After the recent meeting I stayed behind to talk to the social media guy(Harry) about the banning of a certain individual from their social media platforms for comments made and to see if I could mediate somehow but ended up speaking to the CEO, club secretary and Marketing with some ideas and thoughts. Apologies I've only just got around to posting this but I thought I would share some of the conversations and to seek a bit of feedback.
The SD meetings I've took part in previously have been a bit pointless with previous directors just not listening or taking ideas seriously, not SS as he turned up at the meetings I wasn't present at. During these meetings it is very hard to get a word in edgeways as you had people like BM just waffling on for over half the meeting, also because the meetings became so infrequent everyone would be shouting stuff out and trying to get their opinions across. So with the open forums being proposed as well as private meetings with supporters groups I think this will be much more beneficial to fans and the club going forward.
Firstly I suggested the idea of giving the fanbase a target of ST sales to hit and if we hit that target we get a wow price, I think I mentioned £200 as a throw away figure but we must hit 10,000 ST sales and if we didn't we pay the usual price. Club sec seemed to like the idea and then explained it to Julian Winter, the idea being it creates a buzz, gets the supporters groups working together hammering their social media platforms to achieve the target and is a great way to win back the fanbase. Julian seemed to like the idea as he was the CEO at Huddersfield when they did this, they set out to hit 10,000 but had to set a new target of 15,000 which they hit. On the back of this it created an amazing buzz across the town and they were promoted on the back of it. I said I hated to admit it but the Nobbers have done the same and now average 16,700 with a few 20,000+ crowds on the back of this their average away following went up to 2,000+ and they are currently knocking on the door of the play offs. Ok so Dungdale is like a morgue but imagine what BR would be like if we had those kind of sales with fans also being in the North part of the east stand and the other stands being full, the place would be bouncing. I'm not saying the club would go with the idea but he had a big grin on his face and admitted it was something to consider.
I asked if we bring all the hoteliers into the Matthews lounge, wine them dine them and see if we can get them to push sales with tourists. This was something that was suggested a few years ago to the interim board and bizarrely the Police said they'd block it because they should be classed as away fans. The club Sec said it could be a conflict of interest because we have a Hotel, I asked if that was always fully booked and the reply was no so I could see why they might not run with that idea. It wasn't until the next day I wondered if something could be done with all of the landlords/landladies across the Fylde. Could we donate some memorabilia and get the pubs to promote the club more on their digital screens, in return that pub gets a free match once a season perhaps? Let's be honest other than the Armfield Club there's still far too many pubs within 2 miles of the ground that don't have anything BFC related in them which has always pissed me off.
The summer concerts, it was briefly mentioned in the meeting but not really discussed properly. I mentioned about Bolton having concerts even in mid June and still getting a new pitch sorted in time for August but apparently that's because there's is 50% synthetic and there is an eye watering cost to getting what they currently have. I told them Oystons PI and old bodyguard both admitted £1m was made from those concerts and they weren't even sold out. It is something they have been discussing and exploring with Cuffe and Taylor but we would have to have ours in mid to late May so we have time to relay the pitch. For me it would make sense to have them over a weekend and if we have to play our friendlies away from home so be it, like the MSG suggested have a tour away in Portugal or somewhere nice. Financially it could add £1.5m to the clubs turnover which could strengthen the budget for bringing in players. It just seems daft not to utilise that stadium to it's full potential, no matter who performed at BR it would sell out. The old board just mocked this idea and started taking the piss out of each others music tastes.
I mentioned about sponsored fb posts around selling tickets and in particular ST sales so it's something they'd consider in the future, at the moment they don't see a great return(they monitor clicks to sales ratios) when they have done sponsored posts. Obviously you can't monitor a sale on the back of seeing one of their posts when they just nip into the ticket office a few days later for example. You only need to sell 1 ticket to make your money back on a sponsored post so for me it's a no brainer as the sponsored post get's a much bigger reach and they recognise just how bad FB has now become for posting organically. I got the impression marketing/social media are very analytical with all the data they receive and were very passionate about their roles and promoting the club. For them to give up 20-30 mins of their time after a SD meeting was very decent of them so I must thank them for that. All of them agreed communication had not been good enough and will improve over time.
The SD meetings I've took part in previously have been a bit pointless with previous directors just not listening or taking ideas seriously, not SS as he turned up at the meetings I wasn't present at. During these meetings it is very hard to get a word in edgeways as you had people like BM just waffling on for over half the meeting, also because the meetings became so infrequent everyone would be shouting stuff out and trying to get their opinions across. So with the open forums being proposed as well as private meetings with supporters groups I think this will be much more beneficial to fans and the club going forward.
Firstly I suggested the idea of giving the fanbase a target of ST sales to hit and if we hit that target we get a wow price, I think I mentioned £200 as a throw away figure but we must hit 10,000 ST sales and if we didn't we pay the usual price. Club sec seemed to like the idea and then explained it to Julian Winter, the idea being it creates a buzz, gets the supporters groups working together hammering their social media platforms to achieve the target and is a great way to win back the fanbase. Julian seemed to like the idea as he was the CEO at Huddersfield when they did this, they set out to hit 10,000 but had to set a new target of 15,000 which they hit. On the back of this it created an amazing buzz across the town and they were promoted on the back of it. I said I hated to admit it but the Nobbers have done the same and now average 16,700 with a few 20,000+ crowds on the back of this their average away following went up to 2,000+ and they are currently knocking on the door of the play offs. Ok so Dungdale is like a morgue but imagine what BR would be like if we had those kind of sales with fans also being in the North part of the east stand and the other stands being full, the place would be bouncing. I'm not saying the club would go with the idea but he had a big grin on his face and admitted it was something to consider.
I asked if we bring all the hoteliers into the Matthews lounge, wine them dine them and see if we can get them to push sales with tourists. This was something that was suggested a few years ago to the interim board and bizarrely the Police said they'd block it because they should be classed as away fans. The club Sec said it could be a conflict of interest because we have a Hotel, I asked if that was always fully booked and the reply was no so I could see why they might not run with that idea. It wasn't until the next day I wondered if something could be done with all of the landlords/landladies across the Fylde. Could we donate some memorabilia and get the pubs to promote the club more on their digital screens, in return that pub gets a free match once a season perhaps? Let's be honest other than the Armfield Club there's still far too many pubs within 2 miles of the ground that don't have anything BFC related in them which has always pissed me off.
The summer concerts, it was briefly mentioned in the meeting but not really discussed properly. I mentioned about Bolton having concerts even in mid June and still getting a new pitch sorted in time for August but apparently that's because there's is 50% synthetic and there is an eye watering cost to getting what they currently have. I told them Oystons PI and old bodyguard both admitted £1m was made from those concerts and they weren't even sold out. It is something they have been discussing and exploring with Cuffe and Taylor but we would have to have ours in mid to late May so we have time to relay the pitch. For me it would make sense to have them over a weekend and if we have to play our friendlies away from home so be it, like the MSG suggested have a tour away in Portugal or somewhere nice. Financially it could add £1.5m to the clubs turnover which could strengthen the budget for bringing in players. It just seems daft not to utilise that stadium to it's full potential, no matter who performed at BR it would sell out. The old board just mocked this idea and started taking the piss out of each others music tastes.
I mentioned about sponsored fb posts around selling tickets and in particular ST sales so it's something they'd consider in the future, at the moment they don't see a great return(they monitor clicks to sales ratios) when they have done sponsored posts. Obviously you can't monitor a sale on the back of seeing one of their posts when they just nip into the ticket office a few days later for example. You only need to sell 1 ticket to make your money back on a sponsored post so for me it's a no brainer as the sponsored post get's a much bigger reach and they recognise just how bad FB has now become for posting organically. I got the impression marketing/social media are very analytical with all the data they receive and were very passionate about their roles and promoting the club. For them to give up 20-30 mins of their time after a SD meeting was very decent of them so I must thank them for that. All of them agreed communication had not been good enough and will improve over time.
