1. Developing your membership in a thriving community club
Developing your membership in a thriving community club 

2. Welcome and Introduction

3. Setting the Scene John Oates

4. Setting the Scene What do we want to achieve today?

5. The Situation in Clubs Today
Opportunities for grant support and sponsorship greatly reduced
Competition for remaining funds
Disposable income of consumer reduced
Competition for this
Resources limited in the clubs therefore the clubs need to optimise the resources they have to be competitive and “business savvy”

6. What do we mean by a community club, what does one look like
What do we mean by a community club, what does one look like? What do we mean by a thriving club, what does one look like?

7. A community club Families Women members Community links and reputation
Events for the community
Communication with the community
Data management

8. A thriving community club
Build membership
Retain members
Sponsorship – support of the business community
Sell facilities, events, memberships etc

9. The Key Issues Interacting with the community Selling the club
Building membership
Selling sponsorship, advertising etc

10. What does best practice tell us?
We must make changes
Whatever we do we need to do well
Focus only on changing one thing at a time
Focus on the detail
Identify the skill sets required
Create a plan
Take a “professional” approach, think of the club as a business

11. The Community Reservoir of customers Members for all categories
Volunteers
Sponsors
Performers

12. The Community - visibility
Partnerships – schools, businesses, the Council
Communication
The Brand and Image
Directories, web sites
Supporting the Community

13. Events – interacting with the Community
What outcomes could we achieve?

14. Examples of Events Strictly Come Dancing Open day Bonfire night
Calendar
Disco for under 16’s
Wine and art
Barn Dance
Opera and Orchestra night
Duathlon event
Christmas fair
Ladies lunch
“Take me Out” event
Modelizer initiative

15. What different types of clubs are there
What different types of clubs are there? How do we attract the players to these different types of club?

16. What is the value of the family within the club?

17. What does the Mum want? Challenge for the children
Experience success and failure
Develop confidence and self esteem
Values and Attitudes
Learn about team work
Make friends
Have fun
The Environment – safe with coaches that understand child development

18. What does the Mother want for herself?
Social
Value for money
Friends
Clean loos
A welcome

19. The Role of the Club
To sell the family experience to the Mother and to deliver what they promise.

20. Membership
General Discussion

21. What are the key factors we need to consider when trying to build up membership packages?
Group discussion

22. Why are members important?
Participants
Loyalty and Commitment
They are valuable
Sponsorship Value
Community Links

23. The Membership pathway
Identify the types of membership
Actively sell them
Actively retain them

24. Steps to being successful
Identify the membership “products” including benefits and price. This should be built up after researching the competition and what people “want and need”
Target audience – how big is your data base and which Communication channels are available to you?
Marketing Communication – does it tell the target audience that you have what they “want and need”
Active Selling – through the data base and other communication channels
Welcome

25. The Value of Data

26. The Value of Data
Each individual connected to the club has a value, they are a customer
Once we have their data, as long as we adhere to Data Protection we can use it as many times as we like.
If you can communicate with them you can develop a loyalty and sell them products such as events and merchandise
It costs seven times as much to find a new customer as it does to retain one
You can increase revenue streams through partner promotions
Reduce costs of campaigns such as memberships through use of and targeting
Increase value of sponsorships

27. General Communication
Club Promotion
Events
Sponsorship Packages
Advertising Packages
General Communication
Large customer database
ASSET
Universally accepted communication

28. A thriving community club

29. A thriving community club
Build membership
Retain members
Sponsorship – support of the business community
Sell facilities, events, memberships etc

30. Sponsorship
General Discussion

31. Sponsorship
It is accepted that some sponsorships are provided by friends and supporters. However if we are to grow our income streams we will need to be active in the market place finding other sponsorships. Why do we think a sponsor should / would get involved with your club? What would be their business outcomes?

32. What the Business wants
To find more customers
To retain its customers
To build a brand awareness
To build its reputation
To motivate its workforce

33. Retaining Customers

34. Customer Service within the Clubs
Why do we need to retain all of our customers?
It costs us seven times as much to find a new customer as it does to retain one
Positive Referrals
Lifetime value of the customer is considerable

35. Customer Service within the Clubs
It is accepted that businesses like M and S, John Lewis and Macdonald’s offer good customer service. What is it that they offer and do?

36. Seven Steps to Establish Customer Satisfaction
Understand their wants and needs
Fulfil their expectations
Develop staff commitment
Make service personal – personalisation of e mails
Establish an excellent customer experience
Strengthen the bond with your customer - communication
Evaluate your service through questionnaires

37. Finding people to Volunteer

38. Volunteers
Historically many of the volunteers who were attached to the club were retired and were people with time to devote to the club.
Very often they had been involved with the club in the past and had been good rugby players but they didn’t always have the required skills needed e.g. sales and marketing
Problem
As the economic climate changed clubs were in competition for participants, sponsorship, grants, spectators etc. and the clubs with the relevant skills within their volunteer base had an advantage.
Also people’s lives became busier and the number of people who wanted to volunteer for the roles available dwindled.
Something had to change!

39. Other avenues to pursue
Enhance your CV – young graduates and students
Reduce the roles – create projects
Involve the Mothers