John has assisted many Licensed Clubs over the years.
John has assisted many Licensed Clubs over the years, ranging from the huge NSW Leagues Clubs to RSL’s and Bowling Clubs. With Gaming revenue (i.e. Poker Machines) being the lifeblood of most Clubs, John’s role has been to stimulate Gaming revenue for most of the Clubs he has consulted to.
This was a somewhat simpler task in years gone by, compared with today. In the State of NSW, Government Legislation was introduced in 2003, prohibiting Clubs from advertising any Gaming machines or Gaming promotions, outside the premises.
This restrictive ruling even extended to prohibiting Clubs from providing pamphlets, coasters or any other printed material to members within the Club, as it was deemed that such material could be taken outside the premises, therefore breaching the regulations.
After the introduction of this legislation, Clubs were left to ponder the question “What do we do if we are not allowed to externally promote our most profitable feature?” A good question indeed! But that’s where John once again comes in.
He has a number of solutions for Clubs in this regard, with most of them involving the segmentation of one’s Member database. John assists Clubs in identifying certain segments within their database and then provides solutions (many of them via Direct Marketing) to re-activating patronage from those segments.
And of course, once a particular “profile” of a segment has been noted, it is far easier to target more “people who look like that segment” via the likes of software packages such as Mosaic, MapInfo and ABS Census Data .
For example, if the likely profile for frequent users of a Chinese Restaurant is “35+ years of age, CD demographic, with a household income of around $75,000”, the information-based Census Data which John has access to, can pinpoint where such people live. It is therefore much easier to then market to these people with minimal wastage as we know where they live.
Assisting With Brand Building & Creating Instant Traffic!
An example of John’s combination of long-term thinking and quick results is one of his clients, namely Parramatta Leagues Club. Working closely with the Chief Executive and the Marketing Team at the Club, John is responsible for providing advice on building the brand for the Club and for stimulating instant results via extra customer traffic.
In the instance of Parramatta Leagues, John highly recommended qualitative and quantitative research to determine the needs and wants of Members and non-Members. “This was particularly vital for Parramatta Leagues” in John’s opinion, “due to the high multi-cultural demographics of the Club’s patrons.”
Having done this, it was easy for John to put forward facilities and services recommendations to Management, as such recommendations were supported by research and analysis.
John also assisted in analysing the types of entertainment which appealed to local patrons and provided promotional concepts such as a revamped Members Badge Draw and Auction Dollars, both which ran with outstanding success!
In the instance of Parramatta Leagues, John’s Marketing services are used for both “macro” and “micro” thinking, all the time with the expectation that John will come up with his next “wow factor” idea to help make the Club stand out from the rest!
Club Bulletin Revamped
Given the absolute importance of communicating with one’s database, most Club Chief Executives would agree that the Club Bulletin is the most important Marketing tool attracting Members to their premises regularly.
However, ironically, many Clubs leave the design and production of this very important publication to the local printer. (Who normally had no real experience in copywriting, public relations or advertising).
John has produced literally hundreds of such Direct Mail Magazines over the years and has a strong understanding of the type of headlines, copy and graphics that attract attention and evoke a response.
Just like a Woman’s Weekly or New Idea magazine, the front page of one’s Club Bulletin should have loads of “wow factor”. With the glut of Direct Mail in letterboxes these days, it needs to stand out from the crowd if it is going to have a chance of being read!
Indeed, John has worked with both Woman’s Weekly and New Idea magazines – and therefore fully appreciates the absolute importance of creating a compelling message (or messages) on the front page of a publication. And as we all know, such women’s magazines are the masters of creating an impulse purchase through front page “wow factors”!
John quotes “Club Journals and Newsletters are fighting Direct Mail brochures from the likes of American Express, NRMA, Myer and a host of other companies. Therefore, it needs to provoke interest from the Club’s Members instantly from the front page, if it is to break through the clutter.”
With John’s experience with Woolworths , Roselands and a host of major retailers, he understands the “tricks” that need to be employed in order to capture a prospects’ attention.
In the instance of Parramatta Leagues, for example, the “extreme make-over” is very evident. John’s influence has dramatically changed the look of the Club Bulletin, from a publication that perhaps looked a little conservative and somewhat tired, to something that is now very contemporary and exciting! (See the ‘before’ and ‘after’ versions of the Parramatta Leagues Bulletin above to the left.)
Furthermore, the revamped Parramatta publication now espouses “wow factor” and more appropriately infers that the Club is an exciting leisure and entertainment venue. The overall ambience of the Bulletin gives Members (and visitors) a very clear perception of the Club being a fun and vibrant meeting place.
Add to this the exciting promotional concepts that John has developed for the Club (e.g. Auction Dollars) and one can see why his expertise in this arena is much sought after.