Is your club striving to be one of the top clubs in your region or nationwide?
Building a successful youth volleyball club that contends for championships each year requires attracting top talent. To get the top players you need to market your club to put your name at top-of-mind for the elite athletes.
Here are five tips to successfully market your team.
Tip #1. Improve your site’s SEO
If you have a website but you don’t feel it’s effectively bringing in prospects, then it’s time to enhance your site’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO determines how and where your website shows up in search engines, like Google. If your page isn’t listed on the first results page, the odds decrease that a prospective player will find your website. To boost where your site shows up, there are a few easy tactics to increase your SEO.
First, you need to use keywords in your page titles, URLs, content and metadata. Tools like Moz and Wordtracker can help you determine which terms are most-searched when users are looking for youth volleyball teams. The more targeted keywords you use, the more likely you are to attract the right audience – prospective players.
Tip #2. Create more content
Another way to attract more players is to create fresh and relevant content. Writing regular blogs enables your organization to showcase its expertise by sharing knowledge on volleyball drills, training tips, coaching strategies, and more. This content can be posted to your website, shared on social media accounts and sent via email to your list of current, past and prospective players. Posting regular blogs to your site will also help with your SEO. It’s providing more content for Google to crawl, and gives you more opportunities to use keywords in headlines, subheads and the content itself.
Writing white papers is another way to market your organization. These will allow your staff to exhibit their thought leadership in youth volleyball. These can be posted to your website and shared on your organization’s LinkedIn account.
Tip #3. Increase digital ads
To ensure your website has a prominent placement in search engines and across other relevant sites, consider placing digital ads. Google Adwords allows organizations to “buy” keywords they want their site to be associated with. When you purchase a keyword, it allows your site to show up near the top of the search results page. Your staff members can get training on this technique through Google’s Academy for Ads.
Tip #4. Showcase player, parent testimonials
Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Prospective players and their parents want to know what to expect when they join your organization, and there’s no one better to hear it from than current players and their families. Ask your athletes and their parents if they are willing to submit testimonials about your club that you can post on your website and other marketing materials. You can also encourage them to submit online reviews about your organization that others can see and use when determining if your club is right for them.
Tip #5. Highlight players’ successes
Perhaps your best marketing tool is your athletes’ successes. Prospective players and their parents want to know how your organization will improve their skills. On your website and in your marketing materials, showcase awards and scholarships current and past players have earned. This is the proof others might need to see how your club will benefit themselves or their child.
Now that you’re prepared with top tips for marketing your junior volleyball program, are you ready to tackle tryouts? Check out our free online Youth Volleyball Tryouts Evaluation Form to get you started.
About the Author
Chris Knutson Bio: Chris Knutson is co-founder of TeamGenius, a leading player evaluation software that helps youth sports organizations by streamlining tryouts and player evaluations.
