RTec wrote:

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As a one off could we not try the offer that Bromley did. £5 if you arrive before 2pm?

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I think that's a brilliant idea! Not only did it work for Bromley FC but also every nightclub in the land that does an early admission discount. I too was absolutely shocked by the attendance yesterday, and walked home wondering what we could do to boost gates. Sadly the number one issue is the price. I've brought mates to the games who, like me, agree that Welling play more attractive football than most league clubs but they all say the same thing "£12's a rip-off mate!" and you can see their point when Charlton are charging just £8 more... They also however quote £5 as a reasonable price, for which they would attend every week. We'd make up the £7 difference on programmes, food and drink easily. Plus I'm sure it would boost the player's morale to see a decent crowd. Yes alot of league grounds in the country have empty seats at the moment but still get 70-80% capacity, so can afford to be extortionate. We have a 4000 capacity ground that only gets 10-12.5% capacity attendances! I can't put it clearer than that! We also need a proper marketing campaign. Despite all their money Charlton's biggest marketing tool for their 'football for a fiver' campaign was their fans! They had teams of volunteers leafleting whole streets, and handing flyers outside stations. Yes we use flyers but not efficiently. I went to my local Co-op in Blackfen recently and found a stack of about 100 of our flyers hiding on the window ledge behind a DVD display. It was only by chance, where I put a bag on the window ledge that I noticed them. We also need people to use the E-tools. I.e the 'like' button below article and sharing the video highlights on YouTube. Facebook is a massive marketing tool but we don't even have an official Facebook page! These are highly effective marketing tools and don't cost us or the club a penny! Our attendances are low for many reasons but poor pricing and poor marketing appear to be the two main culprits.

-- Edited by WingsTillIDie on Sunday 9th of December 2012 09:59:12 PM

Yes it bothers me too.....a few seasons back even when we were struggling the crowds were better....One reason of course is that many teams we play bring 2 men and a dog!!

You could blame all sorts of things but I agree lets get youngsters into the ground from the schools....get them really interested then offer a really good season ticket package for 2013/14 if they have come from this initiative - easy to track!!

The club has probably never done more to promote games than it has recently. Makes you wonder how bad attendances would have been if matches hadn't been promoted.

As MarkX says, the lack of away fans doesn't help. Barely any away fans there yesterday.

As a one off could we not try the offer that Bromley did. £5 if you arrive before 2pm?

Unfortunately more home games seem to clash with Charlton, i honestly think that knocks about 100 of the gate, also we no longer have a proper paid for local newspaper that gives proper coverage to the club, on-line just isn't the same.
I would love to see Welling charge £5 admission for one match, advertise it well, im sure that would get some extra people in.

Kids and Locals are who we need to come in.

KIDS:

Have a competition through the season, 16 schools, can be a mini game or penaties at half time in a home game. 8 first round games, 4 quarter finals 2 semis and a final 15 games on match days over the season. That should bring in 30 kids a game, let their families come in for a fiver each.

Have a family ticket on a match day upto 2 adults and 2 kids £20

Have a junior wings club and they can have photos with Danson the Dog get a newsletter emailed out to them (their parents) once a month from the dog and a page in the programme and section on website, Have the speedshot up over on the erith side and have competitions for the kids.

COMMUNITY

Quite simply we have thousands of houses around us and most dont know about us, Sending off a one off flyer will have limited effect. If they get a flyer once a month through their letter box with lots of offers, info etc we will be in their minds.

Have a community day for a match. Send out 10,000 flyers with come in for a fiver. Have the dog there, the speedshot, get a celeb down (Sutton had comedian Tim Vine), get the Mayor there and the council can push it too. Get a face painter in, have some offers in the bar for food and drink for the adults.

Get some c list ex X factor quarter finalist performing on the pitch before the game. Get local cheerleaders down, Have a cross bar challenge type thing before or at half time with sponsored prize.


I read we offer school tickets and none turn up so involve the schools in games (the knockout) and hook them and the adults, i know Paul cant do everything and if we have a community section then its probably not his job, its theirs.

Try and get someone like MacDonalds sponsoring the community stand and scheme.

If we arent going to have a school knockout then get our youth teams on the pitch in mini games or penalty shoot outs it might get them coming to games. More chance of more kids coming in if we have schools as their mates will ask to come and watch and you will get some parents come, who knows the kids might pester them to come back?

Until we regularly and strategically try and communicate with the thousands of households around Welling we will struggle, Who delivers the flyers? Well arent the community guys paid? One off flyers to a few willy nilly houses is inneffective. Weve seen from Pauls post there is some success in vouchers, lets go and saturate all of welling every month and promote the club, team and ground and what it has to offer. Lets get a kids club, lets get the adults into the bar and the ground.

If any of them have heard of us it will jog their memory, how many know we are a community club? How many know under 12s are £3? Give them an offer they see as value like a family match ticket or the community game for a fiver.

I know the club would say its all very well having 10,000 leaflets but they get left un delivered, for me its a business so spend a few quid marketing properly rather than trying to do it for nothing or do some houses as a fan lives near there. There are also companies that distribute leaflets, having them in a local paper is a waste of time it goes in the bin with the takeaway leaflets and gutter cleaning ones. You can get 20,000 leaflets done for £150 once a month. I havent a clue what the delivering costs are. Leaflet needs to be informative,Club info/bio Fixtures, Results, club events, kids club, vouchers etc etc.

You could also do what the circuses do get a car plastered with Welling United driving about the local area on a Saturday morning. Have we got an advert poster up at Welling station?

Our community section is not reaching out to the community, what percenatge of the community care about if their 6 year old can do 10 keepie uppies ? Community section is basically just letting kids play football, not sure that will attract any families or even the kids to PVR and that has to be the main aim. Community club, speak to the community and offer them value, decent football, kids club, events etc.

If you are struggling ask Lewes, their gates were crap they went community club and their gates rose massively instantly. We arent in the outback we have thousands of homes near by, contact them all regularly and they will know we exist.

Definatly football for a fiver/ kids for a quid. Charlton seem to almost sell out when they do these kinds of offers. Please lets try this for maybe the Dorchester game? good chance of having a good game against them too.

For some bizarre reason when I make a post on the iPhone I can't seem to make spaces between each paragraph. So apologies for the very condensed post above....

I can't fault the efforts of the commercial manager which is a vast improvement on previous seasons but he needs help. I know WUSA has leafletted houses with the Xmas offer and it needs a real collective effort. However,  as a regular commuter, I haven't seen anything up at Welling station in the years that I have been using it.

I think cost has to be the main issue but, if (and I realise it is still a big if) we get promoted, I think the minimum charge for BSP football is currently £ 15 (which is already a 20% increase on current prices) I realise that we will still attract some big away followings if we did go up but, on occasion, they could well outnumber the home contingent.?!

If numbers through the gates do not increase then I fear a price increase next season regardless of what division we are playing in...

All i know is people always tell me how they can go to higher level football for the same or a cheaper price. I think the club has done a great job this season, but i think it needs to have consistency instead of this offer for one game and this offer for another...get something going and say this is what we offer. And instead of just random games set out a pattern (1st home game of month/last game of month)

Even if it bought no more income into the club in the short-term, having 1000 people at the games rather than 500-600 would help spur the team on, and build something people want to be a part of. The team are doing their bit on the pitch, can't do any more.

Attendances are down all over the BSBS.  Welling had the 4th highest attendance out of the 11 matches on Saturday.  Behind Dover and Salisbury with 750 odd and Havant with 650 odd.  These are fair sized towns with populations a lot bigger than Welling.  A lot of clubs in this league are getting even worse crowds than us.

 Lets face it Welling is a long high street surronded by rows of terraced houses.  Not many people that live in the Welling area consider it their HOME TOWN and neither do they think of Welling United as their HOME TOWN club. Most of the locals dont have any emotional connection with their local football club at all.

PS Where are the 600 fans that were scrambling for play off final tickets gone?

 

-- Edited by Riverstown on Monday 10th of December 2012 09:46:34 PM

chelwing wrote:

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Here is a thought - do people think that the fact that the highlights and goals are up on the web site so quickly means people think they will just watch that rather than come to the game. This is in no way a criticism of the videos which are of high quality and I apprecaite being able to see them. On the other hand it could be argued that they are the best advert we can have for Welling.

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I can't believe people would consciously not go to a game because they can watch 15 minutes of (excellent) hightlights online.

we should get a big sponser for the and do a bit of avertising on youtube also i feel that the fliers we put around twon are good but we should try to get some people to gever and go to shoping mail and plaseces like to some avertising there make people know who we are insted of people who supports teams like chelsea and all them lot going to game what like every onece in while go to there local team.

Chris wrote:

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The club has never had a long term strategy to increase the fan (customer) base.  We desperatley need more young supporters, or, in 10-15 years time there won't be a club. 

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That ties in perfectly with my last comment. Thank you.

If you are going to let under 16s in free, you need to control the tea bar(s) and get the profit from them. If we ran our own tea bars as a club you could let in under 16s and not lose too much of the money you are sacrificing at the gate, you are also hooking the young fans and possibly some of their parents.

Marketing, advertising and communicating with the local residents and businesses are what we need to do, and we are at last doing that with businesses.

If we bombarded the locals with news and let kids in free... we may just may see the crowds grow, but we need to be able to catch their spending money in the ground in the tea bars and club shop etc.

JgFc wrote:

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If you are going to let under 16s in free, you need to control the tea bar(s) and get the profit from them. If we ran our own tea bars as a club you could let in under 16s and not lose too much of the money you are sacrificing at the gate, you are also hooking the young fans and possibly some of their parents.

Marketing, advertising and communicating with the local residents and businesses are what we need to do, and we are at last doing that with businesses.

If we bombarded the locals with news and let kids in free... we may just may see the crowds grow, but we need to be able to catch their spending money in the ground in the tea bars and club shop etc.

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 Well i have a little cusion who is geting the welling kit and going to honchuch so see if we kids like his age to start  comeing and then if they like it then they might come agarin and if they keep coming then we will have there support forever then.

I'll tell you what then. I'll make a little poster advertising a promo or somthing tomorrow and would post the results. If the poster gets an apporval then we could take it further if it is a necessary action to take!

Yes I agree

What people also need to understand that if we reduced prices wholesale we would not have the team we have got UNLESS it brought in 100's more to compensate. At the end os the day Non League is in the blood...if you are a 'big time' supporter you will probably stay there ....what I mean is If you go to Charlton for £15 or whatever it is then it is unlilkely you will give that up for us.

I would LOVE to see the two leagues get together properly and sort out fixtures that don't match Charltons THEN do a special season ticket offer to their Season Ticket holders for the opposite weeks!

Getting the next generation in is the key!!......Local Schools etc......Meet the players days for the schools with videos of performances.....a few cheap giveaways and some will be hooked

Free Wings T Shirt with all new Junior Season Tickets etc etc