Category: Blog

If your background is in sports and athletic coaching, you may find yourself struggling to understand “the whole marketing thing”—let alone, which strategies and tactics you can use to effectively promote your youth soccer program, increase registrations and enrollments, and build stronger relationships with your team, players’ parents and the community-at-large.

But that’s why we’re here to help!

Read on to learn why building a strong, seamless online experience is more important now than ever, and three things you’ll want to keep in mind when developing a digital strategy for your youth soccer program. 

The Impact of COVID-19 on Youth Soccer

The COVID-19 pandemic completely disrupted youth soccer participation when local governments began imposing business closures, stay-at-home orders and social distancing policies. On top of that, online usage and mobile rates skyrocketed as more people flocked to their phones than ever before.

And now that many children and families are ready to re-engage with youth sports, it’s important to understand how the landscape has changed so you can figure out how to assist and improve future registrations and participation.

Three Ways to Build Your Youth Soccer’ Leagues Online Presence

Here’s a rundown of three things to keep in mind as you build your online presence:

1.   Keep your website up-to-date

It’s not enough to just have a website—you need to make sure your website stays up-to-date, and that it’s mobile responsive. When players’ parents are looking for youth sports programs in their area, their first stop is likely an online search engine or social media platform. To appear in searches, make sure your club is updated regularly with recent and relevant content.

Make sure you create noticeable links or buttons on your site so that players’ parents can find them easily and be able to follow them. This will also help minimize the amount of time your staff has to track down various practice schedules, tournament dates, and so forth.

2.   Use your social media accounts

Social media is an easy and free way to help parents looking for local activities to enrich their kids’ weekends and summers. Having a strong social media and online presence for your youth soccer program is important as it can extend your reach and spread information quickly.

Another easy way to build up interest in your youth soccer program is to regularly post photos of players, their parents, and any related events you may have. People, especially youth soccer players and their parents, love seeing themselves being featured in Facebook posts.

3.   Keep in touch with the community

Stay in touch with both past and present players and their parents. Use your email database to easily send reminders on the new programs, check up on the ones who have missed registrations, and let them know why they should not miss the next.

Offering incentives, referrals, or discounts for early registrations or referring new players is another effective way to give your registration numbers a boost.

The complete solution for your youth soccer league

Your youth soccer league’s path to success involves everything from facility scheduling to online registration and more.

Here are three ways our comprehensive software solution can help:

1. Registration: Provide clients the flexibility to register as a team or as individuals. Utilize online waivers and simplify fee collection with the use of registration deposits and a variety of processing options.
2. Scheduling: Generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments reflecting team preferences, venue availability, bye-weeks and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.
3. Public Website: Provide clients real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free demo and personalized product tour today.

When you manage a sports league, the most important job during the offseason is promoting your league and securing players. The nature of your sports league will dictate your target audience and potential customers—so the first step is to figure out who they are, what they want, and what forms of marketing they’re most likely to respond to and engage with.

Once you have a solid understanding of your target audience—which, for the purposes of this blog, we’re assuming you do—you’ll be able to effectively utilize the strategies outlined below to guide your marketing efforts, as well as the tone, language and structure of your communications.

Read on to learn five quick and easy ways to increase your sports league’s online registration numbers.

1. Organic Social Media Efforts

Consumers are more dependent on digital content than they’ve ever been in the past. In fact, one recent global study found that engagement on social media has increased 61% over regular usage rates since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two of the hottest and most rapidly growing social media platforms you should consider using to generate more online registrations are TikTok and Instagram.

TikTok

TikTok has overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination, and boasts a staggering 105% user growth rate in the US over the past two years. TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices. The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

When utilized as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok can be a great way to promote your sports league by creating fun video content, tapping into a niche community, and engaging with a younger demographic (if applicable to your league).

Instagram

Instagram now has over 1 billion users worldwide, and the social media giant has been shown to have a strong impact on consumer opinions. With the right approach, you can utilize your Instagram page to increase your number of followers, build meaningful connections with your audience, increase your sports league’s online registrations, and gain unfiltered feedback that you can use to evaluate the success of your league management.

2. Paid Ads on Social Media

As of January 2022, there are 3.96 billion total social media users across all platforms. With the average consumer now spending an unprecedented amount of time online, utilizing targeted advertising is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience. And, fortunately, there are a number of tools at your disposal that make it easier than ever, regardless of which social media platforms you choose.

3. SMS Marketing / Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing has come a long way since the early 2000s. Today, it’s one of the most highly effective, and cost effective, marketing methods available.

With roughly 97% of Americans owning some type of mobile phone—and approximately 85% of mobile phone users having smart phones—everyone’s more connected, and constantly connected, than ever before. On top of that, the average text message conversion rate is 30%.

It makes sense, then, to utilize SMS marketing to promote your sports league’s online registration page. It’s also a great way to touch base with your contact base, keep them informed of any important changes or updates, and to continue building the relationship in a nonintrusive way. Keep your texts short, friendly, and informative, and be sure to let subscribers know where to find your online registration.

4. Email Marketing

With time and resources limited, it’s understandable that you’ll want to make sure your marketing budget is being allocated wisely and effectively. You may be wondering if email marketing is really worth it, considering all the other marketing options available to businesses nowadays.

The answer is yes—and here’s why: Beyond being able to use scheduling software to create and distribute tailored email marketing campaigns to encourage more online registrations, email marketing has also been shown to be an extremely valuable tool in building upon existing relationships with customers, in addition to reaching new potential customers. 

Keep your emails short and sweet. The copy should be upbeat, visually appealing, easy to skim, and clear in nature. This applies to the subject line as well. And don’t forget to include a clear call-to-action button with a link to your sports league’s online registration page.

5. Sports League Management Software

EZFacility’s sports league management software gives you a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, responsive platform. Our cloud-based, comprehensive SaaS service simplifies the scheduling and management of fields, courts, leagues, tournaments, teams, coaches, memberships, and more.

Conclusion

All successful businesses—including sports leagues—are built on strong relationships. The stronger the relationship, the deeper the level of customer loyalty and repeat business.

Since successful league management is reliant upon community involvement and engagement, it’s absolutely fundamental that you clearly define—and understand—your target audience so that you can create a solid marketing plan around their needs and preferences to build long-lasting relationships. 

To learn more about EZFacility’s comprehensive sports league management, contact us today to schedule a free no-commitment demo and personalized product tour. 

When you’re running a basketball league, your head needs to be in the game. So, if you’ve been wondering what you can do to spend less time worrying about registration forms and other time-consuming administrative tasks—you’re in luck!

In this blog, we’ll talk about how basketball league management software can be an affordable solution tailored to meet your league’s unique needs.

What is Basketball Management Software?

Basketball league management software is an online tool that can be used to simplify and streamline the scheduling of basketball courts, teams, coaches, leagues, tournaments, and more.

Benefits of Basketball League Management Software

Whether you’re simply looking to save time on administrative tasks, or need some help managing the more complex aspects—the right basketball league management software can be the difference between a swish or a flop.  

EZFacility’s sports league management and registration software gives you every tool you need to manage your basketball leagues with a complete set of features bundled into one responsive, user-friendly platform that updates in real-time.

Here are just a few ways we can help you save time, simplify online bookings, and improve overall league management:

• Online Registration: Provide clients the flexibility to register as a team or as individuals. Utilize online waivers and simplify fee collection with the use of registration deposits and a variety of processing options.
• Schedule Maker: Generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments reflecting team preferences, venue availability, bye-weeks and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.
• Public Website: Provide clients real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.
• League Management: Create complex league and tournament schedules in minutes. Keep games running on time with referee assignments, printable scorecards, and photo ID cards for player verification.
• Customization: Make EZLeagues your own. Transform EZLeagues to match your brand, or embed it within your own website. With familiar customization tools, you can tailor the look-and-feel in minutes.

Additional features include:

• Real-Time TV Display
• Custom Color Schemes
• Automated Game Reminders
• Sports Specific Game Cards
• League & Tournament Classified Ads
• IFrame Integration
• Officials Management
• Advertising Capability
• Detailed Reporting

Take Your Basketball League to the Next Level

If you’re ready to up your game, contact us today to schedule a free demo and personalized product tour.

Although sports marketing is a bit different than traditional marketing, the fundamentals of the game are the same.

In this blog, we’ll cover five swinging strategies to help you promote your baseball league and increase registration numbers.

1. Create a Winning Game Plan

A sports marketing plan is an outline that should include all of the marketing efforts you have planned for the next month, quarter, or year. It should also clearly define how your marketing efforts directly align and support your league’s goals.

To create an effective sports marketing program for your baseball league, be sure to include the following key elements:

• Overview of marketing goals and objectives: Your marketing goals should be SMART—that is, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
  
• Assessment of your baseball league’s current marketing efforts: An analysis of the current state of the organization concerning its marketing positioning.
  
• Description of your target market and customer needs: Here’s where to include the critical information for your target market—who they are, where they’re located, as well as any preferences, needs, or gaps that will be relevant to your marketing efforts.
  
•  Outline of marketing activities: A list of all the marketing campaigns and baseball marketing strategies planned for the period and the indicated timelines.
  
• Key performance indicators (KPIs): Critical indicators of progress toward a desired goal or target. KPIs provide focus for strategic and operational improvement by establishing an analytic baseline by which to measure success.

2. Leverage Your Baseball League’s Sponsors

Leveraging your sponsors is an easy way to increase your league’s visibility, while also giving them some reciprocal added value. As you secure new sponsorships, ask to collaborate with their marketing teams to come up with clever ways you can cross-promote one another across social media accounts.

By working with your sponsors, you can ensure your messaging and promotions are aligned with what they’re looking for, and help you build strong working relationships that can lead to long-term sponsorship commitments.

3. Share Behind the Scenes Content

Instead of simply sharing photos and videos on game day, drum up some pre-game excitement by giving your fan base and supporters a look behind the scenes. Sharing behind the scenes content feels more genuine, which social media users are more likely to engage with.

Something as simple as posting photos or clips of player warm-ups or practices can have surprisingly positive effects—for example, increasing your online presence, piquing the interest of new potential sponsors, as well as attracting new players and increasing online registrations. 

4. Utilize Branded Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the most wide-ranging (and free!) social media marketing tools at your disposal. They have the power to spread your message across multiple social media platforms, and they can help you track trending topics, engage in relevant and timely conversations, market your sports events, and more. In fact, according to Twitter, Tweets with hashtags get 100% more engagement.

Piggy-backing off of an existing hashtag can be useful for capitalizing on a new trend or hot topic discussion, but be aware that your message could get lost in the noise if the hashtag is, or becomes, highly saturated.

A branded hashtag is a custom hashtag unique to your brand, which is helpful in both paid and organic social media marketing efforts. You can use branded hashtags to create buzz for your baseball league, encourage user-generated content, run contests and promotions, and increase league registrations. 

5. Share Highlights

To successfully market your baseball league, you’ll need to do more than just promote it. People who aren’t able to attend games in-person will still want to feel like a part of the experience, which is why sharing highlights from games on your social media accounts can be a highly effective way to promote your baseball league. This also allows your fan base to share highlights on their personal pages, which will help boost your engagement metrics as well.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for ways to save time on administrative work and streamline league management so you can focus on knocking it out of the park with these hard-hitting marketing strategies, click here to learn how EZFacility can help.

According to Deloitte’s 2022 Sports Industry Outlook, the role and duty of sports in society will continue to receive increased attention, with a focus on sustainability and mental health. The study findings also predict the sports industry will continue to see an influx of money from new sources, shifting power dynamics in college sports, more widespread use of emerging technologies, and a greater focus on broader societal issues in 2022.

So even if your indoor soccer facility business is currently booming, it’s good business practice to always be planning for the future and to pay close attention to emerging industry trends to ensure long term success and profitability.

Read on to learn three examples of sports marketing efforts that can help build your brand, attract potential clients, boost sales, and increase your online presence and digital ranking.

Social Media Marketing

Utilizing social media platforms is the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to reach your target market, drive traffic to your website, increase conversions, boost sales, and establish your brand identity and credibility.

Audiences are more dependent on digital content than they’ve ever been in the past. In fact, one recent global study found that engagement on social media has increased 61% over regular usage rates since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But it’s no longer enough for brands to just create content—to succeed in today’s digital landscape, sports marketers need to understand which social media platforms are best suited for their brand, how to create engaging content tailored to their target market, and how to deliver that content to ensure it’s actually seen by the right people.

While there’s no magic formula to dictate which social media platforms you should use or how often you should post, consistency is key. For this reason, it’s a good idea to start by focusing on one or two social media platforms at a time instead of trying to master them all. 

It’s also important to remember that social media platforms are always evolving to meet the needs of their users, so you’ll want to review your social media marketing plan throughout the year to make sure it’s updated to reflect the current industry landscape and emerging trends.

Two of the hottest and most rapidly growing social media platforms you should consider using to promote your indoor soccer facility business are TikTok and Instagram.

TikTok

If you haven’t heard by now—TikTok is a pretty big deal. So much so, that TikTok has overtaken Google as the world’s most visited online destination. TikTok is a free, short-form video and social media app, and is available for download on both Apple and Android devices. The major difference between TikTok and other social media platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, is that TikTok is based on small, short video clips.

The impact that TikTok has on consumers’ attitudes and purchase decisions is irrefutable. In fact, the social media giant’s influence is so widely acknowledged that the phrase “TikTok made me buy it” has over 4.1 billion views of the hashtag on the app.

When utilized as a part of your larger social media marketing strategy, TikTok is a highly effective way to promote your indoor soccer facility business by creating fun video content, building a niche community, and tapping into a younger demographic. 

(Read more: Why Fitness Businesses Should Be Leveraging TikTok)

Instagram

Instagram now has over 1 billion users worldwide, and 80% of Instagram users say they use the platform for help when deciding to buy a product or service. Instagram’s strong impact on consumers’ buying journey has created tremendous new growth opportunities in the digital sports marketing space.

Now more than ever, social media users want to build bonds with brands, and they’re more likely to base their buying decisions on a company’s purpose and mission. Instagram is a great way to promote a higher level of transparency, and features like Live Videos and Instagram Stories provide you with unique ways to offer behind-the-scenes looks and interesting insights into your indoor soccer facility business.

With the right approach, you can effectively utilize your Instagram page to increase your number of followers, build meaningful connections with users, and gain unfiltered consumer feedback that you can use to grow your indoor soccer facility business.

(Read more: 5 Ways to Maximize Reach on Instagram)

Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing—also referred to as SMS marketing—is when businesses send text messages to promote their products and services to consumers, provide important updates, and to maintain ongoing communication with their target market.

While text message marketing campaigns can sometimes be more expensive than email marketing campaigns—they’re typically less expensive than many paid ad options, especially on popular social media platforms. And because SMS messaging campaigns offer such a high ROI, they’re considered cost-effective. 

Text message marketing and email marketing work similarly—but data shows that SMS marketing campaigns consistently outperform its modern-day counterpart, despite its simple and straightforward nature. Text messaging has six times the engagement as email rate of email, and 96% of marketers using text messages said it helped them drive revenue.

If that’s not enough to convince you—more than 69% of consumers would be extremely likely or likely to connect with a brand to receive SMS customer service, and 58% of consumers believe text messages are the most effective way for brands to communicate.

(Read more: What is SMS Marketing and What Are the Benefits?)

Sports Club Management Software

Sports club management software can help manage all aspects of your facility—from coach and lesson scheduling to player invoicing and payments. It simplifies and streamlines the management, marketing, and scheduling of leagues, trainers, memberships, tournaments, and more—all of which helps increase revenue by saving time, reducing error, and creating a more seamless customer experience.

EZFacility’s comprehensive suite of marketing tools allows you to customize and send advanced email marketing campaigns and automated text messages to develop new customer relationships or nurture leads throughout the buying process. With automated email and text message functionality–you can also ensure clients receive the right information at the most opportune time.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalized product tour today.

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Soccer Facility Business Trends

Key Considerations Before Building a New Sports Facility

How to Increase Revenue at Your Indoor Soccer Facility

Construction of sports and recreation facilities was largely stalled in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, creating the immediate need for business owners to quickly identify new and diversified revenues streams as they navigated forced business closures, stay-at-home orders, social distancing requirements, and the global shift to digitization.

The pandemic was catastrophic for many businesses and industries, but especially those that relied almost entirely on in-person sales, operations and participation—for example, sports and recreation facilities, soccer leagues and sports complexes.

The Accelerated Rise of the Digital Economy

With the entire world looking to technology to bridge the gaps left in the wake of the pandemic, we—as a global society—have become entrenched in a time of unparalleled investment and reliance upon emerging technologies.

The global shift to digitization, rapid and ongoing technological advancements and improvements, and paradigm shifts in the way people engage with sports—and each other—have ushered in an exciting new era for soccer leagues, sports complexes, and other sports and recreation-related business.

Three Soccer Facility Trends to Watch in 2022

Below, we’ve outlined three of 2022’s top soccer trends that are predicted to impact everything from sports complex design to soccer player and attendee experiences.  

1.   Multifunctional Facilities & Versatile Spaces

While many sports complexes were traditionally designed to serve a distinct purpose—for example, the investor needed an indoor soccer facility or an outdoor football stadium—we’re now seeing a massive shift to versatility in space usage and advancements in technology to create dynamic, multifunctional spaces that allow for seamless transitions between activities. 

Sport-specific complexes are great in the right context, but they’re rarely able to be used appropriately for recreation centers. And because you’ll want to host as many soccer events, sports games, training camps, and other sports-related events/activities as possible, you’ll need a venue that’s versatile and able to adapt to changing needs to ensure long-term growth and viability by diversifying your revenue streams.

For example, at Tottenham Stadium—home of the English Premiere League’s Tottenham Hotspur—the stadium’s field can be adjusted based on the sport that’s being played. The stadium typically hosts soccer events which require a natural grass pitch—but the venue also hosts two NFL games per season, in which artificial turf is used.

2.   Interactive Kiosks

Placing kiosks—small booths or structures—throughout common spaces of your sports facility is a simple concept that’s been around for a long time. And they’ve been around a long time because they’ve proven their worth.

Traditionally, kiosks were mostly used as information booths and required staff to operate them. But now, thanks to advancements in technology, digital kiosks offer more dynamic, interactive and user-friendly content—as well as advertising and sponsorship opportunities—and they don’t require staff to operate.

For example, AT&T Stadium—home of the Dallas Cowboys—offers interactive kiosks to help fans connect with their favorite football players. Guests can take photos of themselves at the venue’s selfie stations, and then simply press a few buttons to add their favorite players into the picture with them.

Photo kiosks usually prompt fans to input their email address so they can have their photo emailed to them, right then. Then fans are able to upload and share the photo across their social media channels—which, in turn, enables data capture while also boosting your venue’s digital presence, social media engagement, and online ranking.

3.   Robotic Concessions

Concession stands are a must-have for soccer facilities because there will always be a demand for food and beverage options between the soccer players and other athletes, attendees, and staff. It just makes good business sense.

And, fortunately for venue owners—they’re also typically a huge money maker. But let’s not forget that concession stands do come at a cost to sports complex owners—one of biggest costs being the staff required to operate them. As technology continues to improve and advance rapidly, it’s only a matter of time before robotic concessions start popping up in sports facilities of all sizes, all over the world. 

For example, a robotic arm named Flippy was introduced at Dodger Stadium during the 2018 World Series to help manage increased demand for concessions. In 2019, Flippy became a mainstay in Los Angeles as the Chicago-based concession company is working on their technology to increase efficiency and reduce costs inside stadiums.

Flippy has since been spotted working hard at CaliBurger in downtown Pasadena, and White Castle recently announced plans to gradually roll out 100 new Flippy 2s over the next few years.

Conclusion

One big takeaway from the pandemic is that businesses need to prioritize working smarter—and the way to do that is by utilizing technology. We’re not yet clear of COVID, and businesses all over the United States are still facing labor and supply shortages.

As a soccer facility or sports complex owner, the best thing you can do to prepare the future during periods of uncertainty is to start saving money now by utilizing technology to streamline operations, reduce costly errors and inefficiencies, and limit risk.

To learn how EZFacility’s sports facility management software simplifies the scheduling and management of fields, courts, leagues, tournaments, teams, coaches, memberships, and more—schedule a free online demonstration and personalized product tour today.

You may also be interested in:

Key Considerations Before Building a New Sports Facility

How to Increase Revenue at Your Indoor Soccer Facility

Marketing Ideas for an Indoor Soccer Facility Business

Over the past two years, flexibility has become essential for businesses to survive all the changes and uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus.

Ensuring your indoor soccer facility can consistently generate a sufficient source of revenue is critical to long term success and profitability. In today’s business landscape, that means getting creative and adapting to changing needs.

If you’re wondering how to achieve this, here are four ways sports facilities can diversify revenue streams to increase profitability and growth potential.  

Multifunctional Sports Facilities

While many sports facilities were traditionally designed to serve a distinct purpose, we’re now seeing a massive shift to versatility in space usage to create dynamic, multifunctional spaces that allow for seamless transitions between activities.

One great example of this is Tottenham Stadium. Home of the English Premiere League’s Tottenham Hotspur, Tottenham Stadium’s field can be adjusted based on the sport that’s being played. The stadium typically hosts soccer events which require a natural grass pitch—but the venue also hosts two NFL games per season, in which artificial turf is used.

In order to host as many soccer events, training camps, group lessons and other sports-related activities as possible, you’ll want a sports facilities venue that’s versatile and able to adapt to changing needs in order to position your indoor soccer facility for long term growth by diversifying your sources of revenue.

Sponsorships

Sponsorships can bring in big money for your indoor soccer facility—but it’s important to be selective about accepting sponsorships. Because you will have to display sponsors’ marketing collateral throughout your facility, it’s important to be selective and only accept support from brands or organizations that reflect your company’s values.

Advertising

Advertising is one of the most effective ways to increase revenue for your indoor soccer facility. It’s a no-brainer to take advantage of idle space by selling advertising opportunities in the most popular areas of your facility where they’ll have the greatest visibility and ROI.

Examples include:

•  Entrance gate
• Concession stands
• Restrooms
• Scoreboards
• Perimeter Fences
• Seating

Sports Facilities Management Software

Sports facilities management software continues to grow in popularity given its ability to increase efficiency and productivity, reduce the risk of human error, save time and money, and enhance the customer experience. On top of that, the low upfront cost structure of a cloud-based software solution makes it a financially attractive option for soccer clubs and sports facilities of all sizes.

Benefits of choosing EZFacility

EZFacility makes it possible to manage your soccer club or indoor soccer facility, from any device with our fully responsive and easy-to-navigate user interface. Save time with simple, clean workflows and processes designed to anticipate your business needs. We’re securely hosted on Amazon Web Services and boast a 99.99% uptime.

Additional benefits include:

• Sports Facility Scheduling: Simplify your sports facilities management using our color-coded calendar to view resource availability, create reservations, and assign instructors, officials, and coaches.
• Check-in & Memberships: Scan in members, create detailed client profiles, automatically collect dues, verify player identities and registration status with branded player cards.
• Point of Sale: Speed up purchases, gain control over your non-recurring revenue, and allow members to make payments throughout your club by simply scanning their ID card.
• Online Registration: Allow players to register online for leagues, tournaments, camps and clinics. Provide online access to forms, waivers, and payment history.
• Coach & Lesson Scheduling: Manage all aspects of league and tournament scheduling and provide real-time team schedules, registration, stats, and standings on your website.
• Billing & Payments: Consolidate all revenue streams into one system to track the sale of packages, memberships, and point of sale items.

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalized product tour today!

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Key Considerations Before Building a New Sports Facility

Marketing Ideas for an Indoor Soccer Facility Business

Soccer Facility Business Trends

So, you’re thinking of building a sports facility and you’re doing a little homework first. Congratulations!

In this blog, we’ll cover key items to consider before embarking on this exciting new business journey.

First Things First

When creating anything in life, a solid foundation is key. In this case, a literal solid foundation is what you will need. That requires proper funds, appropriate regulations, and reliable contractors.

Funding

Name an adventure that doesn’t encounter a few hiccups, right? Nobody wants them to happen but being prepared can save time, money, and setbacks. Calculate how much money you will need for the entire project from start to finish. Then, tag on a bit more to cover emergencies and unplanned hurdles.

Regulations

Next, check with your local municipality center. Each local municipality center has information related to specific zoning and building regulations. You, of course, want everything done up to code and that is smart thinking. As the age old saying goes, “Haste makes waste.”

Contractors

Look for contractors with great reviews and plenty of experience building sports facilities. Check out their website and past projects, too. And really take your time selecting one. Your vision is only as strong as the company building it.

Sporting Events and Parking

Before determining the size of the sports complex and building type, two things are crucial. And, they go hand in hand. First, you need to imagine the future sports events you want to hold in your sports complex. After that, think about the amount of parking needed to accommodate everyone. And then some! Because remember, you will be competing with other nearby facilities for guests.

Parking

Parking gets a second shout-out here because it is often overlooked. Many places decide on minimum parking. The problem with minimum parking is, it doesn’t allow for growth and expansions down the line. So, adequate parking space is a big deal! 

Also, the location and layout matter. When designing a parking lot, think about the distance from the playing field.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How far will guests have to walk from their vehicles to the sporting events?
   
2. Are any vehicles in danger of being hit? Because depending on the sport, there could be a chance of stray balls and broken windshields. This means you might need proper signage, protection nets, or a different layout.
   
3. Speaking of the layout, is it easy to navigate, and is congestion going to be an issue?
   
4. What is the type of lighting you are thinking about? Proper nighttime lighting is important for safety and security. But it also raises your budget. So, start listing cost-efficient, and environmentally friendly, options like LED.

Athletic Surface and Weather Conditions

The athletic surface and outdoor weather conditions also go hand in hand. And they matter to the teams who will be playing at your facility. There are pros and cons with natural grass and artificial turf. Artificial turf is pricklier and more prone to heat. And natural grass requires maintenance such as mowing and pesticides. Whereas, artificial turf does not. Also, natural grass can become muddy and slippery after a rain downpour.

If your playing facility is outside, consider installing a lightning detection system. Most events are during rain or shine. But for a more weather-controlled option, indoor sports facilities are great, too. Some might even prefer it. Here’s why.

Conclusion

Building a new sports facility can be a lot to think about. This list is only the beginning! Once you’re up and running, some other key considerations include creating a business plan, researching management software programs, building out a solid team, and incorporating marketing strategies. Subscribe to our blog to stay up to date with more industry tips.

You may also be interested in:

Soccer Facility Business Trends

How to Increase Revenue at Your Indoor Soccer Facility

Marketing Ideas for an Indoor Soccer Facility Business

Sports club management has never been easier, thanks to the rise of sports facility and league management software.  Sports club management software helps facility owners manage all aspects of their sports facility—from coach and lesson scheduling to player invoicing and payments.

By streamlining the scheduling and management of your baseball facility, you’ll save time and money, improve member management, kickstart new growth opportunities, and more.

Benefits of Sports Club Management Software

Sports club management software makes it easy to manage your entire baseball or batting cage facility with a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, accessible, secure, and responsive platform.

Improve Communication & Collaboration

Communication barriers can lead to misinformation, misunderstandings and errors, all of which end up costing valuable time and money. Sports club management tools make communication and collaboration between staff members easy by providing a centralized platform for real-time collaboration, brainstorming and problem solving.

Having one central hub where your team can quickly access and communicate about vital information in real-time helps them collaborate faster and more effectively, reduces the risk of miscommunication, improves team performance, and increases operational efficiency.

Save Time & Money

Being able to accurately track and assess the actual amount of time, staff, equipment, and resources required to cover everyday operations is absolutely vital to long-term success. 

When all of your customer and league information is organized in a central database, your staff can easily access all the information necessary to keep track of rentals, financial records, status of participants’ forms, rosters, and contact information.

Benefits of Choosing EZFacility

EZFacility’s comprehensive software solution makes it easy to manage your entire baseball or batting cage business with a complete set of features bundled into one intuitive, accessible, secure, and responsive platform.

Here are just a few ways we can help you grow your baseball facility:

Accessible anytime, anywhere—and always secure!

Manage your baseball facility anywhere from any device with our fully responsive easy-to-navigate user interface. Save time with simple, clean workflows and processes designed to anticipate the needs of your staff. We’re securely hosted on Amazon Web Services and boast a 99.99% uptime.

Streamline Scheduling

Maximize coach productivity, save time and increase your cash flow. Define pitching coach availability, quickly update batting cage schedules, create single or recurring sessions, and send clients automated emails and text reminders.

You can also generate schedules for your leagues and tournaments based on team preferences, venue availability, and tournament seeds using our automated scheduler.

Streamline Billing

Choosing a sports club management software that includes integrated payment processing is a huge plus. Simplify your billing process with customized payment schedules, automated invoicing and expiring credit card reminders. Accept online payments and track package, membership and equipment sales.

League Management

Enroll, maintain, track and retain players. Quickly access detailed player profiles, create coaching packages, track attendance, alert members to schedule changes, and target new revenue opportunities.

With EZFacility, clients have real-time access to view standings, stay up to date on current league leaders, check scores and even browse through classified ads from teams looking for players.

Automate Billing Invoicing & Payments

Simplify your billing process with customized payment schedules, automated invoicing and expiring credit card reminders. Accept online payments and track package, membership and equipment sales.

Conclusion

There are countless advantages to sports club management software–and ours can be customized to meet your specific business needs!

Want to learn more? Schedule a free online demonstration and personalized product tour today.

Knock it out of the park with these hard-hitting baseball marketing strategies

You may have the best batting cage facility in the world—but if no one knows about it, your business most likely won’t succeed. If you want to start or grow a batting cage business, people need to know you exist—and the way to make that happen is through marketing.

We know it can be challenging to figure out where to allocate your marketing budget and resources, and what your marketing mix should include. So, read on to learn some sports marketing tips and baseball marketing strategies to help you build up your batting cage business.  

What Is a Sports Marketing Plan?

A sports marketing plan is an outline that should include all of the marketing campaigns and marketing strategies you have planned for the next month, quarter, or year. It should also clearly define how your marketing efforts directly align and support your business goals.

Key Elements of a Sports Marketing Plan

An effective sports marketing plan should include the following key elements:

• Overview of sports marketing goals and objectives: Your marketing goals should be SMART—that is, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
• Assessment of your baseball facility’s current marketing position: An analysis of the current state of the organization concerning its marketing positioning.
• Description of your target market and customer needs: Here, you will include your target marketing demographics
• Outline of marketing activities: A list of all the marketing campaigns and baseball marketing strategies planned for the period and the indicated timelines.
• Key performance indicators (KPIs): Critical indicators of progress toward a desired goal or target. KPIs provide focus for strategic and operational improvement by establishing an analytic baseline by which to measure success.

Examples of Sports Marketing Strategies

The options are limitless when it comes to sports marketing, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. That’s why it’s so important to have a strong marketing plan in place—it forces you to think through the important steps required to achieve your marketing goals.

While the specifics will vary based on your unique business needs, below are four tried-and-true marketing strategies you should consider for your batting cage facility:

1. Create targeted ad campaigns on social media

With the average consumer now spending an unprecedented amount of time online, and nearly half of the global population using social media, utilizing targeted advertising is one of the most effective ways to market your batting cage business. And, fortunately, social media networks—like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok—have made it easier and more cost-effective than ever.

In terms of performance and engagement, social media ads that contain video strongly outperform those that use static images, so it’s worth investing the time to create engaging video clips to get the greatest return from your ad spend.

2. Focus on content marketing

Outbound marketing is the old way of doing business. With more people turning to their digital devices to interact with sports brands, your marketing mix should include a heavy focus on digital content creation.

Considering content marketing can generate over three times as many leads as outbound marketing—and costs approximately 62% less—it’s pretty clear why investing in content marketing makes sense for sports businesses and baseball facilities.

3. Demonstrate value using social media

Social media marketing is no longer optional—it’s a must. In a world now dominated by digital marketing, consumers’ feeds are being flooded by businesses vying to capture their attention. It’s no longer enough to just create content—your content needs to be compelling enough to break through the noise, capture viewers’ attention.

4. Utilize Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing has come a long way since the early 2000s. Today, it’s one of the most highly effective, and cost effective, marketing strategies available. You can use push notifications to attract new customers to your batting cage facility by offering them a free trial or guest pass, a discount on their first visit, or free branded swag if they sign up to receive texts.

A push notification strategy is also an effective way to keep customers engaged with your business, improve retention rates, and boost revenue. Today’s consumers want to build relationships with brands—and push notifications help strengthen the bond with your customers by offering a simple, familiar way to keep in touch. In fact, one study found that push messages increase retention rates three to 10 times, and increase engagement by 88 percent!

Conclusion

With the global tendency continuing to shift toward digitization, creating a strong sports marketing plan with a heavy focus on digital marketing is an imperative.

To learn how EZFacility’s comprehensive software solution can help you attract new customers, nurture leads, increase conversions, and grow your batting cage business, schedule a free online demonstration and personalized product tour today!