Know-How Exchange : Strategy

ertugrul,

You need a comprehensive marketing plan if you want to successfully sell your barnd to your target audience.
From what you say it looks some reserach has already been carried out.
Of course, if you tudy the issue in detail you will find some great examples as to how it can and is done successfully.
Pls follow Manchester United as your prime example: https://www.manutd.com/home/default.sps?splashtickets.
Getting back to the marketing plan here you have main points to cover:

1.Analysis of your target customers( who they are,demographics, what their needs and expectations,dreams are, what they love,hate etc)

2.Analysis of your soccer club( strenghts,weaknesses,threats, opportunities) and capability to meet your fans' expectations and dreams.

3.Analysis of your competition( also SWOT analysis) and fibding out to what extent they satisfy the needs and expectations of your audience

4.Targeting, segmentation and positioning of your club as different and offering higher value than your competition.

5.4 P's- Price,Product,Place and Promotion

It is only in point 5 wher you come to the issues you touched upon.
Pls bear in mind that if your intention is to make a real brand of your soccer club, then you have to take care of everything involved like infrastructure( enough parking places, restrooms,restaurants,comfortable seats, safety etc).
So first gruntwork as this is also the foundation for a good soccer brand.
Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Adam

Hi

We handle the CRM systems for a number of football (soccer) Rugby and other sporting clubs utilising Maximizer Enterprise and some integration with third party systems.

The basis for most models is to start off with the database of the supporters and sometimes the names on the club’s independent fan club registers. From these, the basic marketing rules expounded by Adam, Paul and Randall are actioned by a mixture of direct mail, email newsletters, ezines and other promotional tools.

Collecting and refining the data is a key to focussing the marketing message to the supporters as is the facilitation of ease of purchase through a linked on-line e-store, with strong integration with the supporters listed on the CRM system. The ability to access their trading accounts via a web portal and to look at anything from seat bookings through to merchandise and affiliate goods for sale provides a seamless experience.

We have also been in discussions with the seat booking software companies, who also have strong web based sales presences, and integration of the supporter database with the seat booking process is a very desirable concept. It’s often more involved than it appears at first sight and some seating-software firms have their own rather expensive, preferred CRM vendors where they have taken the time and trouble to develop an integrated package.

Ground security and turnstile operations also provide a useful feedback into the CRM system and allow you to log who is visiting the stadium – or who appears to be visiting! You have to be careful with data exchange at this level as in many European countries it can contravene their relevant data protection acts or laws.

Loyalty cards are another means of promoting a club’s marketing potential. There are a number of discrete suppliers of such cards and they have the ability to offer affiliate benefits to members of a club when used in conjunction with certain stores, travel firms, airlines, hotels and restaurants. (There’s one based in St Andrews, Scotland whose name temporarily escapes me) Again the sharing of data needs to be legal, but it can contribute to a vast store of information which can be analysed, sectored and utilised for some very sophisticated direct marketing activities based on behavioural profiling.

I would suggest that you talk to vendors in all of these areas to see what benefits they can bring to your marketing operations. A excellent magazine, covering these issues is “Stadia” and Googling Football and CRM, loyalty cards and seat booking will throw up a host of operators too numerous to mention here.

My own analysis of the expenditure of Football clubs on CRM systems alone has indicated spends from £2-3000 to £4-6Million. As far as I can see, those systems which have been intelligently implemented appear to have paid for themselves within a single season. That said, there have been some real cock-ups which had better remain nameless!.

I realise that this is only a narrow area of your question, but I hope that it is of assistance.

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions