A strange question you might think for an organization entitled Youth Soccer Marketing, which is trying to sell itself as the answer to all your youth soccer marketing problems.
Far from it. You can consider this post and the one that follows as a form of self-therapy. A mini existential crisis. Because if we’re not asking that question on a fairly consistent basis then we’re in danger of not seeing the wood for the trees.
Marketing Doesn’t Matter if your Product Sucks
This is another post which has not yet been written. If you’ve got some spare cash and thinking about spending it on a marketing staff member, make sure you’ve taken care of the following:
- Coaching
- Operations
- Customer Service
To begin with #1 matters above all else. As a program grows, the others assume more prominence.
When you need to start booking two fields rather than one. When pass cards need to be printed and laminated. When Sally’s dad needs an answer on her team placement or little Johnny’s mom wants a refund for the spring season as he wants to do baseball now. When everyone wants to know if practice is on or off.
If you get all those right you’ll probably do just fine and that golden goose called ‘word of mouth’ will descend from the sky laying golden eggs.
So, in those terms, if none of those are considered marketing, then maybe marketing does not really matter all that much. But then, what is marketing?
Jack of all Trades
Marketing is the art and science of finding prospects – people who are actively interested in what you have to offer. Josh Kaufman, The Personal MBA.
That’s the business school definition but what does marketing mean in youth soccer terms?
On the field and off the field
Much of your marketing is going to be done on the field. as that is your product. Parents watching their kid playing against your teams. Coaches delivering a great development environment and instilling a nice brand of soccer.
It’s not the marketing team’s job to say whether the club should be playing 4-3-3 and building out of the back. But it is their job to tell everyone why the club does that and why that’s important.
Here’s a selection of duties that usually come under the marketing department’s remit:
- Updating the website
- Posting on social media
- Advertising – online and in person
- Graphic design
- Video editing
- Registration solutions
- Email communications
- Manning the ‘info@’ mailbox
- Account management – apparel provider, kit distributor, sponsors
- First line of defense with any new technology company that wants a piece of your membership
- Coming up with new programs/products
- Branding and positioning
- Identifying new markets
I left those last three to the end as that’s what marketing entails in big organizations. But it’s not like that in youth soccer.
The marketing guy/gal is usually the dumping ground for anything that doesn’t involve booking fields, competitive logistics, payments, and answering complaints about playing time. Actually they might do that last one too.
So there’s a lot of jobs kicking about there but what we’re really asking is how much time and money to we want to spend on these things and in turn what value they can deliver. For that we need to consider what we can get away with.