I have for nearly twenty years been creating and managing brands for small businesses. And, during this time I have also been actively involved with the marketing of my scuba diving Club, which as a ‘no profit’ organisation doesn’t have much money to throw at marketing.
Consistency is king
In the case of small organisations such as this, where the production of marketing and communications materials will be updated on an ad-hoc basis it is important that the values, messages and ‘tone of voice’ are understood, so that each new communication will, over time, build into a recognisable ‘brand’.
Here’s how we approached the branding and marketing communications for Kingston & Elmbridge Sub Aqua Club…
It goes without saying that, not every club will have a professional designer in their midst. But it’s always worth finding out what skills the membership has – you may be surprised! My club has marketing professionals and computer programmers amongst the membership, and several of them were involved in the formation of a marketing sub-comittee to outline the aims of any promotional activity – essentially to boost membership;
- A modest budget was allocated to print some leaflets
- Posters can be printed out by members
- Emphasis should be placed on improving the club website, both as a resource for members, but also as a marketing tool
What you lack in money
Although the club couldn’t plough a lot of money into advertising, we were pretty rich in goodwill from the members. So the main (and highly effective) marketing push was to arrange for a stand in a busy high street in the main shopping area of Kingston. The stand,a table, with various props, was manned by members for a couple of hours at a stretch all through the day.
Although we were able to produce some posters and leaflets to attract attention, the best course of action was found to be collecting contact details from interested passers buy to be entered into a prize draw. The prize was a free guided diving experience in our local swimming pool – something that could be arranged at no cost.
It was important to follow-up these leads during the following weeks to make sure that these prospective members felt welcome to visit the club.
Building a photo library
You can see here posters and leaflets that supported this promotion. Although one or two of the images were purchased from royalty-free image libraries the majority of the images were obtained free of charge by running a photographic competition within the club – although amateur, these images now represent a valuable image resource and are more that suitable for a member’s club.
The rules of communication
Once the benefits of joining our club were ratified and put into words, it becomes easy to then produce supporting documents. However it’s important to stick to first principles when drawing up a marketing document;
- Clearly say what you offer in as simple language as possible
- Provide a method for the reader to contact you
Of course, nowadays printed communications can be relatively concise with the knowledge that information can be expanded upon within a web-site.
More on how I approached this in a later article.