Top tips for promoting your club

The key to marketing your club successfully is information: you need to tell people why they should join your club and also how they can join your club.

Promote the benefits of membership, and make it easy for non-members to join. One of the best, and free, ways to advertise your club is through word of mouth. Get your current members involved as much as possible through events and activities that they can tell their friends about, and get your club known locally as much as possible.

Here are just a few suggestions to help promote your riding club:

• Open evenings – Hold open evenings for people to find out more about your club, with club representatives ready to answer any questions. Have handouts such as leaflets and flyers, you can also email BRC if you would like some Rider magazines to give away. Offer ‘join on the day discounts’ as an incentive to new members, and have membership forms available for people to take away to friends. Remember to publicise your evening with posters and by talking to local press, also ask your current members to invite their friends and family.
  
  
• Local competitions and events – Get your members involved as much as possible in club activities. Organise competitions for your members with other clubs, and fun events such as gymkhanas. Run workshops and free events such as talks from an expert, tack-marking sessions. Advertise these locally, and on your website to attract potential new members.
  
  
• BRC competitions - Enter teams and individuals from your clubs into BRC area qualifiers for the various BRC championships. Follow how they are doing in club newsletters and encourage other members to come along and support them at the championships. For more information about what and how to enter, visit the BRC competitions and events section on the BRC website.
  
  
• Social evenings – Create good club morale amongst your current members by organising social evenings such as Christmas balls, parities, quiz nights, trips to horse shows etc. You could also open these out to non-member and allow members to invite friends and family.
  
  
• Website – Create and update a website regularly with information on what your club is doing, why non-members should join and how they can join. Email your link to the office to have it posted on the BRC website. For more information see ‘creating your club website’
  
  
• Newsletters – Keep your members up-to-date on what is going on by compiling a newsletter. Provide dates of competitions and events, publish results, and write articles on your current members. Email this to your members to save on costs and post it on your website. Have copies to hand out to new members to show them the type of things your club gets up to.
  
  
• Special offers or discounts – Provide incentives to new members such as seasonal discounts or ‘join on the day’ promotions. Encourage current members promote your clubs for you through ‘recommend a friend’ offers, and offer special ‘family membership’ rates.
  
  
• Prize draws - Use quiz and raffle prizes to help promote your club, such as a free membership for a new member or a free competition entry for a current member. You could also use the funds raised from the ticket sales to go towards other marketing activities for your club.
  
  
• Membership forms – Have your membership forms ready and available to make it easy for new members to join. Hand them out at all your events, attach them to schedules, make them downloadable from your website.
  
  
• Advertising - Utilise the BRC logo and posters, put it on schedules, programmes and flyers. Talk to local press and media about upcoming events or workshops you are running. Put up posters, distribute flyers and ask at your local Saddlers and Feed merchants if you can put out copies of event schedules and memberships forms.