Things that BFC need to be doing now in my opinion

1. Contacting local businesses who have public facing premises, be it a shop, pub, restaurant or whore house, and asking them if they would mind putting up posters advertising upcoming games and offers throughout the season. Asking whether they would be willing to come to Oakwell to pick up the posters and if they say no then arranging to drop posters off for them (get enough businesses agreeing and it would cost hardly anything to deliver them by hand, every single town centre shop or pub could be delivered to in a day without costing a penny in transport costs for example)

2. Doing the same thing for large offices and other large businesses in the area that employ a lot of people. Anything with over 30 employee's on site should be contacted.

3. Contacting every school in Barnsley and offering them tickets for games next season free of charge and rather than taking no for an answer they should be pushing them to accept it. If the schools say that teachers aren't willing to accept responsibility and go with the kids then instead give out vouchers entitling every school child a free ticket with a full paying adult. The kids will take them home and ask to go to the game and then mum or dad will feel pressured and may buy a ticket to take their child.

4. contacting the schools and offering a smaller number of regular tickets to be awarded to school kids who put in extra effort. The average secondary school has 5 years in it so offer 5 sets of tickets per home game for EVERY school in Barnsley (more/less for the primary schools, essentially one ticket per school year for every school). One child's ticket and one adult ticket to accompany them. Let the schools decide which pupil deserves the ticket, it will cost us nothing in reality because the seats would be sat empty anyway but will serve to get the clubs name out there in schools and will give youngsters a chance to come to games and perhaps get hooked whilst also setting a good example and rewarding effort by local school kids.

5. Contacting schools and arranging to send members of the first team out into schools on a regular basis to interact with school kids. Luke Steele and Bobby hassell turning up at school to give the kids a training session would go down a treat. 20 players in the first team squad, that's 10 schools hit in one day. 20 if they do half days at two schools.

6. Contacting local businesses and asking if they would be interested in a company reward scheme where the company can regularly buy one pair of tickets at a discounted rate to be given to the employee of the month (or whatever period suits).

7. Contacting lindleys and pushing for them to agree to a bar being set up in the ponty end. Do a proper costing into the cheapest way of doing this and presenting it to them.

8. Be re-marketing the new membership scheme by advertising that everybody who pays £3 and signs up to the membership scheme by the open day will be entered into a prize draw with 1/2/5 (whatever) (un)lucky winners getting free season tickets.

9. Getting their arses up to wakefield and coming up with some sort of deal to try to get wildcat fans down to oakwell.

10. Following up on all the ideas/announcements that they have made in the past. The solar panels are invisible, north stand still unsponsored etc.

11. Following up the new carpark season ticket with a season ticket for programmes. £23 games at £3 a go is £69 so offer a season ticket, all 23 programmes for £55. Guaranteed income for the club and a saving for the fans.

 

I thought that point 1 was already underway via the Supporters Trust.

 

I was under the impression that that was more of a case of supporters being expected to come to oakwell and then go off to local businesses and begging them to take the posters. I'm talking about the club taking responsibility for its own marketing, contacting businesses itself with a real proposal and setting up a proper strategy for delivering the posters regularly. Expecting fans to come and get them sometimes, on random days, for some matches and taking them to some businesses who may or may not want them isn't doing enough in my opinion.

 

We agreed to contact local businesses to see the interest and look to see if it would work. I think it is something that supporters can easily get involved in and help the club with the advertising and getting the message out.

I know that we will look to work with the club to generate the posters again.

As to your other points, there were some good idea's there.
Owen

 

Never 1 to agree with most of your posts but I tend to agree with a lot of your points. We've tried the 'sit back and the fans will come to us' approach and it's not worked so it's time to dust themselves down and try new strategies.

I've a sneaky suspicion that come the next few week we may find ourselves with a potential investor. For all we know there could be some dealings going on in the shadows as we speak.

 

To be fair I think those are solid suggestions, hopefully someone from the Club will read this and take note.

One thing i never understand is why the North stand is un-sponsored, and why advertising sheets arn't over the empty seats. Such an easy thing to do, yet they Club don't do it.

 

Problem with commercial sponsorship is that a lot of companies are cutting back. As to advertising sheets, not practical IMHO as for big games against the "massive" Sheffield teams for example they would not be any empty sheets. I think putting out flags from supporters is a better potential for that side of north stand.

 

Some great points made there... esp the draw for a free season ticket and beer in ponty end. Hopefully some of these are taken on board. Making posters for the 'Bigger games' also throughout the season making it out like an epic

 

But the flags would not generate any extra revenue though would it?
Using the covers would, I mean just how many matches are all the seats used in?

 

Well advertising sheets can just be removed whenever a large away crowd is expected, I don't see how that can be a problem.

And with companies cutting back I accept that, but still there are sponsors found for the Ponty End......

 

I would have thought the sponsors would want the adverts out for big games, when the seats would be taken by visiting supporters. Big games would be dependent on how the season pans out. The idea of flags would be jet to cover empty seats a bit, but agree would not raise revenue

 

I see your point with that the companies would obviously rather have big crowds seeing them, rather than small crowds. Maybe on the west stand empty seats as they're usually not taken up?

I don't see why the North isn't sponsored though

 

How about bringing back the quietly forgotten about scheme of paying 1,000 to be put in a draw where the winning company get to sponsor the North Stand for a season?

 

When did this use to happen? Seems like a good idea to me

 

I used to think that selling ale at football grounds was illegal or something, but I now know that its obviously not.

Why can't we have beer taps in the Ponty end?

Whats to stop us setting up a deal with Acorn and getting taps put in?

 

Thanks for attending the interview for the post of Head of Marketing, Mr Supertyke, You're hired!

 

Good points. Only flaw it means paying someone some wages.

 

It was advertised around five or so years ago but never actually happened. For some reason the idea was quietly forgotten about without any explaination. If asked they will probably churn out the generic "lack of interest" line. Although if we can find only 50 companies willing to gamble a thousand pound to sponsor a championship club stand for a season, that's 50k we didn't have this season.

They wouldn't have to stick to local companies either. Get in touch with massive companies worldwide. There are thousands worldwide who make loads of cash who'd be up for risking a paltry thousand quid for something of big gain.

 

Must admit it doesn't appear to be working. I responded on behalf of our WMC and got one lot of posters. Never seen owt since.