: Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:59 pm  

gutterfax wrote:

This may or may not be a pipe dream, but I feel it might be worth the club considering it NOW rather than in February.......which is what will probably happen

This highlights the first hurdle.....Key to getting anything moving is funds and being out of season I would have thought it necessary to use the club`s data base (yes I know this was mentioned/derided on another thread), to send out a mail drop and gauge the level of support/interest/funding that existing fans may give....get some money through the door and things could be active before next season. Working arrangements with the club and their general appetite to co-operate will need to be sorted sooner rather than later to give the initiative some direction.

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 3:12 pm  

right, with the few on here that seem keen, we have about £180 so far.....whose round is it

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:05 pm  

gutterfax wrote:

If we had 750 @ £60 a year, then we would have £45,000 to play with.

£45,000 is throughout the year, but what you really need is a front loaded fund to pick up people at the start of the season, through to mid as come the end, the spend returns are not as good.

Therefore max usable fun in the first year may only be say £25,000 with contributions from a set mid season month going in the pot for the folloiwng season and a bigger push

I would imagine that with £3,500 available for each game, we would look at a voucher in the local press, some PR coverage on local radio stations, maybe a poster at Twickenham station (oh, how i'd love it for Quind to sponsor the station..flowes, clean and tidy thanks to Quins RL), leafletting at the station on Thursday/Friday nights...blah blah blah...

Okay, Radio Advertising - waste of money, all background noise to people unless you get sufficient saturation and the money isn't enough.

Voucher scheme - great, but the club should be doing this anyway. Half price etc on production of voucher at gates

Poster at station - Yes this should be done.

Flowers - don't be wet - complete waste of money!

Leaflets at station again a no.


I would consider a 5,000 increase on the annual total (£9 A POP) a fair return on investment...but more importantly, we would attempt to get feedback from the newbies on what they liked/didn't and encourage repeat business.

It's not worth the effort for just 5000 bums acrossd a year, that's a mickey poor total. 20,000 + should be the aim.

I'd in addition to you ideas give all local schools free tickets for two children and one paying adult for the opening game. The club should do this. Then all those who bought into this can be offered a reduction for the next game and so on.

All houses in the TW1 postcode should be direct mailed with a book of discount tickets and a warm invite.

The club needs to take a huge gamble and have a concerted push with the locals as I'm more inclined to try something new if travel is not a problem.

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:24 pm  

Have I been cloned.
Simon, all of the things you say are true ('sept for the station flowers....it works for surrey county cricket and the estate agents that sponsor putney overland station...cheap brand awareness).
I have (if you can be @rsed searching through the ,000's of posts) said everything and more that you have and this is why we are having this discussion.
I also said PR through local radio, as I wouldn't spend a penny on that or TV.
Vouchers....last one I remember seeing was in Metro for £10 in and 6 VB at Griffin Park when we had an "inside man at Metro"
Leaflets at the station depends on how you do it. I have in the past suggested that a couple of fit players and a couple of fit cheerleaders should actually tour the regions bars and pubs for a couple of evenings, handing out leaflets and selling advance reduced price tickets.......at little or no cost to the club. Let's face it, of the 250,000 odd population who reside in the borough....about 1% if that know we exist.
5,000 bums is a realistic target at a CPA of £9.....20,000 at £2.25 or even £1.25 with the revised 25k total is insane and I for one would worship at your door if it could be achieved. My target is 10% yours 40%....let's split it down the middle and aim for the stars!
As for a big splash at the begining to get repeat business, if there were to be a big push, I would leave it to May/June when the competition are OFF season. Also, let's not push us v Saints.....why not us ve Celtic (a win is good for the soul)
I believe that above the line marketing is best left (in most parts) to the P&G's of the world. What we need to do is look at clever ways of promoting the club to the locals. Cleaning up the station which must see 100,000+ journeys, 2 times a day, has got to be a start. FFS......even I would give 2 hours a week to sweep, paint and generally keep it tidier.
As for the free kids and adults with reduced return tickets....I am sick of banging on about this, The CRM at the club is non existant. As for mailing
and the club speculating....do not get me started. Nobody on these boards will thank you for it!

SIMON....IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME...i POSTED THIS IN APRIL2007
RANT
I have just been reading the post on the VT about the attendance for the Wakey Game and I think it's about time that the club took a risk to get our attendances up.
Offers to transiant fans in TNT is all well and good, as is the occasional advert over a urinal in pubs, but I would like to see more "above the line" (as against "above the urine") marketing from the club.
The Evening Standard/London Lite/The London Paper/Metro have a combined readership in excess of 2,000,000. Why not give away 1,000 tickets on a first come first served basis, with late comers offered a taster ticket for £5 a pop. This would not be "advanced purchase", but turn up on the day.
The expense of such an exercise, I believe would not be too taxing, given the extra (potential) revenue at the bar/food outlets. THEN......if we do get an extra 5,000 through the gates, offer them another £5 taster ticket for use at ANY FUTURE home game this season.
Estimated cost: £20,000 on advertising and £3,000 on additional stewarding.
Potential result: Depending on what the club can squeeze out of the London Press and Radio stations, (PR) I would hope that 5,000 extra bodies would show up, with 4,000 coughing up £20,000 at the gate and an additional (£3 each minimum) £15,000 in residual spend (hotter the day, colder the beer!)
Hard to estimate the number of secondary tickets sold, but if the voucher to get the free ticket required an address to be filled out, we would get 5,000 extra targets for future offers.
If the £20,000 advertising cost is deemed too much, reduce it by targeting commuters at Waterloo and Victoria Stations, using the Harlots and a few players and volunteers. Also, possibly target our union brothers for the same game with a fe kids and cheap ticket offer.

I don't know if this would work, but it's got to be worth the club taking a risk on SOMETHING other than the "slowly slowly catchy monkey" approach that so obviously isn't working.
RANT OVER

THERE HAVE BEEN MANY MORE LIKE THIS, DATING BACK TO 2003, BUT THE SERVER SWITCH BINNED LOADS OF THEM.

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:38 pm  

Seeing as I have been asked for my views on this, I shall give them.

The club did indeed back the former Supporters' Action Group (SAG) which raised funds through things like try sponsorship etc. Once year zero had been declared - 2006 under Lenaghan - this few quid was not wanted anymore. There has been quite a long history of the club getting into financial bother, turning to the support for assistance and then declining said help when things seemed more settled. Based on this, it'll only be a matter of time until...

That said, some sort of crowdbuilder scheme which saw cash assistance and ideas with regard to marketing could help things. QRL has to get it right within the next three years. The fact that fewer than 4k people sometimes out of a population of 8 MILLION attend fixtures regularly is a disgrace and something really needs to be done. All of GF's, Simon M's (hi mate) and Poplar Panther's (hi Dave) ideas are sound and should be actioned before next season starts.

For want of a horseshoe nail, the battle was lost...

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:50 pm  

well you can have £100 off me and my time to do leaflet drops flyering etc. at weekends. Would a big push with 1000s of flyers with all the home fixtures on, prices and an image of LMS on it be a good place to start? raising the visible profile is the key i think so getting into local homes, pubs, an ad at the station, in the local papers has to be the place to start?

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 5:32 pm  

I will match Your 100 smackers

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:17 pm  

I think it would be easier if we did put £100 up front, it will feel less painful, show we are committed (we should be) and less admin. This would be fairly unque (some clubs have squadbuilder schemes) but none have a marketing armed wing! Someone with some savvy and previous contact some should bell or email Hoggy to see if they would let us do it.

I would be happy to let GF run the whole show, but that is not democratic and no one is perfect. But I do like his style and persistence, We would need some semi-formal group as money is involved but there are many mutual outfits out there and there is no reason why we can't be one of them. I really think we should tread carefully, but with a new CEO soon I think we may be knocking at an open door.

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 6:44 pm  

Windy one wrote:

I second Chair person Gutterfax(but he is not allowed near the beer sorry refreshments fund )

flattered as I am, I would feel happier with the collective rather that the singular....not bottling it, just the old strength in numbers malarky ....
Like the idea of a refreshment fund though

: Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:50 pm  

This all sounds great, and I would add my support by joining up if this does materialise. (£100 or £60 is OK for me, though I think £60 would be more likely to get more people to join).

I must say as well I have been following the club since the last year as London Bronco's, and this is the most promising and serious idea I have seen to really raise the profile of the sport/team. I know the first game as Quins RL got a full house but a dissapointing loss that day to saints didn't really help.
I also think saturday ko's this year will help attendances, I haven't looked at official attendances (even though they don't always seem 100% reliable) but I seem to recall that the attendances were slowly creeping up until we changed to Sundays.

p.s. I think sponsoring the station is a brilliant idea. A lot of trains go through Twickenham everyday, and most people in the country associate Twickenham with 'rugby' whether they actually watch games or not, so going through Twickenham station and seeing 'HOME OF HARLEQUINS RUGBY LEAGUE' will raise awareness of our club and our sport, then after that, pulling them in with ticket offers etc in theory should be more successful.