Bowls New Zealand Incorporated

CLUB PLAN – Making Marketing Easy

Creating a Club you can be Proud of

Marketing doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated

Following is a quick Snap Shot of what you can do to make a difference to your club

Tidy Up the Front of the Building

Now if you are like many clubs around the country the building may look a little dated, The front door will be locked with no information on how people can contact you, when your club is open.

Steps to make your Club attractive to people

  1. Use your building and premises as an advertisement for your club
  2. If you front onto a major road, use the fence or building, as a bill board, (A quick cost effective way to highlight who and what you are.) Don’t hide yourself, let everyone know who and what you are. Make the club stand out, be proud.
  3. Ensure your club sign is in good condition, (many of us pass our signs without considering how they look, we become accustomed to them, but for a passerby, or a new potential member it makes a statement as to who you are. Ensure you make the best possible first impression, replace, repair and highlight your signage)
  4. Place a sign next to the door stating your opening hours, and contact details of your manager or president so people have a way to contact YOU.
  5. Paint the exterior if it hasn’t been done in your memory or it’s noticeably worn.
  6. Make sure all external lights work, and increase the Wattage of the bulbs, women never enter places they feel uncomfortable.

Make your interior inviting and people will come, stay, and participate.

Take someone into your premises who has never been there before and ask them to give you feedback on how they feel, do they relax, or are they nervous, are they intimidated.

  1. The most important aspect of your club is that it makes people feel welcome and want to stay
  2. Every time someone new enters the club, make sure they are welcomed by someone within the club, shown the facilities, introduced to people, make an effort to let them know you are happy to have them apart of your club. This initial welcome will go a long way to keeping them and it’s free.
  3. Spend time and money on improving your toilet facilities, especially the women’s. They must be clean, well lit, and have all materials available as a minimum requirement. This is generally a rule for all successful service businesses.
  4. Make sure all lights work
  5. Increase the Wattage, dark corners and lighting make people feel nervous and unwanted.
  6. Repair all holes, stains, marks, gaps in roofs, walls, carpet, curtains etc
  7. Put in heating, especially in winter a warm location ensures people stay within your premises rather than head home early.
  8. Keep your notice board up to date, remove all dated material
  9. Give the walls a fresh coat of paint if required.

It is important to get your club noticed, known, and recognized; this doesn’t have to be an expensive exercise.

  1. Find space
  2. Put notices up on every supermarket, community, school notice boards.
  3. Talk to your members and get them to put notices up at their work, in their partners work, at friends work everywhere they have a chance too.
  4. Talk to your sponsors get them to put posters up promoting your bowling club in shop windows, at counters, anywhere people are.
  5. Put signs up at and around major intersections in your area
  6. Go to local business and ask if you can put a sign up in their windows, on their external walls. (Thisis easier than you think, many businesses are happy to support local clubs and groups, especially if its free to them.)

Make sure your messages and flyers actually communicate to the public, make them fun, informative, and professional, talk to your CDO, they can help with templates and resources.

  1. Make sure people can respond to your promotional material
  2. Include contact details so people can communicate with you and your club.
  3. Ensure every inquiry is responded to.
  4. Make sure your message is heard
  5. Simplify your material, make sure your material isn’t trying to sell everything, hit them with a key message or point.
  6. Make sure you material is professional, fun, and inviting
  7. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive, but it does have to be effective.

Don’t try and do it all yourself, break the jobs down into small parts that you can distribute to others easily.

  1. Tap people on the shoulder
  2. Ask for help, go directly to individuals and ask them to help with a small task, such as “can you put this up in the supermarket next time you’re in.”
  3. Focus promotions onto key periods, September should be a key month, promote for New Members and your Xmas functions during this period.
  4. Talk to your CDO’s and Bowls NZ staff they are happy to help where they can.
  5. Utilise the Tower Bowls development Fund, it is designed to help promote our sport and generate new members.
  6. Get people to take on projects that interest them, people generally are happy to help when it’s something they know or are interested in, keep it fun
  7. Get the social people to run social programs such as MIB,
  8. Get your creative people to work on Marketing Material
  9. Get your hands on people to fix, paint and clean things.

Record everything you do,

  1. By recording what you have implemented you can keep a track of what has been successful.
  2. Take lots of photo’s record the before and after, people’s memories can be short so it’s always good to show them how far you have come.
  3. Take lots of photo’s of events and people, use this to promote yourself in the future.
  4. Link your sponsors to events and images, this brings more value and revenues to your club.