounts on merchandise and membership. Location-based marketing is going to explode and what a great opportunity for a local sporting club to stay ahead of the game and create a buzz. It might even get you some news coverage and help you with attracting sponsorship.
YouTube
Create your own YouTube channel and start uploading videos including match highlights, player interviews and more. People love consuming videos, the numbers from YouTube are simply astronomical. By uploading club videos you give supporters the opportunity to be engaging with your club when they’re at work, at home or browsing on their mobile phone.
Once you start filming, you never know what you catch. Did you see the half-time dunk kid for the Phoenix Suns? That stuff goes viral and its not because it was an NBA team.
Where we share our videos on YouTube, we share our pictures on Instagram. Create an account and encourage fans to take matchday photos and share. Much the same theory behind my thoughts on Youtube but obviously more accessible. Anyone can take a photo from their mobile phone.
Have some fun with it, run a competition that encourages your supporters to take photos.
SourceBottle
Primarily a service to help journalists and bloggers find sources, however it is also a great tool for business to gain publicity. But in this instance, Source Bottle is also used to post ‘callouts’ for sponsorship.
This is not a service that you would use to find your major sponsor but certainly if you are holding an event you it may work. Give it a shot and ask for a sponsor for your next ladies day,etc.
The real key here is integration. Your website should promote your presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and provide a subscription form for your newsletter. Likewise use Facebook to promote new YouTube videos, Flickr albums and Foursquare check-ins.
If you’ve taken the advice on board and stepped up your online presence then promote them, put the information on all of your marketing material, membership information and importantly on your sponsorship material.
It is a lot to take on board and knowing small local sporting clubs, too many people are stretched way too far for time. So delegate the roles. It may be hard to see the true benefits at the start and subsequently you may choose to ignore the opportunity in front of you. But I strongly encourage you to take on board the advice, you may even choose to start with just a few but get involved and get active. Remember you won’t necessarily get 100 ‘Likes’ in the first 24 hours, you won’t get 1,000 views on YouTube, it will take time but it WILL be worth it in the end if you’ve given it the time and effort.