The reason our business succeeds is that we help other businesses grow. Everybody needs a little help sometimes
As long as we can remember, being in business, we’ve always looked to support the community. In our early days in was indulging our interests through the business – sponsoring sports teams we played for. As we grew the business, we realised we had much, much more to offer.
Belmont Wanderers FC
In 2014, when we realised the direction we wanted to take the business and rebranded, our first endeavour was Belmont Wanderers FC. A team that Marketing Director Chris now runs after being heavily involved in the early days. We were able to use our marketing expertise to help advertise and grow the club. Developing a club website to help assert their identity, away from a generic, out of the box site on Pitchero. We realised that to appeal to sponsors, we had to make it worth their while. This applied to player and coach recruitment too. Promoting the club on social media as well as they website. This was something we were good at, and all it cost us was our time and expertise. However the reward is the association with a successful, thriving club.
Belmont Wanderers have themselves have also established an annual football festival which we help market and grow year on year.
Luctonians Sports Club
We were able to take what we learned worked and didn’t to our next club. Luctonians Sports Club. A fantastic sports club that we played at and supported. So, taking this involvement a step further was a great opportunity as Luctonians are the biggest club in the county. We have helped them to manage in-house a website we developed that surpasses every other teams’ in their league. Helping them in all aspects of their marketing, both online and offline. For 2 years we have helped them to establish their own beer, cider, food and sports festival, the Sundogs Festival.
Greyhound RFC & Ledbury RFC
Because what we do is help clubs, there is no conflict of interest like there is with our marketing contracts for businesses. There is no competition between clubs. They all want to do well, and we assist where we can. What we learn from each club we can apply or tweak for others. Greyhound RFC are a good example. Creative Director Dale’s son plays for the U9s so we have a vested interest in the club and helping out where we can. Developing them a website to suit the size of the club and our main area of assistance is with offline marketing by way of posters, banners and literature. We’ve also planned a sponsorship of the U9s section as we funded their entries into a rugby festival at Sale Sharks on the 20th. More to follow on that after it’s happened!
Most recently we have begun working alongside Ledbury RFC. A club who’s level sits between Luctonians and Greyhound RFC. We are helping them to manage a website we developed as well as a sister site that advertises not the sports side but the venue that the club can offer.
How is our help sustainable?
We knew you were wondering this. Our business is based on helping whoever we work with to grow. So, our involvement is not, for want of a better phrase, ‘half-assed’. We ensure everything we do is purposeful, successful and measurable. This is evident from the clubs we are privileged to work with. We do not burden the clubs with a cost, instead we are offered opportunities and sponsorships in return. This takes many forms, but we try not to be a cost to the club. Only an asset. Anything that comes from the clubs, by way of a lead from either seeing our logo or hearing about our work is a bonus. Not a reason for doing what we do.
We do this because we love it. Just as we love seeing the businesses we work with grow. There are some opportunities that come around where we cannot offer our service in exchange. We also invest into sponsorship opportunities. A good example of this is Circus Starr, who give over one million underprivileged children and children with disabilities the chance to run away and see the circus and forget their troubles for the day. We also involve ourselves in as many charity events as we can. In 2017 we raised over £300 actively involving ourselves in events which we regularly blog about on our website. There’s only two of us and we do what we can when we can for whoever we can!
Charitable Work
We have even picked up a project in the charity sector for Seed Madagascar, the work in southeast Madagascar to alleviate poverty, improve well-being and protect unique environments. Our role is to help them increase their funding by advising and executing a strategic paid advertising campaign.
Other notable involvements are sponsoring Luctonians ‘Lucs in Pink’ shirt, a one-off shirt played in then auctioned off immediately after the match to raise money for Breast Cancer awareness. We also produced a programme for the Adelaide Law Foundation Charity Football Match back in the summer.
