[Mr X]

Skyline Drifter, on 09 February 2010 - 15:51, said:

Most clubs attempt to break even on programmes in terms of sales against costs. The profit of them is in selling the adverts. If the sales can take care of the costs, the advertising is pure profit.

I hadnt thought of that. I would imagine it would be hard to increase the advertising revenue significantly unless you could demonstrate a, sustained, increase in crowds over a long period of time - other than one off games, or being promoted.

[Skyline Drifter]

Mr X, on 09 February 2010 - 16:32, said:

I hadnt thought of that. I would imagine it would be hard to increase the advertising revenue significantly unless you could demonstrate a, sustained, increase in crowds over a long period of time - other than one off games, or being promoted.

To be honest, at our level, I'm fairly sure everyone who takes a programme advert does it effectively as a donation anyway. There may be some minor fringe benefits in terms of genuine brand recognition but it's going to be trivial. As such then, even additional sales regularly probably doesn't increase the potential rates you could charge and therefore the revenues.

Of course a one off big crowd does provide the potential to actually make a profit on that particular day's programme if you can accurately guess in advance what size the crowd will actually be and how many of them will buy one. It's notoriously difficult to estimate how many programmes to print for a game. You'll get it wrong and be left with hundreds or sold out by 2:30 as often as you get it right in most cases. We tend to work to a base of one in three or four crowd members buy a programme but other clubs appear to work to lower ratios. It appears our fans are pretty good programme buyers. Talking to other clubs some of them put on extra programmes when we are the visitors for that reason. On the other hand Dundee's travelling support barely buy a programme.

Anyway, I digress. Point is that over the season, if the net receipts after sales commissions matches then printing costs then that's fine. Even a small loss is acceptable as it justifies the publication and is more than covered by the adverts.

This post has been edited by Skyline Drifter: 09 February 2010 - 16:59

[Sergeant Wilson]

In my experience it was the other way round ie adverts paid the costs and sales were profit. i also read somewhere or was told average prog sales were 1 in 7 of the crowd accross Scotland. So QoS figures are good. It can pay to round up on you figures when ordering as 750 might not cost much more than 500 and can save the embarrasment of running out.

Regarding ticketing/entry. I was at a presentation by Wycombe a few years back. They had a free entry match. They made it all ticket. The "cost" of the ticket was information ie Name, address email etc, to build a data base of those with an interest. There was then marketing put in place for future games, family offers, season tickets, merchandise , lottery etc. He said it worked. No longer involved therefore can't testify to the longevity of the success.

No Scottish club tried it.

PS I would do away with programmes at games. Make them on line subscriptions and produce sponsored team sheets at games for 50p/£1.00