Promoting Sport blog

New sporting year on the Promoting Sport Toolkit

It’s a big year for sport in 2008, with the obvious highlight being the Beijing Olympics which kicks-off on the 8^th of August.

Thanks to the Lancashire Sports Partnership, the Promoting Sport Toolkit has got it all covered with a comprehensive calendar of the big (and not so big) sporting events of 2008.

Thanks also to Sport England South East for some great new photos that can now be found on the photo library.  These include images of people taking part in bowls, tenpin bowling and orienteering.

If anyone has got anything they would like to share on the Toolkit, drop me an email.  chris.smith@uwe.ac.uk

Sporting Champions video

I've produced a short Sporting Champions video to show how it can help you to get young people playing sport.

Don't forget that anyone at all can book these free visits from elite athletes to help get young people playing sport. To see how visits work just watch the video above (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfyLQ_oL0sw if you can't see it).

If you want to book a visit call 0800 328 4903 and they'll give you the correct contact at your local County Sports Partnership. Alternatively visit www.sportingchampions.org.uk.

New developments on the Promoting Sport Toolkit

Want to learn how to use some basic marketing and promotional techniques to increase sports participation or your club's membership?

Check out the new How to guides for some for some simple steps to follow when choosing and implementing the most appropriate techniques for your club or organisation.

Subject areas include advertising, direct mail, branding, using the media, using technology and how to write a design brief.

Each section also includes examples of how others have used the particular techniques.

It is widely accepted now that traditional marketing techniques can influence behavioural change.  Commericial organisations have been using these for decades to get people to listen to their message and adopt their products and services voluntarily.  There is no reason why these same techniques cannot be successful in changing peoples' attitudes toward sport and physical activity.

The new How to guides have been designed so you can quickly and simply use some of these tradional techniques.

Communicating to the Sport England segments

Sport England's research department has released some fantastic segmentation work recently, which is fantastic news because segmentation is an essential element of any good marketing work.

In an ideal world we would market to everyone individually, however this is impractical. What often ends up happening instead is one communication to everybody, which normally only appeals to a small percentage of the population. Segmentation allows us to group together people who have something in common, in our case with relation to sport.

The best example of segmentation nowadays is Tesco who have used the information from the Tesco clubcard to dominate the market.

In order to help you use this information to market and promote sport better I have written these communication plans. I used the information from the pen portraits alongside a tool called TrueTouch from Experian to write . These specifically cover how to promote and market sport to each of the segments.

New to the Toolkit! Media campaign case studies

Check out how Northumberland Sport and Sport Nottinghamshire have used the media to drive up participation in their areas.

Click on the link below to view documents relating to the successful campaigns which were run in the two counties.

media campaign case studies

If you have any information you would like to share on the Promoting Sport Toolkit, email chris.smith@uwe.ac.uk.

How to get a Sporting Champions visit

Since I wrote about Sporting Champions a few weeks ago there's been a fair amount of interest in how to use the scheme, what visits can and can't be used for and who to talk to about them. So I spent some time talking to Louise Calton to try and clear things up.

Sporting Champions is a Sport England initiative which brings world-class athletes face-to-face with young people* to motivate and inspire them to participate in sport.

Visits are available for free, but there are limited numbers so please book early to avoid disappointment.

What can you use visits for?
In the past visits have been available mainly for schools, but 200 visits are now available for community-based visits and are aimed at increasing participation in community sport. For example at a youth club or young person project.

Community visits from a Sporting Champion can help you:
• Engage young people and get their attention
• Get them excited about sport and joining local clubs
• Motivate them in their wider lives
• Emphasise the importance and benefits of volunteering and getting involved

50 strategic and campaigning visits are also available and can be used for events which are about increasing participation, but don’t necessarily involve meeting with young people. For example a local sports seminar aiming to engage community sports volunteers and build links between school and club sport. A Sporting Champion can help bring a seminar or launch to life by sharing their own experiences.

To qualify for a strategic or campaigning visit you simply need to demonstrate how it would help increase participation by either:
• improving links between schools and clubs; or
• promoting leadership and volunteering.

Who can book a visit?
It’s generally sports development officers who book visits, but almost anyone who works with young people in sport can do so. For example:
• Local sports clubs and programmes
• Local Authorities
• Community Sports Networks
• County Sport Partnerships
• Sport England Regions
• Sport England Support Centre.

How do I book a visit?
County Sport Partnerships (CSPs) are responsible for nominating events in their area, so you will need to contact your local CSP to find out if your event is suitable for a Sporting Champion visit.

For your CSP’s contact details, the online booking tool, or any more information please go to www.sportengland.org/promotingsport and click on “Visits from Sporting Champions”. For more information please call the Sporting Champions Hotline on 0800 328 4903.

*young people here means anyone under 25

Accessing support through Corporate Social Responsibility

Whenever I'm talking to people who work in sport I ask "What's the biggest thing that's stopping you from promoting sport." The answer is nearly always money and/ or resources.

So while I was at the Social Marketing Conference in Oxford this week I took the opportunity to question people about good ways to get hold of money. The recurring answer was that businesses are becoming more and more interested in working with the public/ charity sector, and providing financial or other kinds of support.

So how do you go about accessing this support? Well I'm going to be looking into that further, and one resource I'm definitely going to be checking out is the new book by Phillip Kottler and Nancy Lee "Corporate Social Responsibility - doing the most good for your company and your cause".

It's written for the benefit of businesses, and helping them to figure out how to use CSR to their advantage, and I've been told it includes some great information that we can use to understand how to work with businesses. I'll report back when I have more information.

Incidentally - Nancy Lee was in fact one of the speakers at the conference and I managed to quiz her for 10 minutes on a couple of questions about promoting sport. I'll post more on that when I get back to the office.

What would Bob think?

Ever been curious to know what Bob Dylan thinks about the Promoting Sport toolkit? Well wonder no longer promoting sport fans!

(you have to give the video a little while to load, so please be patient)

Promoting Rowing (by John Ainsworth)

Indoor rowing is one of the fastest growing sports in England. According to the Active People survey around 80,000 adults regularly take part in water based activity with up to 4.7 million involved in gym based indoor rowing.

This article includes an explanation of some of the benefits of rowing and a series of case studies on how people have got involved in the sport, and programmes run locally which attracted new people. These case studies include London Youth Rowing which is a project aimed at increasing the level of participation in youth clubs, schools and disabled organisations, primarily in deprived areas of London.

It also includes a guide on how to promote indoor rowing to adults, schools and details of where you can get more support and advice on topics of interest to you.

Promoting Sport toolkit officially launched

After two months of testing we've formally launched the Promoting Sport toolkit.

I've substantially improved the photo library, so it's much easier to use and has high-res images for all photography.

I've also put better keywording on the images, so they should be easier to search.

Early feedback has been very positive, with 70% of people saying they thought it was good or very good.

In fact, according to Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Sport:

"The new Promoting Sport Toolkit is a fantastic resource and makes promoting sport easier. We’re particularly impressed with the extensive photo library and 'How To Guides', which will prove useful for our local sports clubs and will help us to drive up participation."

I've got lots of thoughts and ideas about what to do next in order to improve the toolkit further - but if you've got ideas why not let me know in the comments section or on the toolkit's discussion forum.