Communication failure - East-West day

[LostDoggy]

Re: Communication failure - East-West day

If we are serious about this issue, there needs to be a small review about what went wrong and why, and what the aim of such days is. And how to effectively achieve these goals. And does it matter? If you are arguing that its all about membership, then I'm sure members can be garnered from other days. Did we miss people who now won't join or did we miss those who will join anyway?

Without doubt, emailing would appear to be the easiest and most cost effective way of communicating. Posting out separate notices would be expensive and time consuming.

Maybe a leaflet or sticky to go on the fridge which highlights the key dates to remember, could go out with membership packs.

I think there is also some merit in getting people used to events occuring on the same day each year, such as the last day in January or whatever.

Just some ideas off the top of my head, said without any knowledge of how these things work.

[Cyberdoggie]

Re: Communication failure - East-West day

for me the problem is that there has been a string of instances where notification or organization hasn't been up to scratch.

the last time this was the case was back in the rohde era.
I can remember getting told off by someone from the club on bf because i made a post questioning the club and the football department and some of their decisions throughout the year, in particular playing daniel gia after he had injured his shoulder with only a handfull of games left in the season, despite the fact we were last on the ladder.
I questioned this because it would make sense to get him operated on and give him a full pre-season rather then play meaningless games. Someone at the club didn't agree with me and publicly had a go at me for saying it.

I like to think we are a far more professional outfit top to bottom these days, so that is probably why i don't like it when these things start to occur.

[alwaysadog]

Re: Communication failure - East-West day

In the past we have had plenty of warning/encouragement about the event.

We have new communications people and this is one test they failed. We don't need a review all we need is for them to go to the files and find out how we did it other years.

No point doing it and not worth the time and effort of the East West group if the club isn't fully behind it.

I went because I got a wake up call from GVG jn otherwise I would still have been waiting for the club to spruik the event.

[MrMahatma]

Re: Communication failure - East-West day

i don't know about a letter drop as, it is glen waverley and you'd be lucky if 3% of the population would follow the dogs. The idea is that people from the entire eastern suburbs can use the opportunity to sign up and get an autograph. Although i think it could be a good idea to advertise at the glen shopping centre prior to the event.

I don't have a problem with the date (ie january) i just think the club wasn't up to it's usual standards in getting the word out this year, as they have been with a lot of things.
This could be because they are under staffed due to other committments, or perhaps a change in staff?

What i'm getting at is that this should be pencilled in the calender permanently and the club should push each upcoming event the same way. The website, magazine and emails can do the job fine but for the east west day there was nothing.

Most DM campaigns, even with addresses, names etc, would have response rates of around 4-6%. It's as much about the proposition/message as it is about anything.

I'm not sure of the whole strategy behind the day, but I figure it's to get members. If they were smart, they'd be getting people to sign up, at the very least, to mailing lists that day so that next year they've got a list of people in the area to automatically invite - further, they should be able to mail all members who live within a commutable distance (be that 10km, 15km...whatever), should capture email addresses of all members, and better yet put in the Ts&Cs that being a lapsed member doesn't automatically remove you from the mailing list, so they should be able to mail past members over, I'd have thought, the last 2 or 3 years (although I'm not sure of current data handling laws).

Over and above getting doggies supporters to be members, I'd assume it's also about giving the club some more profile in that area and hopefully getting some new supporters (not just members), giving families something to come along to, and even opposition supporters something to come and watch during the footy starved off season.

It's all about what they're selling/how they're selling it. In DM piece to current/past members you say 'come see the dogs, support our club, get autographs, sign up for 08' , in blanket mailings you push the family day out aspect of it, kids get facepaint, have a photo with Woofa, blah blah'

Should be able to get good numbers to these things. It's not rocket science.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Communication failure - East-West day

Thanks TCD for info on the Bulldogs Direct mail out - I currently don't receive it and will take steps to be added to the mail out list.

Bulldog Direct would have been the perfect tool to inform us of this event - unfortunately, the opportunity has been missed and they can only learn from it.