Following on from the recent webinars focusing on Pay and Play and Alternative Activity formats, the next in the series will focus on growing membership and club activity through effective marketing and communications. This could be the use of traditional forms of marketing (leaflet drops, events or open days) or better use of social media, web presence or the use of apps to co-ordinate beginner and other sailing activity.

Hosted by Matt Sheahan, respected sailing journalist, the webinar will include short presentations and a Q&A session with a selection of clubs that have successfully used marketing and communications to boost activity and membership. The aim is to share their insights on their challenges and successes with the wider sailing club community and watersports sector.

00:00 Welcome & introduction

06:08 Customer research recap
“There's other activities that are really strong on studying the lifestyle and outcome of their sport or their activity. It’s the aspirational piece, what we want to think of ourselves doing. Whether we are actually any good at it or not is beside the point
“Typically we haven't been that great at promoting our sport, when other activities have moved ahead. We’re tending to look a little bit sort of cold and grey at times…”

16:38 Appealing to the local community at Dartmouth Yacht Club
“We came up with rather a good idea to increase membership and activity: we would find out what people wanted from us, provide it and then let everybody know. But how to find out?”
“Word of mouth has been a very useful tool. Nowadays most new members are saying they joined because their friends told them how great the club was.”

32:23 Getting people to notice St Denys Boat Club
“I know sales is kind of a dirty word, but you're trying to sell your membership to the people who are out there.”
“Our entire marketing budget is about £8/month. That’s all, you can do everything I've mentioned with that, and it's about thirty minutes of effort a week.”

45:01 Engaging young people at South Staffordshire SC
“Social media has become very much an every day part of our club and is really about that idea of lifestyle marketing. And the emotion there is much more than just a sailing boat.”
“We also have a merchandise revenue that goes directly into our junior fund. It's really simple, you individually design what merchandise you want and then you order it through their website so you don't have to worry about specific sizes, order forms, payment and it automatically comes directly to the club.”

1:00:22 Getting communication priorities right
“Make sure your website is is responsive (mobile friendly). One in four people in the UK now do not search or use the web via desktop or laptop, they are mobile only.”