The Fleet Trust would like to bring the Bums on Seats initiative up a level and add a Discount Voucher Scheme and a complimentary ticket reward system for pubs/clubs/businesses displaying Matchday posters and distributing Discount Vouchers.
The BOSS initiative has now over 130 matchday poster locations throughout the Ebbsfleet area. Over 90 of these are in local pubs/clubs/businesses.
The principle is to increase Matchday attendances by making discount vouchers widely available to the community in the Ebbsfleet area using our newly established links with local pubs/clubs/businesses and to retain existing support by the distribution of next match discount vouchers in the ground at future home games.
VOUCHERS
1. Each voucher has a value equivalent to a £2.00 discount (concessions £1.00) on the standard admission charge.
2. Only accepted through the Home Turnstiles and for any home game
3. Vouchers to have a shelf life for 2009/10 season only
4. No limit to number of vouchers issued or accepted at turnstile (the more the better)
5. The Voucher has space for the user to enter name and contact details (email, address etc.)
DISTRIBUTION
1. Available from outlets (Pubs, Businesses etc who Display Posters)
2. Vouchers to be personalised e.g. “Courtesy of the Horse & Groom”
3. Available from Club office and inside ground on Matchdays.
DISTRIBUTOR REWARD SYSTEM
We already have a network of pubs/clubs/businesses who display Matchday Posters as a goodwill gesture to the club. It is proposed that by taking on the distribution of the Fleet Discount Vouchers, in addition to continuing to display Matchday Posters, each participating business is offered two complimentary stand tickets for a future home game. We will encourage that these tickets are used for marketing within their own business e.g. raffle, to best clients etc.
If the distributor continues to participate fully we should offer a further 2 complimentary tickets in January 2010.
BENEFITS TO CLUB
- Incentive to get new bums on seats through the Distribution Network.
- Encourage existing fans to return to future games
- It doesn’t undercut mini or full season ticket prices
- Attractive and inexpensive marketing to get the Fleet name out into the community
- Goodwill of pubs/clubs/businesses who can use complimentary tickets for their own marketing (e.g. reward good clients, raffles etc.)
- Away fans still pay £15 – important as away fan attendance should grow this year with the big away support expected from the new BSP clubs – Luton & AFC Wimbledon
- Contact details of Voucher users for future marketing campaigns.
COST
When the Society approved the increase of £2 (to £15) on last year’s entrance fee part of the philosophy was to give the club the financial flexibility to market games in 2009/10 on the basis of discounted entrance fees. The Fleet Discount Voucher Scheme does just this but with the additional opportunity of being able to use the new BOSS Distribution Network.
It also ensures the club will still get the full financial return from away support that will not benefit from these discounts. This is particularly important this year with the large support expected from the new BSP clubs – Luton & AFC Wimbledon.
So far as the cost of complimentary tickets to the Distributors is concerned we anticipate approximately 200 tickets being offered up to the end of December – an average of 14/16 per home game. With a similar number for the second half of the season. We will ensure that tickets are only offered for the lower attendance games (generally the Tuesday games and those against the lower profile clubs).
In reality we expect the majority if not all of these will go to new Visitors to Stonebridge Road and therefore the cost in terms of loss in revenue will be minimal plus, of course, we will get additional revenue from the bar/catering, extra programme sales and shop sales.
The Trust hopes that our existing free printing arrangements for posters will stretch to the discount vouchers. However if this is not possible the cost of printing the initial supply of 10,000 vouchers for the first half of the season will be £300. If needed this would need to be found from the Club marketing budget.
MONITORING
By personalising the Discount Vouchers with the Distributors name we can monitor the number of vouchers used by distributor for each game. This will not only enable us to measure the popularity of the scheme but we will be able to measure the results by Distributor. We can use this to help understand the type of distributor that gives us most success – useful for future planning.
The Fleet Trust will report to the Society on usage in December 2009.
SOCIETY ACCOUNTANTS STATMENT
Using a discounted rate on match days was the original idea behind increasing the match day price to £15. It is no secret that early signs at Stonebridge Road are that attendances are down on last season which is likely to be due to a number of factors, the pricing point of £15 being only one of them. However by offering people the chance to come into the ground at the price of £13 it may entice some of them to come back to the ground.
The financial risk is also pretty minimal to match day revenues. For example if we sold 500 tickets, 300 Adult and 200 Concessions all at full price this would gross the Club £5,900.
If we were to offer the discounts and 50% of the attendance had vouchers the effect would be a shortfall of £400. To make up this shortfall we would need a further 40 people through the gate to break even on the previous example.
The initial outlay to the club is also minimal with the potential benefits of the scheme, in my opinion far outweighing any negatives.
The links and recognition in the community between pubs/clubs/businesses can also only be seen as positive and this scheme would only further empower our position in the community and future revenues may arise in terms of future years sponsorship and/or advertising.
