Club Marketing
Contents...
Club Marketing Toolkit
This page will provide you with all the information and resources you need to market your club, build your membership and engage with your local community. Most people in the modern world find things online, so it is a good idea to start with the Digital Marketing section first.
There are three key areas that will be addressed:
1. Digital Marketing
- Creating a website for your club
- Optimising your website's online presence
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
2. Local Marketing
- Posters and awareness
- Open days and community groups
- Pay and Play
- Sponsorship and Influencers
3. Member Engagement
- Member referrals and incentives
- Events and Functions
- Coaching sessions
1. Digital Marketing
1.1 - Creating a website for your club
Croquet England offers a free website tool to all clubs, giving them the ability to create their own website at no cost. Over 60 clubs are already using this free resource. Great examples can be seen at Colchester and Pendle & Craven.
To learn more or request a website for your club, please submit a ticket via our help desk: hesk.croquet-websites.org.uk
1.2 - Optimising your website's online presence
You will want people to be able to find your website when they search for things like local croquet club or sports to do in their area. The process to make your website appear at the top of search results is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). In basic terms, SEO works by matching the keywords used in a search with the keywords on your website, then it assesses the credibility of your website by checking the number of links from other websites to your website. Simply put, more links equals more credibility. In summary, if your website has a good keywords match with the original search and your website seems most credible, you will rank at the top of the search results.
There are many online resources that will teach you about SEO but you should start with the following first:
Create a Google Business Profile
Most people use google when searching, so create a free business profile so that your club shows up on Google Maps and in Search. This is especially beneficial when local people search for things like sports club or croquet as it will push your club profile to the top of the results.
Create a profile here: https://business.google.com/en-all/business-profile/
Create links to your website
Make sure your club is listed on the CqE Find a Club webpage here: https://www.croquet.org.uk/?p=games/clubs/details If it isnt, click the yellow speech bubble at the bottom left of the page to leave a comment for the webmaster to update (you need to be logged into your CqE account to do this). You should also get your website listing on your federation website too.
List your website on free directories such as Yell.com and Bing Places or any local directory. Your council may well have an online directory of sports clubs that you can list yourself in.
Link your club website to your social media profiles.
If you know any local businesses that you think might be happy to add a link to your website, this is a great option too.
Google Search Console
For a more indepth understanding of how people are finding your website and how they interact with it, you should sign up for Google Search Console. This tool will show you what websites are linking to your website and what keywords people are using to find your website.
1.3 - Social Media
You will likely be familiar with main social media companies but it is useful to think about the primary user age on each and tailor the content appropriately: Facebook (40+), Instagram (25-40) and TikTok (Under 25).
Follow this guide on setting up a facebook page for your club.
Remember to link your website on your social media. For the social media algorithm to show your content more, you should try and post at regular intervals, it doesnt have to be every day but it just needs to be consistent. Try by posting something every week or every two weeks.
Ask club members to share you social media pages to increase interaction and drive traffic to your profile. If you think your content is relevant, such as advertising an open day, post about it in local groups or ask them to share your content with their following.
1.4 - Email Marketing
Email marketing is most relevant for when you have open days, run community events or do Pay and Play session. When you operate these sessions you should collect visitors email addresses so that you can get in contact with them with club information, upcoming events and joining the club in the future. You can collect email addresses online via a sign up page on your website in advance of the event or have a laptop or tablet available on the day to collect emails.
Once you have an email list you can use tools like Mail Chimp to easily send marketing emails to your email list. It can be a bit tricky to see straight away but there is a completely free option. The link above sends you straight to the free user sign up.
2. Local Marketing
2.1 - Posters and Awareness
Croquet England provides ready made posters and leaflets that can help you advertise your club. Contact the CqE Office and request some to be sent to your club. Ask local businesses if you can put your posters up in their window or on a notice board. Make sure to put them up outside your club too.
If you want a poster that is specifically tailored to your club, you can create your own using Canva.
Is your club visible to the public? Think about adding a banner at the entrance to your club or a feather flag to let people know where you club is. You can design your own banner on canva and there are many online companies that can print these for you for less than £100.
2.2 - Open Days and Community Groups
Run an open day at your club to attract local people to give croquet a try. Try and run an open day on National Croquet Day to help attract more interest. Link to information and resources for National Croquet Day
For further information about open days, read section 7 about Recruitment on this page: Building a Successful Club. Remember to advertise your open day on your website, social media and local posters / flyers.
Fun croquet games to play on an open day
Another great way to get more people involved with your club is to invite local community groups to come and give croquet a try. Whether that is your local U3A club, other sports club or local residents group. Its a great way to build relationships with people in your local community too! A good example of this is, if there is a church nearby your club, invite members of the church to come to the club for tea and cake following their Sunday service and have croquet club members available to teach them how to play. This is not only good for engaging with the local community and building stronger connections with local people but those people might later become members.
Some suggested organisations that you can contact to run engagement session for are found here.
2.3 - Pay and Play
Pay and Play is a great way advertise your club to your local community, generate some additional revenue and potentially get some new members. Pay and Play is similar to what a mini golf centre offers. It is a timed session of croquet, for a fee, that people can book to come and play croquet at your club. The club provides the equipment and it is useful to have an instructor on hand to teach people how to play and manage the session. Usually this is offered on summer weekday evenings or weekdays so that people who are working can attend.
CQE has a webinar about how to set up a Pay and Play session for you club: https://youtu.be/yYalMOIpEbQ
Don't under charge when running Pay and Play sessions. Charge at least £10 per person for a 1 hour session. If you charge too little, potentially attendees will under value it and may not bother turning up. Benchmark your costs to local mini golf courses.
Make the experience better for beginners and maximise the number of places you can sell by setting up your courts up as quarter size. If you have a few sets of wider hoops, these are perfect to use. The Slim Hoops in the Croquet England Shop are great as they do not leave any large holes in the lawn.
2.4 - Sponsorships and Influencers
When we say influencers, we dont mean famous celebrities, we mean prominent people in your local community such as the local mayor or your MP. Invite these people to your club and make sure to get some pictures and/or video content which you can post about in a blog post on your website, a social media post or contact your local newspaper to see if they would be happy to write an article about the visit. Contacting your local news provider is often best done in advance of the visit as they may send someone down to take the photos and do an interview, saving you most of the work.
In terms of sponsorship, you could contact local businesses to see if they wanted to sponsor your club but you would probably find that unless you have a very large membership or very strong community links, local businesses do not necessarily benefit from sponsoring your club. However, you can think about how sponsorship can benefit you both. For instance, contact a local cafe and agree a deal with them such as club members get a 10% discount from the cafe. Ask the cafe to put this deal on their website and a link to your club website. Build a relationship with the cafe and put up club posters in their window. Organise a regular meeting of your club members at the cafe so that the cafe benefits too. Maybe in the future the cafe helps you out with the catering for an open day. Building relationships with the local community is important.
3. Member Engagement
3.1 - Member referrals and incentives
The best way to get new members is for your currently members to introduce friends and family to your club. If you hold an open day, make sure to encourage your members to bring as many people along as possible.
There are also ways to incentivise members to introduce new people to the club. You can provide discounted first year memberships to new joiners, so that the financial barrier of joining the club is reduced. You could also offer existing members a discount on their next years membership for every new member that they introduced who ended up joining the club. If you have a club bar, you could issue new members with credit on the bar, rather than a discount on membership to encourage them to engage more with the club upon joining.
3.2 - Events and functions
Make your club available to host events and functions. Many of your members may work for local companies who are looking to organise a summer party or a team building activity. Let companies in your local area know that you can host them. This will firstly generate the club some additional revenue but attendees will be exposed to croquet and assuming they had a good time, tell other people about it who might not otherwise have given it a try.
When running events, set up your courts at half or quarter size to make games more fun and easier to play. Try using Five Hoop Rules which is based on Golf Croquet but only playing 5 hoops.
3.3 - Coaching Sessions
Beginners croquet coaching sessions can be a good way to encourage new members as it removes the barrier of not knowing how to play. People who complete a coaching course are more likely to join as members upon completion of the course.
4. Other Resources
4.1 - Links to useful materials
Sport England offers some very useful information about marketing and communication which can be found via the link: https://buddle.co/learning-and-support-resources/develop-and-grow/marketing-and-communications
Webinar on Marketing, Comms & PR
Webinar on Marketing your Club
4.2 - Tailoring your marketing material to your audience
Knowing what your 'offer' is and effectively communicating it, is the key to successfully marketing and promoting your club.
Promoting your club is about telling people what you can offer them. It's really important to spend time planning your marketing, thinking about who you are targeting, choosing ways you can reach them and how you will measure the effectiveness of your communication.
A Marketing Strategy is a plan for how your club will promote itself. It will help you think about what makes your club different so you can get the right message out to the right people.
Links to other Croquet Matters Resources
- Croquet Matters Home
- Club Finances
- Club Management
- Club People
- Club Marketing
Using this website
