Marketing is a fundamental tool that will help your club communicate a key message to your audience. It is a communication of an idea, concept, product or service to an audience.
Marketing within surf clubs is a strong way of connecting with the community across multiple platforms of communication tools. It is a concept that will help your surf club deliver on the club’s identified overall goals, so it is important to make sure that what you want to do is delivering on those objectives. The combination of community service, sport and recreation in the surf life saving environment is an extremely marketable product. If marketed correctly a club has a valuable asset that would be the envy of many professional marketing departments.
a) Preparing a plan
A surf club must first identify a reason for marketing. Developing a marketing plan or strategy will be the most efficient way to align the key goals of the club. As clubs try to make the most of time and people it is essential that the club carefully looks at developing a strong plan or strategy so all resources are put to their most efficient use.
A strategy or plan is a series of steps or actions which the club is required to take to achieve its objectives. A budget should be considered at this stage to determine how much the club can afford and therefore determining what avenues or marketing channels would be most effective.
A general 8 step marketing plan should follow:
- Identify the opportunity (broad, descriptive, qualitative)
- Define the objectives (measurable, quantitative)
- Who are the key audiences?
- What are the key messages?
- Are there events & programs that would help?
- List the key media and key tools
- Identify specific tasks to reach your objectives (your todos)
- Measurement. Did it work?
You must have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve through marketing and should become a clear and concise statement of the desired end results. These should be promulgated to all club members to ensure their support and confidence. Through greater awareness of the objectives others not involved in the marketing process may be motivated to help in some way.
Care must always be taken to ensure these objectives are compatible with the actual reasons the club exists e.g. ensure the marketing strategy is supporting the club’s primary charter or reason for being. Examples of objectives:
- Increase cadet membership by 15% within 12 months
- Have reserves of $25,000 within three years
- Have three competitors make Australian finals at Australian titles
- Provide free sunscreen and hats to all patrolling members
b) Analysing your market and the audience
A marketing plan will only be successful if it is aimed at the appropriate group of people. You can take the shotgun approach, load the rifle, fire it, and hope that whoever it hits will be interested enough to check out your activity. By determining your audience it will allow you to tailor your content appropriately i.e. the type of tools you use, how your content is written or looks and the desired feel and/or action the audience should get from your marketing.
A general rule is to ask: Who are they? Where are they? What is their interest? How can we reach them? And, most importantly, why should they be interested in what we have to offer? Look at the current members of your club. Ask, who are they? Why are they here? When trying to identify the target market, consider the following list:
- Gender
- Age groups
- Single people or couples
- Family groups
- Occupation
- Ethnic groups
- Religious background
- Educational background
- Location – town or suburb
- Other leisure interests
- Time available for leisure
- Availability of money for leisure activities
When looking at a club membership, consider the common factors they share. Are they all men or family groups? Do they come from similar backgrounds? Do they share other leisure interests etc?
Examples of the target market are:
- Kayak paddlers
- Swimmers
- Triathletes
- Sponsors interested in safety service
- Local businesses with an interest in the area
Having established your target markets you now need to determine what their needs will be. Once established you will need to determine whether the products and services you intend to offer will satisfy those needs. The questions to be asked in this case are, for example:
- What does a 13 year old require of a program?
- What do his or her parents require from that program?
- If I was to sponsor this event what would I require?
- If I was a newspaper editor what would I want in terms of editorial content?
- For what reasons do I donate to the cause?
- For what reasons would I not donate to the cause?
You can answer these questions yourself or amongst other club members but the best method is to ask a sample of your prospective target audience. Not only will this give you a more accurate response but it can be the beginning of establishing a rapport with the audience
Once the target audience’s needs are clear, the club needs to have another look at its products/services to see if they satisfy those needs in their current form. It may be that they need to be altered somewhat to ensure their attractiveness to that audience.
c) Delivering on your content
It requires less effort to keep customers than it does to try and find new ones. Always deliver what you promised, when you said it would be available and as you described it.
It is a valuable rule of thumb to originally understate what the club can do and then over deliver. Your aim is to keep your audience happy, satisfied and keen to be involved again. This is best achieved by performing at or above their expectations. These expectations are usually developed as a result of what they are promised in your first meeting.
Remember, not only can these satisfied members come back for more, they can also encourage others to do the same. It is also useful to write a report on the success or otherwise of the stages of the program to assist with the future evaluation and fine tuning. If suitable these reports should be made available to appropriate members and supporters.
Clubs must choose the method in which they will action their marketing plan. This may be through different mediums and formats such as:
- Email (information distribution)
- Paid Advertising (i.e. Newspapers, magazines)
- Online advertising (i.e. Google adwords, Facebook advertising)
- Social Media (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
- Local TV/Community Service Announcements (CSAs)
- Print (i.e. posters, flyers, banners)
- Press, PR, Media
- Joint cooperative with another group or organisation
d) Tracking your success and improving on your wrongs
Measuring your ROI (Return on Investment) is an invaluable tool to the success of your marketing efforts. The only way to know what you are doing is working is by measurement. By initially setting realistic goals this will help you determine your ROI.
Examples of ROI are:
- Membership numbers
- Comparing donation amounts or funds compared to previous years (increase/decrease)
- Higher profile in the local community
- Media engagement within the community
- Number of members staying versus number of new members (i.e. churn rate)
- Number of visits to your club’s website
- Interaction through social media (i.e. new likes or followers, engagement levels etc)
e) Who’s here to help?
Clubs are made up of a diverse group of people from the community so it only makes sense that the club has at its disposal, a diverse range of skills. Clubs are encouraged to harness these resources, particularly in specialty areas like marketing. Check to see if any club members, their families and/or friends are employed in the marketing area and if they might be willing to assist.
You can always contact your State Volunteer Support staff, who will be able to help provide you assistance or direction. A series of resources are available for clubs online through the LSV and SLSA websites which are further outlined below in the resources section.
f) Protecting the brand (IP & TMs)
IP (Intellectual Property) refers to items such as trademarks, copyrights, brands/logos and specific designs (to name a few).
Trademarks are extremely valuable marketing tools. The public identify a certain quality, standard and image with goods and/or services bearing specific trademarks. There is a concise and long standing IP policy in place pertaining to the use of SLSA/LSV intellectual property. This can be found on our website or in the Member Portal.
Surf Life Saving goes to great lengths to help protect its IP and trademarks to ensure our brand stays strong and benefits the entire movement. It is imperative that clubs support and protect the brand as much as they can.
Leading international business publications, business leaders and financial analysts agree that brands represent valuable commercial assets that are well worth protecting. Strong brands have the power to create business value. They impact heavily on revenues and profit margins. Strong brands create commercial advantages by commanding a price premium and entry into markets that may not typically be available to organisations such as ours.
Our brand is more than a logo and it’s more than an image. Branding is the way in which you can create an emotional connection with people. The brand or mark you promote is a representation of that relationship.
Surf Life Saving is an iconic brand. SLSA holds copyright to a number of properties e.g. logos, activities, events. Most importantly we own the red and yellow flags, our patrol uniform and our logos. We also own the names Nippers, Surf Life Saving, Swim Between the Flags, Beach Patrol, Surf Rescue and Lifeguard.
The devices, images and names associated with Surf Life Saving have been registered as trademarks by SLSA and/or LSV. These marks are symbolic of our organisation’s proud history and represent the most valuable asset we own. It is therefore essential for us to limit the use of our brand by third-parties to both protect and retain the value (financial and reputation) of our brand identity and to maintain tight controls against its misuse.
Both national and state sponsors pay significant amounts of money to obtain rights to use our intellectual property and brand as a demonstration of their support and partnership with us. This association with our brand creates a commercial advantage for these organisations therefore we must at all times ensure parity (equality) for the value we assign to these assets and protect the commercial interests of these sponsors. Risks associated with the misuse of our logo include:
- Potential to erode the brand and logos’ value for current and future use, leading to a loss of organisational profitability and/or anticipated competitive advantages in the commercial market
- Stifle or impede further development and/or economic commercialisation of the brand for the benefit of the movement as a whole
- Undermine planned transactions, investments, strategic business plans that SLSA or LSV may have with sponsors
However, the most important aspect of brand protection is our legal obligation to defend any misuse of our brands/trademarks/ logos by non-rights holders. In the event we are required to demonstrate that we have actively tried to protect one or all of our assets in a court of law (say if someone legally questioned our right to own the red and yellow patrol shirt), we must be able to demonstrate where we have vigorously defended its use and our claim to it, at all times.
References
SLSA – Policy 6.01 – Intellectual Property Policy
portal.sls.com.au