Advertising Boards at Football Grounds

[KeithP]

A potential Client I've pitched to has just decided that rather than spend their modest marketing budget on a website update (last done in 2004), they're going to spend £1900 on an advertising hoarding at their local League 2 football club for next season.

This is a club that gets around 2000 fans for a home game and personally, I think that the fact the Client is a life-long fan of this club is clouding his judgement. It's virtually impossible to monitor the ROI for this medium and I've not found any evidence anywhere that advertising at football grounds is actually an effective medium for small businesses.

Perhaps I'm wrong but I'd be really interested to know if anyone has any actual experience of this sort of advertising and if it works on any level? The Club themselves have done a great sales job on him and he thinks that the chance of his company name being seen for a split-second on The Football League Show is going to transform his fortunes.

<lie>I'm not in the least bit frustrated by his decision</lie>

 

[Findermonkey]

Personally I think it will be a waste of his time. If the club design the advert as well then it will be a complete waste of time as there designers will make it look pretty rather than making it convert. Its not specific enough to work, unless his business is aimed at football fans. He could track the ad if he used a tracking telephone number rather than his usual one but I think he is going to be disappointed if he does that.

He would be better served using his budget to get his site working and then do some targeted PPC.

Problem is, you can't educate Pork!

 

[superdooper500]

I think it completely depends on a few factors:

1) What is his business type? Is it a local service for local people? E.G Aldershot Plumbers?

2) Could you not help him tie in his static advertising with some sort of 'call to action' such as get a 10% discount on plumbing text 56578 for discount code.. etc

3) With 2000 local people in there, could he not build up some sort of offering for the fans, other clubs I've worked with in the past have had their sponsors come up with some sort of discount or offering for the fans e.g 'Boiler Service only £89 for Aldershot Fans' or whatever.

4) What does his website do? If its a simple 'brochure' site that get some good natural search rankings already, why fix it? How would this boost his ROI?

What I'm trying to say is, apart from you offering web services, what is the argument for a website overhaul Vs some cleverly done interaction with a local fanbase?

I don't think its as bad as you think it is to be seen to be supporting the local team and embracing the local people...unless of course he's some sort of internet only e-commerce merchant.. in which case a 9 year old website might be in need of some TLC.

 

[KeithP]

His current website uses Frames and a Flash-based intro page - I need say no more.

He's a local business offering a pretty common service (B2C).

I actually suggested that the ad board could be used in conjunction with some landing pages but his website is so poor that anyone who visits it will hit the 'BACK' button before they've even considered his offering. More problematic is that he doesn't have the budget for this ad board and a new website so for him, it's one or the other.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of supporting the local team (and I do) but I guess that I'm just venting my spleen on here as I know that we could provide a significantly better ROI with a new website.

I guess you win some....

 

[superdooper500]

Yes it doesn't sound like the most up to date of sites, but I guess in the short term and dependent on the business, if it ranks ok, and users can find a phone number to call, then that can't be all bad. Depending on what the business is, you may find you go through great efforts to set up some fantastic lead generation systems, only to find they just want their phone to ring to book 'jobs' and emails etc from people who are enquiring are no good to them.

By the sounds of it, the guy isn't the most receptive to online as a medium to attract new business, so sounds like you'll have to spell out the ROI benefits of your proposal to him.

Best of luck!

 

[Colin Smith CBP]

A potential Client I've pitched to has just decided that rather than spend their modest marketing budget on a website update (last done in 2004), they're going to spend £1900 on an advertising hoarding at their local League 2 football club for next season.

This is a club that gets around 2000 fans for a home game and personally, I think that the fact the Client is a life-long fan of this club is clouding his judgement. It's virtually impossible to monitor the ROI for this medium and I've not found any evidence anywhere that advertising at football grounds is actually an effective medium for small businesses.

Perhaps I'm wrong but I'd be really interested to know if anyone has any actual experience of this sort of advertising and if it works on any level? The Club themselves have done a great sales job on him and he thinks that the chance of his company name being seen for a split-second on The Football League Show is going to transform his fortunes.

<lie>I'm not in the least bit frustrated by his decision</lie>

In a previous business, we did exactly what your client did and spent a decent proportion (about 15%) of our annual marketing budget on an advertising hoarding with a league 2 football club. Despite our reservations about the effectiveness of this kind of advertising, we persuaded ourselves that this was the perfect place to market our business. We were about to open an indoor and outdoor five-a-side football facility, so what better way to raise awareness of our business amongst the local football community than to have a branded hoarding at the local ground?

After we opened, we would often speak to players who had season tickets for the club and I would say that 90% of the fans that went to every home game were completely oblivious to the fact that we had an advertising hoarding there. Only after we had pointed out to them that we had done it did they notice it.

We did one season and then didn't renew. It's impossible to say if it had any kind of positive impact but I cannot directly attribute any business to that "marketing investment", which I thought at the time was remarkable given how strongly relevant our business was to the people watching. The truth is that this kind of advertising is predominantly a vanity thing and a chance to give back to a community club. If that is why they have done it, then they won't be disappointed but I am confident that this investment is not going to do much, if anything for their business.

 

[Findermonkey]

If you want to know how effective an ad is, use a tracking number. This is a telephone number that is just for that particular ad, then you can look to see how many calls you got from that ad, thus, you know if it was worth your hard earned cash.

 

[KeithP]

Sadly his site doesn't rank for anything aside for his business name and our proposal detailed that, along with about 20+ other issues his current site has - it truly is an awful site that probably does his business more harm than good. I am pretty sure that his decision to buy the ad board is based on vanity rather than good marketing sense but I can't exactly say that to him.

 

[KeithP]

If you want to know how effective an ad is, use a tracking number. This is a telephone number that is just for that particular ad, then you can look to see how many calls you got from that ad, thus, you know if it was worth your hard earned cash.

If I were managing his marketing then I would certainly have used some sort of tracking method but sadly for him, the football club don't appear to be that keen on proving if the board does generate customer enquiries so he's just using his main office number.

 

[GraemeL]

I am pretty sure that his decision to buy the ad board is based on vanity rather than good marketing sense but I can't exactly say that to him.

Hello,

I can speak from personal experience as we have just had one designed and set up ourselves! There is no doubt that from a marketing perspective, its largely vanity - you are right. But at our level of football, every penny is desperately needed by the club, who do a great deal to support youngsters in the local community. So there is a degree of giving money in support of that activity.

The other reason is of course that when the game is a little boring, I can stare at our sign and dream of more exciting things, such as the £millions we are going to sell next week.

G

 

[KeithP]

The other reason is of course that when the game is a little boring, I can stare at our sign and dream of more exciting things, such as the £millions we are going to sell next week.
G

LOL - at most League 2 games you'll have plenty of time for that then

 

[GraemeL]

LOL - at most League 2 games you'll have plenty of time for that then

League 2? We would need oxygen to compete at that rare altitude. I think you confuse those clever people of Oxford with us! Well, they can be as clever as they want, but we have Royal connections. All they have is Lewis.

G

 

[Philip Hoyle]

If it's Aldershot, they're dangerously close to relegation so there may not even be the few seconds of TV fame on The Football League show on Saturday nights, and potentially fewer spectators at the game also.

 

[KeithP]

If it's Aldershot, they're dangerously close to relegation so there may not even be the few seconds of TV fame on The Football League show on Saturday nights, and potentially fewer spectators at the game also.

I couldn't possibly comment Philip

 

[Websitehandyman]

I may be on my own here but I would say the football banner will bring more income the a new website. Because even a new website still leaves him with advertising to do.

But as already said it totally depends on his business and where it's based. One thing is for sure the will be a hard core of a fans who will know the company name well.