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Aquatic Center Marketing
208 Pages
If you need to make a big impact in promoting and growing your aquatic facility, then you need Aquatic Center Marketing. Written by an industry veteran whose novel approach to marketing has garnered numerous national and international awards, this book delivers practical, affordable, and innovative marketing ideas for any new or existing aquatic facility, of any type and size.
Whether you work for a municipal pool or a commercial property, the tried-and-tested techniques in Aquatic Center Marketing can help your facility flourish:
• Increase membership
• Reenergize attendance to keep guests coming back for more
• Establish your facility’s image in the community
• Reinforce the value of aquatics as an enjoyable lifelong activity
You’ll find chapters on topics such as brand management, market development, guest communications, and how to be effective with limited funding. Learn how the design and signage in your facility can work to excite guests and keep them coming back throughout the season. Understand how to get the most out of your electronic and social media efforts and how to use fun events and themes to attract specific audiences. Then see real-life examples in case studies and stories that demonstrate the practical solutions in action.
Create memorable experiences for your guests and make your aquatic facility a success. Aquatic Center Marketing is full of realistic, practical ideas that anyone managing an aquatic facility can quickly put to good use to grow the facility and increase the bottom line.
Part I. Brand Management
Chapter 1. Develop a Brand Identity
Chapter 2. Create Brand Visibility
Part II. Market Development
Chapter 3. Build Community Consensus
Chapter 4. Design to Excite Guests
Chapter 5. Appeal to Specific Populations
Chapter 6. Price Smartly
Part III. Guest Communications
Chapter 7. Get the Most Out of Media
Chapter 8. Maximize Electronic Communication
Chapter 9. Turn Lifeguards and Staff Into Ambassadors
Part IV. Marketing Without Millions
Chapter 10. Use Special Events as Promotions
Chapter 11. Enhance the Bottom Line With Corporate Sponsorships
Judith Leblein Josephs has more than 40 years of experience working in a variety of roles related to aquatic facility management. She is a featured speaker at state, national, and international aquatics conferences and training seminars and has a knack for making learning a memorable and enjoyable event.
After 20 years in the public sector, Josephs was with Water Technology Inc. for 12 years as their marketing and operations consultant. She has served as an operations coach for dozens of facilities of all sizes, both municipal and privately owned properties, and in 2006, she formed her own consulting business, Judith Leblein Josephs Enterprises LLC. She has clients across the country, including the City of Providence, Rhode Island, and all of the aquatic venues for the Salvation Army Eastern Territory.
Josephs knew that she would someday return to the public sector, and in 2007 she was recruited by the City of Summit, New Jersey, to serve as their director of community programs. She had a role on the design team that renovated the community pool, now known as the Summit Family Aquatic Center. Recognized with Aquatics International’s 2014 Best of Marketing Award, the Summit Family Aquatic Center’s mascot, Shark Diddy, graced the cover of the magazine.
Josephs’ specialty in marketing, promotions, and television and radio production has proven quite valuable to all of her employers and clients. She has an unprecedented 12-time record of winning the Speaker of the Year distinction from the World Waterpark Association (WWA), and she was inducted into the WWA Hall of Fame in 2003. In addition to numerous WWA Splash Marketing Awards and Industry Innovation Awards, she received the WWA Board of Director’s Award in 2011.
She has also helped launch hundreds of new aquatic venues as the instructor of WWA’s Ready, Set, Go! A Guide to Getting Started program. Her how-to lists and articles published in major industry publications are used by aquatic operators worldwide.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
Entertaining events that promote your facility
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That’s OK, because I propose that there’s a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers.
Municipal facilities and small corporate facilities that have tight budgets may not be able to hire quality musical entertainment or performers. That's OK, because I propose that there's a fail-safe way to entertain your guests without the expense of professional entertainers. Our communities are filled with dance studios, martial arts studios, fitness centers, regional theater groups, amateur musicians, artists, step teams, cheer squads, poets, and more. If you are lucky enough to have a stage or an entertainment area such as a shade structure, patio, or even an entry pavilion, you are on your way to offering community talent showcases. All you need is a flat surface and a portable sound system. The performers get free admission; their friends, relatives, and fans have to pay the entry fee. If you are feeling especially philanthropic, you can offer a buy-one-get-one admission. These types of events will expose people such as grandmothers to a facility that they might never see under normal circumstances. Chances are, they will return and purchase a ticket. Even if they don't, they will talk about your facility among friends and post photos or videos to social media sites; in essence, they do the marketing for you. Allow performers to have an information table or accept donations if your agency allows fund-raising on your property.
It doesn't have to only be about performances. There are many organizations in your community who would love the opportunity to have an information table that's educational and entertaining. For example, the local arboretum could give a class on plants, insects, and the environment. Consider hosting a health fair with your local hospital and EMS. Chiropractors love giving lectures and demonstrations. How about a fashion show from a school or local fabric store? Ladies' nights with massage chairs, hair braiding, and yoga sessions all provided by local commercial and nonprofit providers have all been successful using this model. Provide chairs and a tent, and you have an event.
So why aren't more aquatic centers holding special events like these? I understand that it is difficult enough to operate your facility, but summer interns, volunteers, and seasonal workers are perfectly capable of scheduling these activities and working the performances. For facilities that take this challenge on, the possibilities are endless.
How do these relationships pay off in addition to exposing new potential members to your facility? With Facebook, Instagram, and other social media, it's all about the likes. Partnering with local organizations, businesses, and nonprofits in promoting their presentations and performances will result in exposure, new follows, and likes. These numbers will reproduce daily and provide you with free exposure that is far more influential than a simple display ad or press release. Community-based events often get local or regional news coverage. During slow news seasons such as the summer months, interesting entertainment at your facility will attract attention. Getting local news outlets involved makes for great background video for weather reports on their station. The more unusual the event, the greater the chance is for TV coverage. If you can't attract local television, take video of the event yourself and post it to your social media accounts. Who knows; it might go viral!
Show Your Style
Special events are great promotional tools when they show your passion and imagination. If you pump up the volume on your special events with theming and unique partnerships, you have a much better chance of making a lasting impression on participants. The more creative and special your events are, the more buzz you will get on social media and the more likely you will be to get TV coverage.
Presenting themed special events does not necessarily mean they have to cost more. With some creativity, you can theme your special events for the entire season with simple props, costumes, and gimmicks. Under the Sea, Happy Birthday Mascot Party, Swashbuckling Summer, Knights to Remember, Country-Western Fun, and Superhero Summer are just a few ideas that have left my customers wanting more. The value in setting a summer-long theme is the reuse of props, costumes, and promotional items. With themes, you also have the opportunity to work with others who value your imagination. The Knights to Remember appealed to Medieval Times, a themed restaurant chain. They jumped at the chance to be part of the action and sent costumed knights, princes, and princesses to the event, offering coupons and photo ops with the kids. The mascot at the Summit Family Aquatic Center dressed in a king costume and rode in on his trusty steed. The nearby Union County stables heard about the event and welcomed the chance to bring Brutus the quarter horse to the event. He wore a crown as well, and rode in with Shark Diddy (King Diddy that night), to the amazement of our guests. The Union County stables were happy to offer photo ops with Brutus and distribute information about their riding lessons.
Everybody wins when you theme your events. Sometimes, the theme comes to mind first and then the partnerships fall into place, while on other occasions the partnership comes first and then the theme materializes. Watch for trends and world events to help to visualize your themes. The anniversary of a film such as The Wizard of Oz can kick off a summer of themed special events that are sure to please. Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms explode with photos and comments on the events, especially when photo ops are provided. When your mascot rides into your aquatic center on a horse or poses as a pirate in front of a ship, you are going to get likes on your social media.
Keep up the theme on dry land and in the water. Cannon-ball contests during your Swashbuckling Adventure, with your mascot as the judge, are sure to impress. Take photos with your underwater GoPro, and you have a YouTube sensation. Pirate-themed party games, a pirate magician, and a DJ in costume make an event even more memorable. Members and guests see that you care, and they are sure to come back for more. The greatest promotional value gained from this type of creativity is that everyone is talking about your aquatic center. Kids will rave to their friends about how much fun they had. This type of experience is found at private swim clubs and other commercial aquatic centers. Kids are key influencers that marketing firms respect, and the kids in your community are going to insist that their parents buy a membership or visit frequently to be part of these types of events. The condo pool, swim and tennis club, and fitness pools will pale in comparison. Even the large, high-energy parks cannot offer the same level of participation in events like this. Make everything you do memorable, and you will have them clamoring for more.
Always be sure to have a step-and-repeat banner as part of your event plan, as detailed in chapter 8. Every aquatic center or water park should have one. Each photo becomes an instant advertisement. With the ease of sharing photos through Facebook and the web, photos of the event with your logo boldly in the background gives your aquatic center exposure that you could never afford to buy. Give your guests at special events lots of photo opportunities to post on Facebook. They are the best form of free advertising, and something really cute could go viral!
Building a web presence for your facility
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome.
Some will say it has never been easier, faster, and more effective to reach customers since the creation of the World Wide Web. On the other hand, I feel it has also never been more time consuming, challenging, and cumbersome. This chapter will help you maneuver through this rapidly changing environment and get the most out of your investment of money and time.
Photos and videos have never been more important than in this electronic world in which we now live. When competing for the attention of the public, fast-paced, heartwarming, and exciting photos and videos will grab interest. If you are working with an electronic newsletter, photos are essential to getting the reader's attention. Although posters, signs, and fliers are now considered less effective, photos can still play an important role in paper promotional pieces. Our phones now serve as our computers and our televisions. You can watch a full-length movie on a cell phone while in an airplane flying thousands of feet in the air. With two feet on the ground, your potential customers are looking for entertainment. Photos and videos are the key to getting and keeping that attention.
Whether you believe that the Internet was invented by Al Gore or that it was a conspiracy by the federal government to communicate things without the public knowing, you have to agree that it changes faster than the weather. Each day there is a new app or web format that appears and ultimately disappears again just as fast.
Those of us with limited marketing budgets or no marketing budget at all see the Internet as a solution to our marketing and promotional needs. For some in the parks and recreation world, getting those in leadership positions to understand our website needs, as well as the time and energy involved in establishing a website, is a monumental task. Having crashed a few municipal websites with pictures, videos, and animation, I know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do. I'm happy to share what I've learned to help you to avoid the same pitfalls.
Your Website
If you have to cohabitate within an organizational website, try your best to negotiate your own site that is seamlessly linked to the main site. This will enable you to be more creative; work with photos, videos, and animation; and not be limited to static or outdated sites.
I am not a technology whiz, but I do know what people need and want to get from the Web. For many of us, our first attempt at a website is to tell people everything we know, not just what they need to know. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website to find something simple like a phone number or a weather alert for a concert cancellation and having to scroll through an electronic version of a brochure or program booklet. Until you ditch that mentality, you will invest hundreds of staff hours on a website that needs constant attention and bores the audience. It also doesn't translate well into mobile applications. Today's busy families don't have lots of time to search the Internet for details such as program cancellations. If they can't find it quickly, they will give up and just not attend.
People go to websites to take away something. That may be information, a call to action, a coupon, or a special offer. Basically, the Internet is a research tool. With the right presentation and approach, the researcher can become your customer. All the rest is window dressing and an attempt to send visitors down the rabbit hole to learn more about your agency and its offerings. Your site needs to be intuitive and fun by incorporating all the work you have done on building your brand.
In the world of parks, recreation, aquatics, and leisure pursuits, the head of the household or key decision maker is usually Mom. Remember that as you design your website. Sure, there are other, smaller target markets for your program offerings, but you can't successfully cater to them all. Quick access to information, photos, and an emotional connection to the brand is what matters most with the mommy market. I dig deeper into what drives that market in chapter 5.
Why Will People Come to Your Website?
It seems like a no-brainer, but asking why people come to your website is a question you must ask yourself. Even if you currently have a website up and running, keep asking yourself, “Why do we have one?”
To Buy
One answer is to convince people to buy from you. For those of us in public life, or operators of small aquatic centers, we want to sell our product, mission, or vision.
The process of selling something is multilayered. You have to have a product. You have to let people know about your product and then persuade them they need it, want it, and should buy it. Once they are ready to purchase your product, you have to close the deal. I can't teach you how to establish an e-commerce site, but you should at least create a simple link from your website to your registration or an e-commerce site for program registration or purchasing tickets. Don't make your customers leave your site to make a purchase. Once they leave, they may not come back.
To Research
Consider this: Someone drives by your beautiful aquatic center and sees a sign. Even though you may have your phone number or address boldly on the outside of the building or on a billboard, the driver will not write down that number. However, he will go online to research your facility. Or, if he overhears a conversation where someone is bragging about your facility or services, rather than ask that person, he will look online to find you. Be ready with the information in an easily digestible format, and he will become a customer.
To Compare
When making a decision about how to spend their leisure budget, people will visit your website to do some comparison shopping. How do you stack up dollar for dollar with schedule, amenities, cleanliness, and more? They will judge your brand and look for a place that earns their trust. First, they will compare your website against those for similar facilities, and then they will head to Facebook, Yelp, and other sources. The content, photos, and design elements are there to seal the deal. Again, it's about research and making an emotional decision.
Understanding what matters to your target market is essential for your success in most areas of operation but particularly on the Web. Safety, cleanliness, and affordability are the top reasons a consumer considers your aquatic facility over others. Does that come across on your website?
To Win or Be Recognized
When developing a marketing strategy for your website, understand that you may have to drive activity to your site. Are visitors in search of a coupon or special offer? Are they entering a contest? Are they looking for the results from an event that can only be retrieved by going to your site? Keep this in mind as you develop your site. Following are a few ideas I have found to be effective.
Creating Excitement for Your Project
Once your aquatics project is approved, you will enter the design phase for the facility. Be sure to go back to the work you did through the public process, focus groups, and surveys, and do your best to keep your promises.
Throughout my career I have been called a shameless self-promoter because I understood the value of branding and promotion long before many of my parks and recreation colleagues caught on. Last time I looked, there wasn't a line behind me ready to market me, my department, or my talented staff. It's up to you to create the energy! Perhaps shameless self-promoter should be a badge of honor, as long as it isn't at the expense of others.
I have shared various approaches to developing community consensus for an aquatic project on a budget. If you execute those steps, you've already created some buzz about your new or renovated facility. Whether that buzz is good or bad, it's still creating conversation and excitement in your community. Now you have to keep that momentum going, and it may be hard. Many public projects take years to come to fruition. A talented and committed staff will be able to continue the excitement no matter what the season or budget. It just takes some creativity, a willingness to try even if the results aren't stellar, and a sense of whimsy that will appeal to all ages. I've often referred to this approach as the salami effect. Am I suggesting you create a marketing and promotional plan that's like an Italian sausage? I sure am! You have to deliver excitement, one slice at a time, just like you slice salami to make a great sandwich.
As discussed earlier, there is a perception that government can never get anything done. Even though you have done a great job promoting your public meetings, referendum, study, or community consensus building, there will still be those who don't believe the facility will ever become a reality. Getting through the planning and zoning board for commercial aquatic center development is not much different—the host community must see you as an asset and not as a problem waiting to happen. It's your responsibility to find each and every opportunity to create an event, make a splash, or submit a press release to keep up the buzz.
My Least Favorite Approach
I've worked with several communities that wanted to promote their new facility and get the community excited by selling passes or memberships well in advance of the project's start or completion. Some folks in the political arena have posed this as a challenge to recreation professionals to prove there is community support. They also think that giving away memberships and passes at a promotional price will result in record numbers. This type of hype in government can easily work against you. Until people see the construction under way, they will still have the perception that this is another project the government will turn into another fine mess! If the membership sales before construction don't meet the expectations of governing bodies, panic can easily set in. In addition, projects that sell memberships with a promised opening date can find themselves in a public relations nightmare when a facility misses its projected opening day. Whether for a public or private entity, you should be prepared for possible refunds or season extensions for outdoor facilities. Think about coupons and passes for the following year that may have to be offered. Don't make promises you can't keep. It could have a two- to three-year effect on your bottom line. The public never forgets and won't be shy about reminding you of a broken promise.
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