Thursday, December 16, 2010

How to Maintain Your Football Team's Fan List

The postman carries as much mail back as he delivers. What is amazing, is how same organisations continue to send mail to the same address even when they receive bundles of it back. What does that tell us about such an organisation? They do not understand the dynamics of society. They do not understand that a list needs maintenance. All they are doing in the meantime is to enrich the post.

The following steps could go a long way in keeping your football club's fan list clean, current, accurate and relevant:

1. A list becomes outdated as soon as it is compiled

True, a list becomes outdated as soon as it is compiled. I have lived in flats before and I have witnessed movement hardly seen in other areas. Every month end tenants come and others go. But those that have gone generated mail and no sooner had they started receiving it than they moved on. People change jobs and others pass on. All these factors point to a need to continuously maintain your mailing list. If you do not do so they will be a lot of wastage.

2. Incomplete Data

Lists are often characterised by mistakes and incomplete data. Some people for one reason or another can never write information correctly or fully. Check out for this and try to correct it in order to avoid wastage.

3. Duplication

Scan your lists for duplication of fans. It is very irritating to some people and wasteful to your football club to send out the same information to one person several times. Clean the list and get rid of duplicate data.

One way you can sniff out this data is to filter similar names with a bit of variance and check to see whether the address is the same.

4. Segment your list

Your information and marketing will be most relevant and will receive the desired objective if it is sent to only the relevant people. For example you have a football match in Pretoria and you want to market it to your fans directly, it would be most fruitful to only appeal to those who can economically and geographically make it to Pretoria. It would be very wasteful to communicate with an unemployed fan based in Port Elizabeth (1,500km away). This person can not geographically and economically make it for this match, however much he loves the club.

5. Grow your list

It is very critical for your marketing team to use every working moment to grow your club's fan list. Every unregistered fan that they come across in one way or the other should be registered and communication initiated.

This helps in growing your fan base and the stronger the relationship you grow with these fans the more they act as fan evangelists and recruit new fans for your team.

Success in the business of football is about getting the business of fans right. When this happens all other factors can easily fall into place. To get the business of fans correct, you must know them by name and create a relationship with them. It is therefore imperative to work on your fan lists aggressively.




Give your football club a chance to succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Fans are the corner stone of football business success, but they are the most ignored. We can help you change this for your benefit and the benefit of your club. Visit our website and learn more about how to grow your fan base, football marketing and fan relationship management: http://www.footballmarketing.biz

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