With regards to the poor attendance, I think Moors maybe could have done a bit more of a job of publicising the tie in the local area. On my journey to Solihull from from girlfriend's folks near Stourbridge I got chatting to a Baggies fan who lives in Solihull who had no idea that the game was on (as well as his memories of the cup matches between us in the 90s!). If he had known and it wasn't all-ticket, he'd have been up for going.
It isn't easy for a club the size of Moors trying to carve a niche for themselves as most of the local population will be supporters of one of the big West Midlands clubs. Hopefully they can grow their crowds, though barely getting 800 of their fans out for one of the biggest games in their history on their own patch isn't a great sign.
The game was publicised in the local and national media, even being shown on TV (sort of). If people still are not aware, hard to see in a city the size of birmingham, what more they could have done. Maybe not many people are that interested in a bottom of the table team against a lg2 team.
I think it's as much the malaise that is Midlands football right now. For the previous couple of seasons, Moors would have been seen as a bit of a haven from the failings of Blues and Villa but, now they've started down a similar-looking route, the support has melted away again. They really need to consolidate at Conference National level and establish a support base but, as it is, it's around 400 regulars and a dwindling group of fairweather fans.
@DevC Using the bloke I happened to speak to as a reasonable yardstick (someone who takes a keen interest in football, had a decent level of knowledge, would have been willing to go and lives a 10 min walk away), the audience they would have been aiming at wasn't tapped as much as it might have been. The game being all-ticket probably didn't help.
There is a big latent interest in lower-league football in the outer reaches of the West Midlands conurbation (as the big support Stourbridge attracted for their cup run last season demonstrated), hopefully Moors will learn how to tap that.
How would you have reached your mate, Reading, given that he presumably doesn't read the local newspapers or watch the BBC? I cant see what else they could have done.
I may be wrong Mr Quarter but I recall somebody perhaps you working in the online marketing sector and extolling its values.
If it was you, could you give me a summary of the advantages and drawbacks of this sort of marketing within the context of a Solihull - Wycombe FA cup tie. I would welcome your insight.
It may have been me Dev. I remember you basically declaring marketing in football to be utterly pointless as its reached saturation level.
Quite how you know this besides your own anecdotal observations is beyond me, but sports advertising continues to be a multi billion pound industry and people who work in it and spend on it think very differently to you.
You target a very specific audience segment - males, Solihull area, following pages related to football or Midlands clubs, etc. etc. Facebook has all this data.
You hit them with some targeted messaging, or a Facebook event for the game. Perhaps have a special offer or promotion included in the ad itself.
I have no idea what the uplift from this would be, but the advantages should it work are pretty obvious. People see the ad, click it, and decide to attend.
I don't remember ever saying that marketing or football had reached saturation level.
I understand fairly well the basics of the mechanics of online advertising. Online advertising is hardly new or unknown any more.
What do you think the challenges would be for a club like Solihull. Why would a club like say Bristol Rovers not do it, either for a one off game when they knew they would have capacity or indeed for every home game?
Do you think Wycombe should do it for each home game?
It is almost a badge of honour to appear to be ignorant about local events for many people. I often hear "I wish I had known about it or would have gone". What better excuse is there?
Could you give me a rough cost Oxford or Mr Quarter for a club like Solihull who probably don't have much of an inhouse marketing department to have done this from scratch and target every male facebook football fan in say in a ten mile radius. I am interested.
Just out of interest what is a good home crowd for this type of game. I'm not sure we are the greatest pull in the competition and Solihull are hardly an established team at that level.
Yeah @DevC - I don't recall ever having this conversation with you so I don't think it was me!
As for the cost, it's hard to say but as a rough guide, for £20-40 you can put a Facebook advert out to several thousand football-loving people in the Solihull area.
As for challenges, I'm not sure they have an online ticket system to intergrate it with, so tracking returns could be difficult. I believe the FA provide branded banners though for social media posts, so they'd have had a wealth of artwork ready to go which would save design cost.
Who knows if it would've brought many people through the gate, but I reckon it would've made Reading's mate aware it was happening at least.
Dev, don't you own/run a small business? Are you seriously telling us you've never bothered looking into the targeting ability of Facebook advertising? You've never done a cost-benefit analysis for your firm?
The random sample of one middle aged man who was wondering what someone with a Wycombe scarf was doing waiting for a train at Cradley Heath (aka my 'mate') isn't necessarily representative but gave an insight as to what a floating supporter might be thinking. The posts from the Moors fans saying they were disappointed with their turnout suggests that maybe more could have been done. I fully appreciate I they are largely run by volunteers, hopefully the next time they have a big game they'll find some ways of mobilising a good crowd.
Not sure what the approbrium from Dev is all about. Either a few extra hundred locals who would have been interested but didn't know the game was going on, or they did know and didn't go.
@arnos_grove said:
Bring back that thread about who lives in the north and south of bucks. All is forgiven!
The one about reducing the price of seniors season tickets was best. Can you refresh us on your views on that Dev as it was more interesting than marketing!
He made the entirely factual point that those aged 60+ aren't on average (obviously there is massive diversity within the group, as there is for all age groups) the least well off age group any more, and so the discount aged at older people could perhaps be better targeted elsewhere.
I apologize wholeheartedly for holding a view that lack of marketing by a historically small club struggling at the foot of its league is not to blame for it only attracting 750 home supporters to a cup game when its normal home gate is in the 500-600 range.
I realise now that "lack of marketing" is immutable conventional wisdom on football fora and a view that the reason is that the locals are in fact not overly interested is unspeakable heresy.
Whatevverrr as the yoof would no doubt say. Maybe I'll stick to the pun threads.
FA Cup poem, 2nd Round of the Cup, doing okay in the league, Dev being Dev. All is good in the world. (World in this instance obviously meaning the WWFC supporting big of it)
Comments
With regards to the poor attendance, I think Moors maybe could have done a bit more of a job of publicising the tie in the local area. On my journey to Solihull from from girlfriend's folks near Stourbridge I got chatting to a Baggies fan who lives in Solihull who had no idea that the game was on (as well as his memories of the cup matches between us in the 90s!). If he had known and it wasn't all-ticket, he'd have been up for going.
It isn't easy for a club the size of Moors trying to carve a niche for themselves as most of the local population will be supporters of one of the big West Midlands clubs. Hopefully they can grow their crowds, though barely getting 800 of their fans out for one of the biggest games in their history on their own patch isn't a great sign.
A bloke in the pub asked me who Moor Green were playing! It's like they don't really have a clue who the club is!
What do you have in mind, reading?
The game was publicised in the local and national media, even being shown on TV (sort of). If people still are not aware, hard to see in a city the size of birmingham, what more they could have done. Maybe not many people are that interested in a bottom of the table team against a lg2 team.
I think it's as much the malaise that is Midlands football right now. For the previous couple of seasons, Moors would have been seen as a bit of a haven from the failings of Blues and Villa but, now they've started down a similar-looking route, the support has melted away again. They really need to consolidate at Conference National level and establish a support base but, as it is, it's around 400 regulars and a dwindling group of fairweather fans.
@DevC Using the bloke I happened to speak to as a reasonable yardstick (someone who takes a keen interest in football, had a decent level of knowledge, would have been willing to go and lives a 10 min walk away), the audience they would have been aiming at wasn't tapped as much as it might have been. The game being all-ticket probably didn't help.
There is a big latent interest in lower-league football in the outer reaches of the West Midlands conurbation (as the big support Stourbridge attracted for their cup run last season demonstrated), hopefully Moors will learn how to tap that.
As far as I'm aware, the match wasn't all-ticket for home fans...
Indeed Clifty.
How would you have reached your mate, Reading, given that he presumably doesn't read the local newspapers or watch the BBC? I cant see what else they could have done.
I'll start - if he has Facebook/Twitter you can advertise to very targeted segments on a cost-per-click basis.
Quite a pathetic contribution from Dev in this thread, even by his own low standards
I would agree Eric. There has been a pathetic post on this thread. I'll leave others to judge from whom it originates.
I may be wrong Mr Quarter but I recall somebody perhaps you working in the online marketing sector and extolling its values.
If it was you, could you give me a summary of the advantages and drawbacks of this sort of marketing within the context of a Solihull - Wycombe FA cup tie. I would welcome your insight.
It may have been me Dev. I remember you basically declaring marketing in football to be utterly pointless as its reached saturation level.
Quite how you know this besides your own anecdotal observations is beyond me, but sports advertising continues to be a multi billion pound industry and people who work in it and spend on it think very differently to you.
You target a very specific audience segment - males, Solihull area, following pages related to football or Midlands clubs, etc. etc. Facebook has all this data.
You hit them with some targeted messaging, or a Facebook event for the game. Perhaps have a special offer or promotion included in the ad itself.
I have no idea what the uplift from this would be, but the advantages should it work are pretty obvious. People see the ad, click it, and decide to attend.
I don't remember ever saying that marketing or football had reached saturation level.
I understand fairly well the basics of the mechanics of online advertising. Online advertising is hardly new or unknown any more.
What do you think the challenges would be for a club like Solihull. Why would a club like say Bristol Rovers not do it, either for a one off game when they knew they would have capacity or indeed for every home game?
Do you think Wycombe should do it for each home game?
It is almost a badge of honour to appear to be ignorant about local events for many people. I often hear "I wish I had known about it or would have gone". What better excuse is there?
Could you give me a rough cost Oxford or Mr Quarter for a club like Solihull who probably don't have much of an inhouse marketing department to have done this from scratch and target every male facebook football fan in say in a ten mile radius. I am interested.
Just out of interest what is a good home crowd for this type of game. I'm not sure we are the greatest pull in the competition and Solihull are hardly an established team at that level.
Yeah @DevC - I don't recall ever having this conversation with you so I don't think it was me!
As for the cost, it's hard to say but as a rough guide, for £20-40 you can put a Facebook advert out to several thousand football-loving people in the Solihull area.
As for challenges, I'm not sure they have an online ticket system to intergrate it with, so tracking returns could be difficult. I believe the FA provide branded banners though for social media posts, so they'd have had a wealth of artwork ready to go which would save design cost.
Who knows if it would've brought many people through the gate, but I reckon it would've made Reading's mate aware it was happening at least.
Must have been someone else then
To be honest I serious doubt solihull had the capacity to get an add out to thousands of people in Birmingham for £40, but maybe i am wrong.
If thats all the cost would have been, probably would have been just about worth doing. Not convinced it would have added many if any to the gate.
Fucking hell Dev. I’ve stuck up for you in the past but this is pure trolling.
Bring back that thread about who lives in the north and south of bucks. All is forgiven!
Dev, don't you own/run a small business? Are you seriously telling us you've never bothered looking into the targeting ability of Facebook advertising? You've never done a cost-benefit analysis for your firm?
The random sample of one middle aged man who was wondering what someone with a Wycombe scarf was doing waiting for a train at Cradley Heath (aka my 'mate') isn't necessarily representative but gave an insight as to what a floating supporter might be thinking. The posts from the Moors fans saying they were disappointed with their turnout suggests that maybe more could have been done. I fully appreciate I they are largely run by volunteers, hopefully the next time they have a big game they'll find some ways of mobilising a good crowd.
Not sure what the approbrium from Dev is all about. Either a few extra hundred locals who would have been interested but didn't know the game was going on, or they did know and didn't go.
The one about reducing the price of seniors season tickets was best. Can you refresh us on your views on that Dev as it was more interesting than marketing!
He made the entirely factual point that those aged 60+ aren't on average (obviously there is massive diversity within the group, as there is for all age groups) the least well off age group any more, and so the discount aged at older people could perhaps be better targeted elsewhere.
The words of a South Bucks man if ever I heard them
With your typical Dev post it is entirely obvious the response he wants to elicit
That so many just go ahead and do it is a constant surprise to me
I apologize wholeheartedly for holding a view that lack of marketing by a historically small club struggling at the foot of its league is not to blame for it only attracting 750 home supporters to a cup game when its normal home gate is in the 500-600 range.
I realise now that "lack of marketing" is immutable conventional wisdom on football fora and a view that the reason is that the locals are in fact not overly interested is unspeakable heresy.
Whatevverrr as the yoof would no doubt say. Maybe I'll stick to the pun threads.
Fucking hell.
Peak Dev.
FA Cup poem, 2nd Round of the Cup, doing okay in the league, Dev being Dev. All is good in the world. (World in this instance obviously meaning the WWFC supporting big of it)