Hi there,
Firstly, this is not meant to be a negative post, just one we can all add our ideas to over the weeks. Alison has managed to get PB to agree to take on board some of the things we say and as such, let's see what we can come up with.
Firstly, the Number of the Thread!


3,668 is the average gate for a home London Broncos/Harlequins Rugby League match from the year 2000 up until the start of this season. This figure includes an average gate of 2,800 for the Huddersfield game in 2006 and not the stupid 12,000 double header figure.

There are only 4 teams that we average over 4,000 gates for over the years and it will come as no suprise that these are the so called big 4 of Wigan, Saints, Leeds and Bradford.

So, if this were OUR business, what would we try to do to improve on this?
If we ignore this weeks game v Leeds, we have 5 more teams visiting us (averages in brackets).
Hudds (2,800), Saints (4,764), Bulls (4,016), Salford (2,670), Castleford (3,567).

I for one would target the Bradford, Castleford and Salford games with everything the club can afford to spend. This season is nearly gone with regard to attracting new regular fans, so we need to get people in to games that will be close contests.
The Bradford game is "dance off day" and my thoughts on that form of attraction are well documented.
I think the club should offer £5 tickets to every resident in TW2 for these three games.
On production of a utility bill, you get £5 entry (free to all under 16's). I don't for 1 minute believe that we will see any more than 500 added to our gates, but at least we will be connecting with the locals.
I would also open the North Stand for the Castleford and Salford games and fill it with every student we can convince to come along.
The last two gates for games against Cas and the Reds are 2,112 and 2,347 respectively and must be targeted.
Huddersfield have built their crowds over the years by connecting with the local public and sunsidising tickets and I believe we should do the same.

As I say, I don't want this to become another negative thread or marketing rant, but if we put our heads together, then maybe we can get our gates up.

you just made me feel sad that there are so few games remaining.
Feels like the season has just started.
You're gonna remind me that it gets darker from next week too?

Make the East Stand unallocated for the targetted games.

Mmmm....I think that most ST holders would have a problem with that.

When do the kids start applying for Uni places/open days etc? Could we send every GCSE and A Level student a free ticket to a game?

I know, their short-sightedness and selfishness would get in the way of that. I still think it would have been great having unallocated seating in the East from the start but appreciate it would be impossible to price/make any money.

GCSE's have ended and kids are back at school IIRC. A-Levels finish this week perhaps? Or certainally by next week. They don't go back to school. Wrong time of year for opens days tbh, people have made their choices by now sadly. Still, there are plenty of 15-16 year olds still being schooled so they could easily be targetted.

=redAlison has managed to get PB to agree to take on board some of the things we say and as such, let's see what we can come up with.

To be fair to PB he already understood a great deal more than we gave him credit for. He understands how we feel and what we think, the message for whatever reason was not getting across from the club to fans. I agree though, we have complained about bums on seats and should all work together to get this improved. Ideas should be sent to PB, I know he will reply. Like I said previosuly we may not always like what we hear but we will get a reply. We cannot have a say in the running of the club or the policy making which happens at board level but we can put forward ideas, we can give our time and we can influence each others thinking of these very ideas. Some of them will be good, some will be hopeless, some will have been previosuly tried but may be worth trying again. Things like giving tickets away on radio as prizes. So keep the thoughts going, get along to as many forums as you can and keep the mails coming in

After attending every season since the late Crusaders days, circumstances dictated I could not attend one game last season.

Finally, I made amends and got myself over to the Celtic Crusaders game the other Saturday, my first match since September 2007.

- why was only the East Stand open? (ok, the south stand is being rebuilt).
- is it really a whopping £35 to sit in the 'best' bit of the East stand?

As it was, I got invited into the London Welsh RU corporate box for the 2nd half, so I lorded it with the nobs rather than slummed it with the plebs.

Read your PM.
As I said, no negatives here please.

[usomething on the cheap[/u

say at all the major shopping centres in London i.e Westfield, Brent Cross
or busy streets

have a man/woman volunteer with a little stand (like the evening standard type) trying to gee up a bit of awareness for Quins

Each volunteer could be given a unique number and discount vouchers to give out which can be presented on the gates for discounted tickets.

Those unique numbers can be tallied up with a substantial reward for the highest fan recruiter.

thoughts?

Like it. Alas, these places frown upon such activity unless they get paid.
I stiil (and have said since 2002) that we need to send cheerleaders in full gear into "crim" bars on fridays selling pre-tickets at £5 each........and if a few of these cheerleaders were to wander into the westfield ...well, so what?

Fu@$*g capitalists

Why not target the college next door to the stoop, must be several hundred students who attend. Use their college id to get access, free or cheap ticket as reward for exams and introduction to QRL.

go to brunel uni uxbridge a lot of rugby played there and other sports and easy to get to the stoop hand out £5 tickets

HELLO






Is that the penny dropping

i sneaky plan for long term exposure, lets go and give free tickets to all the students in media and English colleges and universities. That way the future writers could all be potential league fans.

Hooray, somebody else realises the potential of NW London.
This area is a rugby hotbed ( if there is such a thing) a lot of people watch SL in RU clubs and pubs in Uxbridge. Not to mention the RAF base which hosts most of their inter services matches.
I've always thought that the club target the wrong areas, and should cast their nets further.

A half decent advertising campaign in this area will surely reap rewards.
Its done wonders for Wasps, Saracens and L Irish over the years, most people i know are willing to give it a go providing they know, who what when and where.

Stop wasting time and money on cheap marketing gimmicks. Get rid of those miserable loking circus kids who wander about on giant balls not cracking a smile, the silly dancing on the pitch etc. (keep the cheerleaders tho!)

Flyers, ads in papers, ticket deals, car stickers, player promotion....sell the game and the club. Oh and sack whoevers in charge of marketing and all their team, because if we're not careful we could end the season with a worse home average than Celtic who have a shoddy stadium, are in a small town, have no home grown players and are bottom of the league by a mile (and thats not an insult to them, its their year 1).

When we were in our Broncos persona we used Brunel Campus at Osterley for their gymnasium facilities....I wonder if we still have any links with them.

I don't think I have ever agreed with a post anymore than this one. 100% spot on.

I did ask for no negative posts TC. Anyway, we do not have a marketing team and haven't for some time, so there's nobody to sack.

The idea of this thread was to get ideas to forward to the club, not lambast them over past failures....of which we all know there are/were many.

So far, we have had:
Connecting with local Students (16+, not just the nippers).
On this point, the Varsity match was well attended. Did we gather any data on that lot?
Flyer/Leflet drops. I agree with this suggestion. I sent an old email to Alison yesterday that Nick C sent us when we did the drops in Brentford thanking us for upping the gates. It does work!!!
Target the Armed forces!
Cracking idea. There used to be a barracks (probably still there) of scouse signallers in Hounslow.
£5 tickets. Now, I am not aware of the club finances and don't want to offer too much unqualified advice on how much to charge, but £5 for Students, TW2 residents and the armed services (possibly NHS staff, the Old Bill, TEACHERS....) would seem like a cracking idea. I also believe that the walk up price for either the North stand or the Jesters sections in the east shoud revert back to the £10 from last year too.
ST Holders should be put in the middle 3 sections of the East (if that remains the Stand of choice) and the 2 sections at ends should be unallocated. This reduces the need for stewards prior to KO to be anywhere apart from checking the ST section.
To add to these great ideas, I would also remove the "gold card" stuff AFTER the game. Instead, I would have the player presentations and interviews just the once. By all means, charge for access to the Jesters bar, but let's get a bit of the community feel back.I also think that the targeting of pubs 20 minutes away by train from Twickenham is a cheap and easy way to raise the profile of the club.

Lastly, I suggested in the off season that the club get FRAMED fixture lists and get one put up in every pub in the area. I was away in December and believe something like this happened, but I haven't seen anything in TW2 this year.

Keep the ideas coming. I will collate them all and get Alison to forward them to Paul B.

How about sponsoring an ad at Waterloo Station for the season. Just a small one on an escalator as an experiment. This would have the advantage of people who live on the Twickers line and work in town and a general through put. It could have an offer on it with a code and then could be monitored re response. Those guerilla marketerers on here (you know who you are) would have to stump up (me included) and when the money received from the up take passes the cost it could be re-invested in further ads. I know we have to target the Twickers area but there are 1,000s of people in London looking for something to at the weekends in the summer. I would like to hear Gutters views on this. I am convinced if the price is right we could pick up a lot of floaters who could be converted into regulars. Our profile London-wide is practically zero.

Outdoor or ambient advertising is on its butt at the moment. Posters have always been about above the line advertising, which is designed to raise profile, but it is rarely a "call to action".
I have always championed the idea of some form of activity at Twickenham station (something that PB did at Vauxhal station for the brit oval). I have no idea (well, not a exact one anyway) of how much the current advertiser (an estate agent I believe) pays for their name board under the Twickenham sign, but I would think that if the club did this, together with a tie in with a florist/gardening company, added hanging baskets (flowers in the club colours??) and we placed cheerleaders/players outside handing out the £5 offer on Thursday and Friday nights for 2 hours we would get some return.
As for the ROI model you mention, both advertising agents and senior marketing managers are terriffied of "quantifiable" marketing, because 90% of what the charge/spend, is smoke and mirrors in the first place.

The cafe on Twickers station have always been friendly, a poster in there would cost nowt and may pick up some locals. Last season they were suprised that the season had started and wanted a fixture list. Maybe some one who is local and has the gift of the gab could get them to put a poster up. Small things add up over time.

Flyers/posters/offers in the larger local business tea rooms [how quaint