For my mother, Meg Coten

You have given me everything and loved me
unconditionally. I will be forever thankful.

For John Stone

My first basketball coach, who pushed and
inspired me to be the best I could.

© Ned Coten 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold or gifted with the understanding that the author and publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

Proudly self-published in Australia by Ned Coten
Game Plan Marketing
PO Box147 Prahran
Victoria 3181 Australia
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M: +61 433 136 832
E: ned.coten@game-plan-marketing.com
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W: www.game-plan-marketing.com

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author:Coten, Ned, author.
Title:Game plan marketing / Ned Coten.
ISBN9780987534712 (ebook)
ISBN:9780987534729 (Kindle)
Subjects:Sports – Societies and clubs – Marketing – Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Sports administration – Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Public relations – Sports – Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Corporate sponsorship – Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Dewey number: 790.0698

Author photo: Jon Webb
Editing and typesetting: Michael Hanrahan (www.mhps.com.au)
Cover design: Elizar Liwanag

Contents

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Introduction

Don’t miss this bit – the rest of the book won’t make sense without it!

When most people think of sports marketing the image of big sports organisations comes to mind: the AFL, Tennis Australia or Super Rugby in Australia, the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball in the US, and major football (soccer) competitions such as the English Premier League and Serie A in Italy. But this market represents only a fraction of sports participation and organisations around the world.

For every major sports brand there are thousands of other sports organisations fighting for their own piece of turf. These sports businesses cater to literally millions of men, women and children, able-bodied and disabled, from many countries, who play sport at every stage from beginners through to elite level.

Despite the fact that they cater for the majority of sportspeople, both amateur and professional, these smaller organisations face the biggest hurdles in attracting members and participants, finding commercial partners and generating revenue. They may have significant capital assets and many stakeholders, but often rely on volunteers and struggle with the day-to-day challenges of marketing and promoting their sport. This book has valuable lessons for anyone involved in the administration and marketing of sport or a sports-related business. It provides a ‘game plan’ for growing an organisation into a thriving community, where your participants or members become your greatest advocates.

While every sports organisation is a business, the rules of the game are sometimes different for sport. The budgets are often smaller, the profiles are lower and there are invariably fewer people to make sure that an ever-growing list of tasks actually happen. If your work or passion is sport you’ll be familiar with these issues and many more specific to this environment, including the need for more members or participants, more sponsors and more revenue. Often communication within the organisation is not great and a lot of strain is placed on too few people, typically volunteers, who are overworked and lack resources.

Sound familiar? Well this book will show you, clearly and simply, how to overcome these hurdles. You will learn how to develop the expertise and resources to brand and market your sports organisation, without selling your soul. As a result, you will have more time, energy and resources to deliver a better product and build a thriving sports community that leaves a legacy for the future.

Who is this book for?

This book has been written to help people who are involved in the management and marketing of sports organisations and sports-related businesses. This includes clubs, associations, leagues, franchises, sports suppliers, teams and governing bodies at both state and national level. In general I use the term ‘sports organisation’ to include all of these, but from time to time I also use the individual references above, or refer to them as ‘sports businesses’ or simply ‘businesses’ (which they are, even if we don’t always think about them as such). It’s important to understand that regardless of the term used you can apply the principles to your own situation. Don’t make the ‘rookie mistake’ of assuming that just because I don’t refer directly to your type of sports organisation that an idea does not apply to you. Use your imagination!

The information in this book is relevant for:

   local, community-based sports clubs and individual teams

   leagues, such as junior football leagues,at the local, regional or state level

   sports clubs catering to a number of different sports

   community clubs, such as golf and tennis clubs

   country clubs

   school-based sports organisations

   state-based governing bodies for sport

   state and federal government organisations that focus on sport

   national sports organisations and governing bodies for sports

   businesses supplying products and services to sports organisations

   professional sports teams and leagues

   school or holiday camp organisations and businesses

   businesses that deliver sports products or experiences

   local government offices responsible for delivery of sport services

   state government departments involved in sport and recreation

   federal government departments responsible for sport,health and wellbeing

   events on a local, state or national basis

   in general, any organisation where sport is the central theme.

Within these organisations the people who will get the most value from this book are those in an operational position, whether paid or volunteer, and the committees and boards of management. This includes marketing managers, CEOs, general managers, administrators, officials and event directors.

Who am I to tell you anything anyway?

One of the most important things you should learn from this book is the value of trust. Without trust you will always find it harder to be successful than it needs to be. So, why trust me? What gives me the right to write a book like this?

I grew up in a small country town called Narrogin in Western Australia. Like most country kids at the time, I played a lot of sport. Tennis, Aussie rules football, basketball, a bit of cricket and soccer, along with riding my bike everywhere.But two things were different about me:

   I was very tall (6’8”, or 203 cms)

   I worked very hard to be good at sport and school.

My father died when I was five years old and as a result I felt compelled to do well, be a leader for my mum and younger brother and to make the most of everything. When I left school, the hard work paid off and I was offered a scholarship with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra, Australia’s capital city. In a matter of weeks I went from playing on outdoor bitumen basketball courts with my mates to Australia’s most elite sporting facility, with Australia’s Olympic basketball coach as my mentor!

At the AIS everyone was tall, but I worked hard and was able to represent Australia at a junior level. I travelled to the US and Europe playing basketball, and realised what a great opportunity sport had given me. I returned to Perth and joined the Perth Wildcats in their second season in Australia’s National Basketball League competition.

It was around this time I realised that, despite my height and work ethic, I was probably never going to make a living playing sport. I was good but not that good, usually spending plenty of time ‘riding the pine’ on the bench, waiting for my turn to play, which was rare. From that moment forward I undertook to use sport as a means to an end – to continue to play, but to focus on a career and use my contacts in sport to help me.

A tennis player friend from the AIS, Charlie Fancutt, came to Perth to start the Hopman Cup tournament with Australian tennis legends Paul McNamee and Pat Cash. Charlie asked me to be involved. I worked on putting together the event magazine, spoke to the media, helped with whatever needed doing and, while working very long hours, gained a great first-hand insight into how to make a sporting event really successful. For the next 10 years I took a holiday every Christmas to work on the tournament.

Charlie was keen to get into basketball and negotiated to buy the licence for a new Western Australian state league basketball team. It was (and still is) based in Kalgoorlie, perhaps Australia’s best-known gold mining town and a six-hour drive from most of the other teams in the competition. I was the General Manager, Coach, Sponsorship Salesman and of course a player. We struggled in that first year, but the team is still there, over 20 years later, and now has a couple of state championships under its belt.

From there, I worked in sponsorship development for the Quit Campaign before re-joining the Wildcats, this time as Marketing Manager. I worked to develop this role for myself over a year prior by doing small marketing odd jobs for the team to prove my worth. Eventually I became CEO of the Wildcats, then held the same role for a soccer team in Adelaide and then for another NBL team, Victoria Titans, in Melbourne.

One of the Titans’ sponsors, Mark Cowan, invited me to meet regarding working in his packaging design and branding business. Despite no specific experience in this industry, I managed to make it work and have contributed to the success of many of Australia’s best-known brands, including Heinz, Wrigley, Ryobi, Novartis and many others.

During this time I remained involved in sport, coaching my kids’ teams in basketball and Australian Rules and presenting on branding and marketing to numerous sports organisations. I also joined the Board of Basketball Victoria and became Vice President four years later.

Over my years in sports marketing and branding I was involved in a lot. I sold (at the time) the largest ever sponsorship package for an NBL team, numerous other sponsorship and marketing packages, and was responsible for the entire operations of the teams I ran. I was also a volunteer at the Sydney Olympics, worked on many committees and served as the Team Manager for the Australian men’s basketball team.

This experience has given me a unique set of skills. I know sport intimately, from the most basic of grassroots environments to the international level. I’ve done just about every job in sport, from ‘running the show’ to ‘cleaning up after the show’! I have also had exposure to the way in which brands of all sizes market themselves, observing the things that work and the things that don’t. I’ve developed and implemented numerous marketing and branding projects with major consumer brands, individual sportspeople, small clubs, state associations and national peak sports bodies.

As a result, I’m qualified – not because I have a formal education and an MBA (which I do have and are useful) but because I’ve been in the trenches, doing the hard yards, experiencing both success and failure to see what actually works. I’m passionate about marketing for sports organisations, and I want to share my experience with you!

Why I wrote this book

I started my career in sport, where resources and money are often tight. I’ve also spent a reasonable amount of my career working with the kinds of businesses where resources and money are plentiful, or at least available. Those big and well-known brands do some cool things, but so they should – they have lots of people running around providing ideas, resources and tricks of the trade so they can sell more stuff. I’m not complaining – I’ve been paid for it!

But I’ve found that the real satisfaction comes not from throwing money around but from developing a strong strategic plan, executing it well using the methods I’ll outline here and seeing the results come through. You cannot and should not try to do the same things in grassroots sport as large companies do. They have millions to spend on getting their brand into the hearts and minds of consumers. I have no doubt that any sports organisation can be successful by implementing simple but effective marketing that attracts the right kind of participants and supporters. My aim is for you to learn from my experiences, mistakes and successes, so you can take your organisation to greater heights, no matter where you are starting from and what resources you have available.

The two key themes of this book

There are two key themes running through this book. The first is logical: the use of a defined, tested, workable and simple system for the development of a thriving sporting community. By following what is laid out here you will be able to transform the way your sports organis­ation is performing off the field of play in around six to twelve months. You will have more time and resources to ensure that your participants are engaged and have facilities they love. If you do this well, there will be also a flow-on effect to what happens on the field of play.

The second theme is not so obvious but is equally important – in fact I’d argue even more important. It’s about the way you do things: the effort you put in, the planning you undertake, the attitude you have, the will and conviction with which you back yourself. These things are the mental factors. Being involved in sport, I’m sure you know just how critical being mentally on top of your game is!

I’ve read literally hundreds of books on business, marketing and self-development over the past 30 years. (My wife Hilary says I’m the reason many authors have made a profit!) Most of these books start out with a chapter on self-development, attitude and belief – the mental side of business. After a while, I started to skip over these chapters because I wanted to get to the ‘meat’ of the book. I just wanted to implement stuff – I thought that was the most important part. But what I’ve learned is this: you cannot and will not be successful in anything unless you believe you can do it and back up this belief with actions, by actually doing something. The system outlined here works – it’s been proven by many people before you. The question is: can you make it work for you? Of course the answer is yes, but you must have the right approach. Attitude and belief are vital. Don’t dismiss this critical aspect of your work.

There’s never been a better time to brand
and market your sports organisation!

It’s no secret: the world is changing fast, sometimes so quickly that we don’t have time to comprehend what’s happening.

When I was a kid and we drove to the coast to camp for a holiday, my mum gave me a map and told me to make sure I read it properly so that I could give her the directions. Today, I ask my kids to put the destination into Google Maps on their iPhones and tell them to make sure they take me around the heaviest traffic zones as we drive along. Then they tell me about the place where we are going, what’s happening there at the moment, and what people who are already there have to say about it (all while communicating with their friends in the background)!

Never in history has there been more power available to every one of us as individuals! Because of this, I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to grow your sports organisation and leave a legacy for those that come after you. A number of things are stacked in your favour:

People love sport and it’s getting more exposure

There’s no point in having a product if no-one wants to buy it! We have a natural advantage in sport – it’s a product that a large percentage of the population wants! Because of the abundance of sport and physical pursuits on television and other media, the world’s population has exposure to more and more sport. We can see and hear about sport on free-to-air television, pay television, the internet, our phones, tablets, newspapers, magazines, radio, newsletters and numerous other outlets – we are swamped by it. As a result, there is more demand for people to participate.

We have more time to do it

We all complain that there is never enough time in a day, however most of the mundane tasks that used to take up our time are now done by machines or professionally by other people; for example, automatic dishwashers and lawn care services, to name just two. So our free time is not taken up with mundane tasks. There’s more time for people to engage in sport.

The population is growing

There’s a lot of people in the world, and by the time you get to read this there will be even more. As the population grows, there is going to be more demand for every service, including sport. If you are an established sports organisation, this presents a huge opportunity!

People are more aware of health issues

Shows like The Biggest Loser™ have helped to make people think about their health and fitness. There are magazines dedicated to these issues and to every type of sport you can imagine. Medical research that was a tightly held secret for years is now freely available on the internet and we are exposed to much more information than ever before.

Because of this, people know that health and fitness are important and that organised sport is a great way to achieve their goals in this area.

The government wants people to play sport!

The rise of obesity and ill-health from preventable causes is a massive issue for governments all over the world. It is getting increasingly difficult for public health systems to handle the demand that has been created. As a result, governments are setting up programs and providing funding for people to be involved in sport and exercise. They are also spending money publicising the value of playing sport and being active. This is a massive ‘free kick’ for sport!

Technology is making your job easier!

Technology improvement now allows even the smallest organisation to market like a 400-kilogram gorilla! Fifteen years ago the only way to get massive publicity was via expensive television or radio campaigns. Now people are using free social media and other technology to gain global publicity almost overnight. With a well-designed website, strong branding and compelling communication, you can now position yourself perfectly to your target market and compete with anyone, regardless of your size and resources.

Help, information and advice is abundantly available

In medieval times tricksters and shysters easily fooled people because they didn’t know any better. As little as 10 years ago it was sometimes difficult to get really good information and advice on how to grow your sports organisation. Now there are people offering services and information in any niche you can think of and you have no excuse for not knowing how to improve your organisation.

So, despite the day-to-day challenges you face in promoting and building your sports organisation, and what you may hear in the media, the environment for growth and success has never been better. The remainder of this book will show you how!

Do things in your own unique way

There is a wonderful quote from the late, great Steve Jobs that I love:

   ‘People can copy what we do – they can’t copy who we are.’

I often give away some of my very best material. Why? People will copy it anyway, so you may as well save them the hassle of tracking you down and getting your information! You then look like a good guy and also position yourself as an expert in your area. Nine out of 10 people who receive the information won’t do anything with it anyway!

I have also copied parts of what others have done in the past. But importantly, I repurpose this to my own unique way of delivering information that brings out my best traits, knowledge and experience. You need to do the same thing. As you go about implementing what you learn here, it’s important to add your own unique touch. Bring your own individual style and personality to the table, put in a great effort and focus on what needs to be done. When you truly commit to implementing a strong marketing system you will see your thriving sports community grow in front of you. People can copy what you do but they can’t copy who you are!

How to use each of the five steps

I have developed the 5-Step Game Plan system based on my extensive experience in sport, brand development and marketing. I know it works because I’ve implemented it personally and I’ve observed and helped others do the same. So the question is not whether the process works but if you are willing to make it work for you.

To get the most out of this book and the system outlined here, consider the following:

  Before you get started on your plan, read the whole book to get an understanding of the entire process and how it all fits together. I’ve found that it’s always helpful to see the complete picture. Visit the website and use the free information that is available to you there.

   It’s possible you are already doing a number of the things you will read about here, but are they being done effectively, in the right way, with acceptable results? As with many things in life, the devil is in the detail. If you are an athlete in any sport, turning up to training is not enough – to be successful you need to train in the right way, matching game conditions as closely as possible, with intensity and desire to improve. It’s the same for marketing: don’t just ‘turn up’ – do it right!

   Start at the start and work your way from Step 1 to Step 5. Even if you are not intending to visually re-brand your sports organisation, do the exercises on branding to ensure you have a written description of your brand so everyone is clear about what you stand for and where you are going as an organisation.

   Make marketing a priority in your sports organisation – don’t neglect the other things that you must do, but be clear about what is important and what is not. As a rule of thumb, I would encourage you todo fewer things better. There’s no point in doing lots of things quickly just to say they’re done. Take the time to do it right and the results will serve you for a long time. But make it a priority!

   Use other people’s skills and knowledge. Think of yourself as the champion of marketing and branding in your organisation, but don’t be afraid to call on experts to help you out. You can do this through books, searching the internet, attending relevant seminars and training, or of course hiring people to help. Build your skills and knowledge and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

   Have fun! If you are reading this book you are probably the kind of person who wants and likes to improve the way things are done – just don’t forget why you are doing it, and enjoy the journey.

Make it happen!

What you are about to embark on is simple, but not easy. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. There will be challenges along the way. You can overcome them but it takes determination. Don’t let things get in your way.

Good luck! I look forward to hearing about your journey, the challenges along the way and, importantly, the successes that you have.

Ned Coten,
June, 2013

If you have feedback, comments or questions, I’d love the hear them. Please contact me as follows:

Email: ned.coten@game-plan-marketing.com
Telephone: +61 3 9010 6147
www.game-plan-marketing.com
www.twitter.com/nedcoten, @nedcoten
www.linkedin.com/in/nedcoten