Target acquired, conversion in progress...

[ignition. 1,465]

Some great coments guys and girls, thanks for the positive responses.

[Dees2014 2,377]

Well done Ignition. Some really good thoughts here.

During Cameron Schwab's time I sent him a series of concepts to build the MFC supporter base, by applying some my professional marketing techniques - I never got a reply, but he or someone in the marketing department pinched some of the ideas which turned up mysteriously about 12 months later.

The approach was to understand where the MFC strengths were and look at how they could be applied to various target segments of the markets. Some examples were (I actually suggested 10 but I will outline a couple here).

1) the obvious market are the immigrants, both internal and external, who settle in Melbourne every year. This has averaged over last five years about 1500 people week, most of whom are not Aussie rules supporters. On the basis that most new arrivals want to fit in to their new environments, an obvious way to do that is to adopt a local footy team. So I then broke down these arrivals by sub segment and looked at their characteristics which may lead us to match that to our MFC advantages. An obvious sub segment are sports lovers in general, and these can then be sub segmented again into football lovers (eg soccer, rugby union, gridiron) and cricket lovers. Football followers instinctively understand football cultures but usually not Australian rules. Many of the Union followers are also cricket lovers ( people from the UK - fourth biggest source of migrants, South African - seventh biggest source, and NZers - second biggest source) All these people know and understand the fame and importance of the MCG, (as do people from the Indian subcontinent - now our biggest source of migrants), which also happens to be our biggest strength, and many of those same people take a tour of the MCG soon after they arrive. Each year something like 350k people take the tour of the MCG. What I suggested was we (MFC) should own this space via our association with the MCC by providing seminars for these people taking the tours which explain the Aussie Rules game, and provide free passes to those people to the next Melbourne game as guest of the MFC and even provide complimentary MFC scarfs which we should get sponsored by WEBJET or someone associated with the tourist industry. We then should follow this up by providing commentary on the web on MFC games in Hindi and Mandarin so they could follow the Dees when they return to their home country, and also for local supporters ( a suggestion the MFC subsequently took up for Mandarin both for tourists returning home and new arrivals emigrating). I also suggested that we should give a free season's ticket to those new arrivals, provide facilities for them after the game and have someone analyse the game on their behalf perhaps in their native tongue. The test for this of course is the number of season tickets you sell the following season, but if you can't convert 10-15k new members from this exercise I'd be surprised, and considering we only have at most this year 40k this would be significant. It would also help in having much bigger crowds at home games;

2) Melbourne is the biggest destination for Indian students in the country, some 120k study here at any one time. About a third of them stay on after graduation and subsequently become some of the biggest money earners in Melbourne. They are also almost always obsessed with Cricket and therefore see the MCG as a Mecca, and therefore often take the tour and tell this (loudly) to their envious relatives back home. Indian students are also notorious for being isolated in this society and sometimes have very little social life not only within the broader community but even within their own community. I think there is an opportunity here. Why couldn't the MFC build an Indian student branch of the MFC which is as much a social club for them to get together and meet people as it is a football club but it has football at its core. We would hand out to them free members tickets in the first year of their arrival and sell them discounted student tickets in subsequent years until graduation, but we would provide in ground facilities on match day as a social venue. We could sell them drinks etc to cover some of the cost, and perhaps sign up an Indian oriented company as a sponsor. The task is then to sign a significant number of them up as permanent members after graduation and set up branches of the MFC Indian Social club in major Indian cities for when they return home and they can then listen to the game on the net in Hindi. When and if they become subsequent immigrants, which statistically many of them do, they will be already converted Melbourne supporters and hopefully members. The same idea could also be tried with Chinese student although it would need to be in a different form, but with many of the same ideas. We must remember education is in our top half dozen export industries, and Melbourne is at the centre of it. It has got to be a huge opportunity for the MFC as long as we are culturally sensitive in the way we go about it; and

3) the recruitment of kids. We are up against the recruitment of kids because of our small supporter base and the biggest characteristic of choice of club for kids is inherited behavior. BUT there are opportunities if you look. There are families whose sons and daughters play Aussie rules who are not strongly affiliated to a club, and there are new arrivals whose kids take up the game as a means of social acceptance. What I suggest is the MFC heavily sponsor underage footy teams, invite the three best players along to a games as guests of the MFC every month where they will be introduced to the players, given insights into how the game is played, and analysis of the game they have just seen by MFC coaches. At the end of the season the Club could invite the 6 most outstanding players in each junior competition to a function where they can informally talk to the players and coaches and are given football related prizes (eg junior club memberships which entitle them to attend MFC games for free) maybe even giving educational scholarships for the most outstanding players (need a sponsor for this, maybe a major private school interested in recruiting outstanding Aussie Rules players). The idea in this is to get word of mouth going amongst kids and parents that the MFC is a great organisation, and therefore it is ok to become a Melbourne fan. Winning games will help enormously of course, but grass roots action will back this up.

There were numerous other ideas I had in the paper, a few of which were taken up. The point is that there are lots of sophisticated marketing ideas which can be applied to building a supporter base. I don't think we are even close to maximizing our numbers yet, but Ignition's idea to start with individual action by our own supporter base is a really good place to start. Great suggestion.

[dpositive 1,663]

Dees2014

Great ideas I would have liked to see your other ideas as if they are as cogent as these they should be adopted as quickly as possible. I wonder if they got before PJ and if not may be time to introduce them.

If you ever come to Beechworth I would be happy to talk with you about progressive marketing

[Sir Why You Little 37,016]

Hey Dees2014. You have some seriously good ideas there.

Send them into PJ. We have to keep growing that membership base.

The filth are aiming for 100,000 this year.

We must aim in that direction....

[CBDees 3,167]

Well done Ignition. Some really good thoughts here.

During Cameron Schwab's time I sent him a series of concepts to build the MFC supporter base, by applying some my professional marketing techniques - I never got a reply, but he or someone in the marketing department pinched some of the ideas which turned up mysteriously about 12 months later.

I would be flattered if they pinched your ideas as it is a massive compliment [and i am sure that you sent them to CS with the idea that he may take you seriously]. Why don't you follow-up with a visit to the MFC Marketing Department or offer to be a facilitator for a focus group on marketing the MFC?

[Dees2014 2,377]

I would be flattered if they pinched your ideas as it is a massive compliment [and i am sure that you sent them to CS with the idea that he may take you seriously]. Why don't you follow-up with a visit to the MFC Marketing Department or offer to be a facilitator for a focus group on marketing the MFC?

I am not complaining about their using the idea. If i were, i wouldn't have offered them in the first place. I would have thought though it was common practice to acknowledge receipt of such documents. In my day of running marketing department in large corporates, that would have been regarded as totally unacceptable. You get ideas from wherever you can. You track them because there maybe some more coming from the same direction. It is simply good practice. I say this more than anything else as yet another example of a lack of professionalism in the last administration. It was not only Neeld, although he certainly didn't help.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Dees2014