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Makesportfun.com blog

John Ainsworth shares his thoughts on promoting sport every week in his blog...

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29 ways to get more PR for your sports centre

Some of these points are deliberately contradictory. There‘s more than one way to skin a cat.

  1. Don‘t panic
  2. Read the journalists columns before contacting them
  3. Give them something free – local journalists don‘t earn much and love freebies
  4. Become an expert in the journalist‘s eyes
  5. Say something interesting, clever, funny or different
  6. Have an opinion
  7. Ask the papers what they want
  8. Think local
  9. Do something eye-catching
  10. Attract high-profile supporters
  11. Get help – there are organisations out there that exist to help
  12. Be the source when you don‘t need any help
  13. Build a relationship with the journalist
  14. Read the journalists columns before contacting them – I‘m really serious about this. Journalists love people paying attention to what they write
  15. Run a charity event
  16. Don‘t forget journalists are people too
  17. Run a local campaign
  18. Use photos of local people doing something interesting
  19. Use the national news agenda
  20. Use the local news agenda
  21. Remember the journalists names
  22. Approach the journalist not the editor
  23. Approach the editor not the journalist
  24. Don‘t use a PR agency – go direct
  25. Use a PR agency to help with the work
  26. Do send press releases
  27. Don‘t just send a press release and expect to get results
  28. Offer the journalist a coaching session for free
  29. Be consistent

I'm in the middle of writing a short e-book on how local leisure centres can work better with the press. I'll be selling this for £5 on my online store when it‘s done, however all my fabulous, highly-attractive blog readers can get a free advance copy. If you‘d like to reserve a free copy then please email free PR guide to john@makesportfun.com   

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Where to get great photos

Posted: 16 Apr 2008 10:06 AM CDT

The right photo can make all the difference when you're trying to make your marketing stand out. But where do you go to get that ideal photo? As part of my quest to make sport fun, easy and popular I've set it up so you can access all the best sites for sport marketing photography via the Make Sport Fun website.

Some of these sites are free and some aren't. But they've all got great photos of sport.

Photo websites

Sport England photo libraryThis is a collection of over 600 high-quality free photos. I developed this for Sport England to help people working in sport to improve their marketing and promotion. Many of the photos are available in very high resolution.

FlickrFlickr is Yahoo's online photo storage site. Photos are free, but you can only use images which have the appropriate creative commons licence (see below for more detail).

IstockphotoA fantastic low-cost library of royalty free images that cost from ?1-?12 depending upon the size and resolution needed. You can search by keyword, subject, color, and white space.

Stock ExchangeMore than 350.000 photos available. Free for use under certain conditions.

Getty imagesThis is where the pros go. The photos are great, but the prices are higher than on the other sites. Expect to pay between ?75 and ?200 per image.

Creative commons licencesIf you want to use free photos from Flickr or other sites then you need to make sure that you know what you're allowed to use them for. I recommend only using free photos with an attribution licence.

Attribution Licence

This licence allows you to modify the images (by cropping them, or writing on them, for example) and to use them in both commercial and non-commercial spaces. The only requirement is that you credit the author with a link back to their profile.

If you're interested in finding out more about the different types of creative commons licenses then see this explanation.

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Why do companies invest in sport?

Posted: 10 Apr 2008 04:28 AM CDT

In a previous article I explained the 10 steps to follow in order to gain corporate sponsorship for sport. This post is a follow up that covers eight characteristics of sport sponsorship, and explains how companies make decisions about whether to invest or not.

  1. Charitable organisations are more popular than sport, and larger sports are more popular than smaller ones, because of their profile and participation levels. Of total sports sponsorship football gets 35%, rugby union 15% and cricket 14%.
  2. Organisations who have not invested in sport are highly unlikely to invest in sport in the future. However on the flip side - organisations who have invested in sport previously are highly likely to invest in sport again.
  3. Grassroots level projects actually attract more investments that national or international ones. Smaller organisations (up to 50 employees) make up 92% of the investment marketplace. And despite some huge investments (up to ?87 million) most investments are up to ?5000. This is true for investments from both small and large companies.
  4. The top three reasons for investment in sport are to enhance corporate reputation, engage current and potential customers and motivate staff. These are normally measured through consumer research by measuring corporate reputation, increased brand awareness, and staff morale. Companies normally invest in sport in order to help improve facilities or equipment, increase participation, and improve coaching. So be flexible with community sport programmes in order to match the investors requirements.
  5. 72% of companies think that grassroots investment is sponsorship but companies with more employees are more likely to call it CSR. Investment is normally the best term to use. Whatever term you use it is important to be clear about the return that private sector organisations will require.
  6. The number one barrier to investing in community sport is the confusion and clutter of different organisations asking for money. Try and work with your local County Sports Partnership to coordinate efforts and make sure lots of sports groups aren't all approaching the same companies.
  7. A tactic that can be used is to link elite level sponsorship into community level CSR. If a company is already sponsoring a national or international event or team then they will need to be able to leverage that sponsorship. This means they have to put money into grassroots level sport in order to make the most of their investment. It's commonly stated that a company needs to spend 4 times what they invest in sponsorship nationally to get the most out of it.
  8. Most investors don't know about matched funding. So you can increase your chances of getting funding by learning about these opportunities. To find out what options there are for matched funding talk to the Sport England investment team on 020 7273 1551.

This post is partially based on a piece of sponsorship research Ipsos Mori carried out for Sport England last year.

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Ten steps to winning corporate funding and support

April 02, 2008

One of the biggest challenges people tell me about in sport is that there isn’t enough money. One way to address this is to work with businesses.

Some people view sponsorship as akin to getting in bed with the Devil. After all - those companies just want to make money. They’re not in it for the love of sport.

My opinion is that results are what matters. I don’t need someone’s intentions to be pure as the driven snow as long as they help get people playing more sport. And most private companies who put money into sport do care – they just have to make money too.

If you want to win corporate funding then I recommend you follow these ten steps. They were developed by Philip Kottler and Nancy Lee. They researched companies which put money into corporate social responsibility to find out what had convinced them.

Start by developing a list of issues that your organisation or agency works on and that would benefit from additional resources. Be specific. Identify a short list of companies that might have a connection with these issues. You want companies where sport relates to their business mission, products and services, customer base, employee passions, communities where they do business, and/ or have given to sport before. Approach companies and/or their communications agencies and find out more about their interests and experiences relative to supporting social initiatives. Listen to their business needs. Share with them the social issues your organisation supports, the initiatives you are considering or engaged in, and your strengths and resources. Find out which, if any, they find most appealing. Prepare and submit a proposal to those corporations most interested in your social issues. Present several optional initiatives for potential support, ones that are the best match for their stated business and marketing needs. Participate in developing an implementation plan. Offer to handle as much of the administrative legwork as possible. Assist in measuring and reporting outcomes. Provide recognition for the company’s contribution, in ways preferred by the company.I recognise that it’s not always possible to do all of these, but the more you do the more likely you are to succeed at winning corporate funding and support.

Throughout the rest of this series I will be going into detail on some of these recommendations. I will also explain more about why companies do and don't invest in sport in particular.

As always - if you have any thoughts on this post then please write them in the comments section.

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Fun, easy and popular

March 26, 2008

The basis of my work is to get more people to play sport by making it fun, easy and popular. Hence the name - MakeSportFun.

That lovely, but what does it mean? Why am I so set on this? After all, some people say that health promotion isn't fun - it's a serious matter. It's because fun, easy and popular are the everyday words for some very well-tested and effective social marketing concepts.

In scientific circles fun is perceived benefits, easy is self-efficacy and popular is social normalcy. Okay, so they've got posh-sounding names. But how do they help get people to play more sport?

Fun “Will I enjoy doing it?”Easy “Can I do it? Am I capable?”Popular “What do the people I care about think about it?”

FunIf we're going to focus on making sport fun then we need to focus on what our target audience enjoy about it. For example most people play football in order to spend time with their mates and for the competition. These are the benefits that they're most interested in and which will be most likely to get them to come and play. Therefore we'll get the best results if we focus on how people can spend more time with their mates and enjoy the competition.

There's very little point promoting that playing football is going to stop them having a heart attack in 40 years. Heath is about 4th on this groups list of priorities.

EasyThis is all about breaking down the barriers that stop people from taking part. Some of these barriers are actual and some are in people's heads. They're both important.

One option is to run campaigns which convince people that it's easy to take part. This will probably work, but often we can go one step better.

If we can find out what the biggest barriers are for that group then we can try to address them. If the problem is that they don't know where to play then let's make it easy to find where to play. Let's provide text message alerts for teenagers and directories for older people.

If the problem is not knowing how to play then let's provide coaching sessions or coaching videos on YouTube.

PopularFew people like to be the odd one out and no-one likes to look stupid. If people are worried that they'll be the worst person there, or that people will laugh at them then they're unlikely to go. Even if they want to play the sport, and know where to go then this can still stop them.

This can be addressed by helping people to make friends at local clubs. This is being done with school-age children by literally walking them to the local sports club. However taster sessions, roadshows and encouraging members to bring their friends are all equally effective. A good way to encourage this is to run training sessions for clubs which sell them on the benefits of being friendlier and more welcoming to new members.

So if making sport fun, easy and popular is so effective then why does health promotion so often end up making it boring, difficult and lonely? That's a post all in and of itself.

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Getting opinions

March 20, 2008

One of the keys to good marketing is to find out what your customers are thinking. Luckily, nowadays you can do research much more easily and cheaply. I tend to do most of my research online, and my favourite survey tool is surveymonkey.

It's easy to set up, easy to use and it's free. There is a premium package, but I find that for most occasions the free version is perfect.

One of best features is that as your answers come in it translates your results into graphs. This has saved me a lot of time and hassle. When I used to do more research with paper forms I would have to import answers to Excel and then create graphs from there. Now its possible to view responses at any point in the process.

If you're prepared to spend a bit of time messing around with it then you can even customise the look and feel by adding your own colours and logo.

To set up a free account just go to www.surveymonkey.com