Marketing Guru or Boxing Manager

[Guest insider]

New ICT marketing guru to be signed up soon!!

Think he is more a whodoo than a guru as he has marketed his own company in to £1,000,000 + borrowings. :024: :024:

He should stick to being his best mates boxing manager.  Sandy "Smack the Tokley" Grant.

What's the date of the ICT boxing dinner?????

Must get tickets

[Harry Chibber]

:steward:

[CaleyD]

Conversation must be slow around the photocopier today....if you can cite a reliable source for the information it will bemoved back to the main forum section.

[Guest Get_off_the_park_Wyness!]

We're a provicial football club, not a major corporation. Marketing ICT doesn't require all that much imagination - it's a matter of common sense. Heck, you could get the people on this board to come up with a comprehensive marketing strategy between them. Enthusiasm, local knowledge and common sense are all you need.

1) More involvment with schools and colleges - free tickets, open days, parties, players visiting schools, free merchandise (rulers, pens, posters etc to schools).

2) Get some Polish speakers to start promoting the club on all the Polish internet forums. Come up with some simple gimmicks especially for the Poles - perhaps a friendly against a Polish team? A Polish day at the stadium -  invite a Polish footballing legend, flyers or adverts in Polish? Even hire a couple of Poles to promote the team in their community - pay them commision for all the numbers they get.

3) More involvment with clubs and pubs, joint promotions, gimmicks etc, perhaps have tickets on sale in pubs? Buy a ticket get a special offer on drinks... any ideas?

4) Most simple of all - hand out fliers to the public in the town centre. Cheap as p*ss, and effective.

5) Tourists? Get the tourist board to make an ICT game part of a package holiday to Inverness?

That only took me 2 minutes...  :011: Any more ideas?

[Alex MacLeod]

Lot more to it than that lad. Marketing is about selling the club to potential investors, sponsors etc. Its about getting big companies to take note and spend their advertising budgets on us. Its about establishing and promoting a return for the expected investment. Its about marketing the brand 'ICT'.  In this day of modern technology, with worldwide links via television, internet etc it is very possible to market the brand further afield than Ness Motors or Cairngorm Windows.

Get the brand recognised further afield and potential advertisers spend more cash.

Celtic, Rangers, Man Utd, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real madrid, none of them are major corporations. They are, however, very large businesses. Why???? Because they all got their marketing strategies right.

Those points you mention are all geared towards getting a few more attendees at matches and that is something that is needed but, even if we could fill our stadium every week, there still wouldnt be enough income to compete successfully, year in year out, at the top level.

I'm not for one minute suggesting we become one of the aforementioned teams but if we have any ambitions for european football then we need to market ourselves to a high standard.

I know nothing about the guy mentioned so cant comment on his abilities but just to give the guy a little support and with reference to insiders comments, BP, a multi national company that makes vast profits each year has vast borrowings as well. All companies borrow. So long as they are able to pay the interest then they can profit by the borrowing.

[Guest Get_off_the_park_Wyness!]

". Its about marketing the brand 'ICT'.  In this day of modern technology, with worldwide links via television, internet etc it is very possible to market the brand further afield than Ness Motors or Cairngorm Windows. Get the brand recognised further afield and potential advertisers spend more cash."

Not sure about that. ICT 'the brand' will never have a major appeal south of Aviemore. The best we can hope for is increasing our sphere of support further across the Highlands and Islands. Some have argued that we should even be aiming to spread our brand ABROAD, I don't think so.

Yes there is more to marketing than bums on seats, but surely building up a larger fanbase is the most important factor for attracting advertisers and investers? An advertising board in a stadium of 6,000 is surely more lucrative than an advertising board in a stadium of 3,000?

How big a club / brand you are is directly linked to your fanbase, and that's what we should be focusing on.

[Guest 1MORESEASONBLACK]

Lets get back to basics marketing is about anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer needs...AT A PROFIT.

How do we do this........we then look at the four P's.

Product, Price , Place, Promotion.

Obviously and most importantly we have the product on the park - then better the team does the more merchandise, tickets, corporate packages, advertising we sell. Merchandise should be sold at competitive rates in relation to the most three prominent supported clubs in the highlands, ABERDEEN,CELTIC, RANGERS. Corporate hospitality packages also have to be reviewed i.e if Caley play Celtic, Rangers and a SFA Cup Semi Final opponent in consecutive games - why not sell that as a package ( might work, may not)

Price - obviously gate prices, hospitality prices are crucial to the liquidity of the club. First and foremost we wish to break even. Does our current pricing system work - premium pricing for old firm games is going to work as these prices are inelastic; demand is always going to outstrip supply. However for the rest of the games, certain price reductions or packages that will act as  incentives that will bring supporters back time and time again. 

Place , well it is obvious that we will sell our product predominantly in the Highlands. Unfortunately we do not have an ICT brand that will trouble the other brands worldwide However we should be looking to maximise on building a brand within  the Highlands and islands. However the internet should be fully utilised to take advantage of opportunities as far as field as possible - remember China is the worlds fastest growing economy so hey what we waitng for ...........Inveeeeness Calee Theestle is as Chinese as it gets

Promotion .........Commercially everybody has there own ideas but on the playing front i would personally promote WYNESS from the bench and reunite the Dargo/Wyness partnership. WATCH THIS SPACE FOR INVENTIVE IDEAS

[Alex MacLeod]

Yes there is more to marketing than bums on seats, but surely building up a larger fanbase is the most important factor for attracting advertisers and investers? An advertising board in a stadium of 6,000 is surely more lucrative than an advertising board in a stadium of 3,000?

The advertisers aren't interested, so much, in the number of people in a stadium. What they are interested in is the coverage they get for their money. Our games are televised, either directly or via the internet, to a worldwide audience. Thats what attracts the money.