Zen and the art of marketing

Originally posted by Dan Newham on The Cage Forum, an excellent piece about marketing ideas that could work in the British game. Whether or not the powers that be decide to act on them is an altogether different matter!

I’m watching the Philadelphia vs Tampa game as we speak and the Sun Sports Network are running adverts for a few promotions for upcoming games. In case you’re unaware, the Lightning have been struggling to fill their building in recent months, and as a result the organisation have been pro-active in their attempts to bring people in.

The particular deal in question was a two game pack. For a set price (damn cheap), you get two tickets for two games and a hot dog, soda and parking pass for them both. This is an incredible idea, a typical family of four has every box ticked.

Keeping the kids entertained? Check
Kids fed? Check
Drink? Check
Cheap? Check

This is an area of marketing that I feel the EIHL has missed out on over the years. Every side in the league sits there with 30-70% of their seats empty for 90% of the league games, half the league never manage to come close to filling their rink.

I’ve spoken about this at length on numerous occasions in the past, but it constantly strikes me that the point remains unnoticed in hockey head offices across this country. Saturday night telly is and always has been utterly rubbish, and local families are looking for something cheaper than football to fill their Saturdays with. Let’s get them in. All you need to do is get them through the doors, the game will do the rest.

Looking temporarily past the problem of getting new fans in, I know a lot of fans who are feeling no little lethargy to the current establishment. The quality keeps going down, but the price keeps going up. It’s time to reward the fans who are the lifeblood of this side. A few of my suggested deals will work with this in mind.

I’m not too proud to imagine that all of these ideas will work, or even that any of them will, but what have the teams got to lose? These extra seats are going to be sitting empty otherwise and I guarantee at least 80% of them will buy something during the night. The extra support has never hurt a side on-ice either.

So what to implement? The idea the Lightning use can’t be directly implemented for obvious reasons, but i think the facilities at the NIC are more than adequate to work something together. The key is to not have fans sat at home ticket less thinking they can’t be arsed driving and parking up to see us play out a dull game against the Bison. It’s all about getting them in for multiple games and from a business perspective, getting their money in the bank early.

As for ideas, how about:

- A family of four pass: Two adult and two child tickets, four drinks, four food tokens and a programme for £50. The entire family get everything they need to have a good night with one relatively cheap payment.

- A calendar ticket: One ticket per month for the entirety of the regular season. A ticket for those whom can’t afford every match, but would like to come regularly.

- A Manchester-esque ‘team-ticket’: Every league game against a particular side. Particularly attractive to away fans.

- Game packs: Bit ambiguous, but a favourite of NHL teams and being implemented at Derby County in this country amongst others.

- A 4 or 8 game pack, taking in a variety of different opposition but more importantly can fill up a few more seats for the Hull/Edinburgh/Basingstoke fixtures.

- Month packs: Different from month to month, but offer a free game if you buy all the tickets for that month in advance.

- Half-season tickets: Pretty self-explanatory. Works extremely well at Forest on the odd occasion that they’re offered.

- A few more basic marketing techniques can be implemented too. Buy two get one free for the midweek games. More free tickets for schools and organisations for the quieter games.

These are just ideas I’m throwing about. Some of them require some fine tuning and some of them just plain won’t work with the organisation. I’d just like to see some dynamic thinking and intelligent offers being made. I’ve said multiple times that there’s a definite short-sightedness problem in this league, and that not enough thought is being cast to the future.

I know some season ticket holders wouldn’t be too happy to see some of these ideas too regularly but this is manageable with some proper season ticket holder exclusives and benefits (and I don’t mean a bumper sticker Gary!) Food and drink discounts etc…

To conclude, I don’t know what is being tried in the front office, but I don’t think it’s enough. One thing I do know is that it’s time the clubs stop thinking about immediate profit and start thinking of the long-term benefits in investing in the fans today.