1. Using Sport to Market Your School Neil Rollings AMDIS Conference 2011

2. Do you believe? Sport is a major factor in people choosing independent schools? Sport can be a major factor in choosing which independent school? It is a misconception that sport only contributes to the recruitment of pupils who are able in sport

3. “Sport is a factor which elicits some of the strongest expressions of parental dissatisfaction”

4. What do Customers want? Elite Sport Middle Ability Low Ability

5. Curve of Normal Distribution Low abilityMid ability High ability

6. Marketing is not just the promotion process Marketing is everything you do

7. Measure how appealing your school sport is to: Potential Internationals Keen and able sportsmen / women Keen but not able Not able and not bothered

8. Do you know what you are promoting?

9. Axes of School Sport Choice/Compulsion Performance/Participation Focus/Breadth Can you satisfy all constituencies ?

10. Is the Mission clear? Is there a feedback loop?

11. What is your Target offer? Where you are, and where you want to be, are a reflection of your targets

12. Targets: How do you measure success? Win Daily Mail Cup/National Sevens Top 10 girls’ hockey in England Top 3 in Oxfordshire Win 50% of games in all sports Have 70% of pupils playing in school matches every Saturday Have all pupils being meaningfully active 3 times per week All pupils can swim 100m of a recognised stroke All girls can run a mile in under 9 minutes

13. Statistics Use statistics to give credibility to aims Use statistics to sell the future

14. The Visitor Experience FAQ Touring pupils Specialist information Visual impact Is it saying what people want to hear?

15. Overseas Pupils? Avoiding the Games Ghettoes Come for English games, or cultural preferences accommodated? Accuracy of information at point of sale Same principles of entitlement as British pupils Communication

16. What are the Promotional Mechanisms? Partnerships Public Relations

17. Positive Partnerships Partnerships v Rape and Pillage (What can you do for them?) Partnerships are between people not institutions

18. Partnerships with Whom? Feeder school heads Feeder school staff Parents Local clubs Professional teams and academies Counties/representative squads Governing bodies

19. What have you got that they would like? Facilities Expertise (coaching/refereeing) Former pupils (news of) Organisational capacity Hospitality

20. Importance of Outreach Programme

21. Public Relations How do we draw attention to what we are doing? “The purpose of PR is to inform and persuade” Who are you trying to inform and persuade? What means will you use?

22. Sports Prospectus Parental Presentation Website Press Coverage

23. What message is your PR attempting to convey? What information? What persuasion? What do you want people to conclude about sports provision at your school? Are all your messages consistent?

24. Does your website work for you?

25. What is the method by which news information is collated and distributed? Today’s news is tomorrow’s chip wrapping When? By Whom?

26. Create Efficiency What we are aiming to do What we are actually doing What people know about what we are doing