Supporters & Membership Drive

[Baltimore Jack]

I got this email from Gary Pert yesterday, I think it is a great idea from the club.
Pert's ambition to get to 150,000 members will get a huge boost from things like this

Dear Bryan,

Today the Collingwood Football Club launches an ambitious yet exciting challenge. The club's goal is to identify and connect with every Collingwood supporter not only in Australia but around the world. This will be the first time the club has endeavoured to link up with its entire Magpie Army. While there are no exact figures of how many Collingwood fans exist, it is estimated to be a figure of around 1.5 million loyal followers.

The club is now encouraging every Collingwood supporter to become part of the Official Magpie Army by choosing one of the three options below.
1. Game Day Member
2. Non-Game Day Member – Magpie Insider
3. Official Supporter

As a current 2012 member you are already part of the Official Magpie Army however we are now seeking your assistance to connect other supporters with the club.

GAME DAY MEMBER
Based on feedback from members and supporters, the club has rebuilt its membership department over the past four years investing heavily to improve its service and communication for our game day members. The developments have been well received helping drive club memberships to all time record levels. All new initiatives that have been developed for the non-game day members will be automatically extended to our game day members as an added benefit.

NON-GAME DAY MEMBER
Recent supporter feedback has highlighted that literally hundreds of thousands of Magpie fans are unable to attend games due to location and personal circumstance. These passionate supporters have asked the club to create a membership that does not include the cost of match day entry but allows them to feel proudly connected to their club and able to financially contribute. As a result supporters can now sign up as a Magpie Insider for a membership fee of $50 per year which includes:

• a members only post-game video report from head coach Nathan Buckley
• a weekday summary of all press reports about the club delivered directly to your inbox
• an online match day program for every game
• official club membership card and membership sticker
• exclusive player interviews
• 10% off all official club merchandise
• exclusive members only partner offers
• a personalised birthday message from the players
• an online copy of the official club magazine 'In Black and White'

OFFICIAL SUPPORTER
For those supporters who are unable to become a member of the club, Collingwood has now created the opportunity for you to be identified as an Official Supporter at no cost. This connects you to the club and allows us to communicate breaking club news, upcoming events, team selections, player signings, merchandise discounts and special offers.

The Collingwood Football Club was created by its members and is run on behalf of its members. It is therefore the club's responsibility to provide flexible options that allow its supporters to engage with their club based on their personal preferences. The club will continue to take feedback from members and supporters to tailor membership packages to suit everyone as this is your club.

There has been some talk in the media about what constitutes an AFL club member. Let me make this very clear, the Collingwood Football Club decides what defines a club member so while there are a variety of membership packages with varying levels of benefits, a Collingwood Football Club member is simply any Collingwood supporter who financially contributes to the club by buying one of the membership packages that the club offers.

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts and feedback on our Magpie Army vision by emailing me directly at ceo@collingwoodfc.com.au and please forward this email onto as many Collingwood supporters as you can who are not in contact with the club to help us build the ultimate Magpie Army.

If you're not already part of the Official Magpie Army, please click on the link below now and choose how you want to stand SIDE BY SIDE with your club.

Yours sincerely

Gary Pert
CEO, Collingwood Football Club

 

[vjknight]

IMHO absolutely brilliant.

i got the email too, and suits my situation perfectly.

i am only able to go to a few games per year, often at very short notice, but are making great use of the way the club gets the message out via CTV, live broadcasts of club nights etc.

a nominal fee for further access to info, maybe additional vision etc is a great idea.

 

[Scodog10]

I appreciate the what the clubs attempting, however if they think that we'll double our current membership levels while only providing the non game day members with a sticker and 10% off merchandise then they're dreaming!!!

All other content provided for those members, outside of the birthday message (which IMO is a bit meh), will be available on this board! For the last few weeks I believe it's Nicco that's been providing a summary of Bucks' member report, we have two brilliant match day discussions (thanks Matty and Dave) that will provide all the information of the clubs match day program and TD posts all press reports on here within two minutes of them appearing on the net.

How's about they use some initiative and give those members a scarf which differentiates them in a positive way i.e you can only get this scarf if your a non match day member. We could also embroider the number of years you've been a member on the scarf (my mate used to love the Hawks scarf he got every year with that on it). It would cost the club bugger all for the scarfs yet they give them a useless card, that realistically will just take up space in their wallet/ purse, and a sticker.

 

[Smokeyr67]

Heres a package they could offer for interstate members.

Tickets to a game at the MCG

Flights from your home port to Melbourne

A tour of the Clubs facilities

Breakfast/lunch with someone from the club (Rocket?)

2 Nights accomodation

Cap, scarf fridge magnet and all that fluff

I'd pay $900 for that ex Canberra, $1200 ex Brisbane

It's a one game membership, but is it worthy?

Smokey

 

[pennym]

So how many members do we have? and why won't they tell us? It's now round 5 whats the big secret?

 

[mattys123]

So how many members do we have? and why won't they tell us? It's now round 5 whats the big secret?

Pert was on radio before the ANZAC day clash saying we have about 65,000 at this point (I'd say a few more after a win), so we are on target to match last years figure, if not beat it.

No idea why we haven't put up a ticker like we did last year, but overall the final number is almost irrelevant as it's more about the revenue from membership that is more important as a total then the numbers.

I like the idea behind building the membership base as big as possible, it opens up new revenue streams for the future and will give us a database to build off when trying to increase membership revenues.

 

[Matz]

I reckon its a great idea what the clubs doing to get more members. In the future if their was a possibility to stream collingwood games from the pies website that would be huge, members could log in from interstate and watch and with the option to download afterwards same with the copeland.
I think that if you can offer something worthwile other than a couple news articles people will be keen. There are so many avenues to go with this, they could even bundle members with email domain names (i.e - johnsmith@collingwood.com)
Just an example i guess but its endless.....good work collingwood.

 

[JOELY]

i'm aware this probably a dumb question but anyway, are the membership prices now less than they were before the season started? for example the season ticket memberships.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

I got the email too.

As long as it pumps revenue into the club, I think it's all good.

Let's be honest, there are plenty of people who can't go to games, or live overseas but WANT to be considered a member, or contribute to the club. If they can be given a way to,m then there's nothing wrong with that.

Personally, I think they should be given a code to access games on their Telstra mobile as part of the package also, which I think could work well for Telstra by gaining them new customers also.

It's $50 a year to watch every game of AFL live on a Telstra mobile. I dont' see why it couldn't be thrown in with the non-Game day membership pack. For anyone not with Telstra, it might be an incentive to switch, which is a win for an official AFL partner also.