September Letter From WSF Chief Andrew Shelley
September 3, 2012
It is not enough to produce a great
product, to actually sell it you also
have to advertise and market it.
People cannot buy something they
haven’t heard about; hence the
great importance of developing
branding and promotion. Exactly
these same basic business
essentials apply to squash – which is definitely a
great product!
But all too often it is assumed that people will simply
come to squash rather than them being taken by the
hand and shown it.
How many squash centres actually promote
themselves? Not enough. The same question goes
for national federations – how many really push
media, PR and marketing? Not enough. Professional
players who have commercial managers working to
get them into the media and into advertising? Yes,
not enough.
There are so many sports and pastimes out there
that those that are ‘fads’ in nature, those that don’t
bind their players are the ones who have grasped the
need to promote themselves. It speaks to the solid
‘for life’ nature of squash that we are not strong
enough in this field as we don’t think we need to. We
love squash, and assume that everybody else does
too.
Where World Squash Day Fits…..
In its way, World Squash Day plays a role in
addressing this. Hundreds of clubs around the world
are already registered for this year’s World Squash
Day Challenge on 20 October and by the time the
day comes round hopefully it will be thousands. They
will have a great time, they will be supporting the
Olympic Bid, but will they all use the opportunity to
promote squash at their club?
There will be do-it-yourself
downloadable press releases for local media,
but will they all use them? Not enough. Will
participating clubs send reports and photos to their
local media? Not enough. And most importantly, will
they all have schemes in place so that when people
enquire about the possibility of trying squash they
are set to encourage them? You know the answer.
Social media is a great step forward but cannot
completely replace old-fashioned main media
publicity.
If we all, from world body, to national, to
state/county to centres, make a stronger effort to sell
our product all of the sport will reap greater profits
definitely enough, success on a grander scale; end of
sermon!
andrew@worldsquash.org
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