Around 30 enthusiastic club administrators representing all codes and all regions attended Tasracing’s second Club Marketing Conference on Friday in Launceston.
The Conference is part of Tasracing’s strategy to provide clubs with tools and knowledge to help grow attendance, membership and sponsorship.
Tasracing CEO Paul Eriksson opened the Conference and reinforced Tasracing’s vision for a sustainable, unified industry focused on the needs of customers.
Keynote speaker Scott Whiteman – CEO of Country Racing Victoria (CRV) presented an insight into the collaborative work of CRV and Victoria’s 66 regional racing clubs.
Scott’s key messages focused on the importance of a collaborative, transparent relationship between racing bodies and clubs. The experience of Victoria’s country racing sector is a particularly useful case study for Tasmanian racing. CRV and the 66 clubs have successfully applied a customer-driven strategy to unify the marketing investment and efforts of all 66 individual clubs. Tasmania’s Go Racing Tasmania brand aims to achieve the same outcome.
The Conference also featured a Guest Panel Discussion, with panellists David Bartlett (Hobart Chargers Basketball Club), Steve Old (CEO Tasmanian Hospitality Association), Peter Downs (CEO Warnambool Racing Club) and Felicity Viney (South Launceston Football Club).
Conference guests quizzed the panel on their insights into creating successful sporting clubs, with two key themes clearly emerging:
- Understand the business you are in – the business of experiences.
- Community and government support – can only come from single messages delivered consistently by a unified industry.
Other speakers were Andrew Moore of Clubs Tasmania. Andrew spoke about the role of Clubs Tasmania in assisting sporting and community clubs in Tasmania to achieve sustainability and relevance.
Brad Clark, Sky Racing’s Lead Race Scheduler shared insights into Sky’s scheduling methods, and into Sky’s exciting new Sky Active App.
Tasracing’s club marketing team presented information on the next 12 months of marketing support planned for clubs, and how each club can best take advantage of that investment.
At the conclusion of the day, guests enjoyed tastings from Conference sponsor Clover Hill Wines, and lively and enthusiastic discussion on the year ahead for Tasmanian racing clubs.
The Conference is planned as an annual event. The aim is to ensure that Tasracing and each racing club maximise the efforts of each and every club under the Go Racing Tasmania strategy.
The conference program can be found here.
Clubs can access all or selected speaker presentations from the day by contacting Mark Blair, Marketing Lead – On-course, via m.blair@tasracing.com.au