What can Everton do to improve the Commercial aspect of our club?

[RaleighBlue]

Hire top shelf marketing and PR staff.
Get in a CEO that has vision.
Implement said vision and build brand recognition and brand loyalty.
Get heavily involved in emerging markets (like the US).
And keep a hold of Roberto - his media presence will do quite a bit on its own.


Obviously it's not a simple as that, but we need to work hard while the iron is hot and the Premier League is growing. If we don't get a large number of fans in the emerging world market now, then we will end up with our only answers being "Win Lots of Stuff" or "Get Bought by a sheik".

Our marketing is pathetic. (Although it does seem a bit better than it has been).

 

[Khalekan]

Nah mate it was literally JUST for a photo they take on a polaroid camera!
I tried to take a sly one on my mobile but security came over n told me off

Ah....I see what you mean.

Twenty Euros for a photo beside a cardboard cut out?



That is nuckin' futz.

But I bet there were plenty of divs willing to pay it

 

[Khalekan]

Like most others have said, bin kitbag would be the starting point. They are the reason most shops dont stock our kits e.g sports direct because kitbag has sole rights to selling 90% of our merchandise.

How did we ever get tied in with such a deal?

 

[Tommy Chong]

Can we not just outsource the whole marketing department to a 3rd party company who actually know what they're doing?!

 

[EverBlue86]

When does the kitbag deal expire?

 

[Lids1978]

Ah....I see what you mean.

Twenty Euros for a photo beside a cardboard cut out?



That is nuckin' futz.

But I bet there were plenty of divs willing to pay it

there sure were lad..thats why they were looking at me with such disgust when i refused

 

[SerenityNigh]

Can we not just outsource the whole marketing department to a 3rd party company who actually know what they're doing?!

Kitbag?

 

[SerenityNigh]

Hire top shelf marketing and PR staff.
Get in a CEO that has vision.
Implement said vision and build brand recognition and brand loyalty.
Get heavily involved in emerging markets (like the US).
And keep a hold of Roberto - his media presence will do quite a bit on its own.


Obviously it's not a simple as that, but we need to work hard while the iron is hot and the Premier League is growing. If we don't get a large number of fans in the emerging world market now, then we will end up with our only answers being "Win Lots of Stuff" or "Get Bought by a sheik".

Our marketing is pathetic. (Although it does seem a bit better than it has been).

Seems like the assets of the club are:

Wins
History
Players
Experience
Brand

These are related, but surely more can be done in most of these areas. And its not always as simple as it might seem discussed in this forum. Some of these can be expanded in a way that hurts the others, as RB has pointed out before; the Everton brand is like a mom-n-pop store. "We do it our way, home made, the right way," which obviously is counter to what the Manchester clubs are doing.

Still, inroads can be made in new markets. The most positive sign I've seen in the US is making Everton USA an official club partner, so they're able to sell club products (shirts, tickets, I believe) in the US. This hopefully is one of many steps in the right direction that the club is taking. We'll see...

 

[Tommy Chong]

Kitbag?

I mean like a proper marketing agency who's sole purpose would be to get our name out there...
Kitbag clearly aren't doing the job...

 

[luimneach]

The Commercial/Merchandising/Marketing Departments are not doing their jobs properly so they should all be got rid of from Top to bottom and replaced

There is so much potential revenue out there but they are happy just to give each other a clap on the back for miniscule increases :-( If you owned a bar and your Manager was making you a 1% increase on profit for 10 years while the bar next door were making a 10% increase each year, you'd ask questions

Looking over the past 10/15 years the potential revenue we could have made from

1 - Tim Cahill/Lucas Neill Aussie soccer heros but nothing done
2 - Tim Howard, Brian McBride, Landon Donovan USA soccer super stars but nothing done
3 - Li Tie and the other dude? Something Wei? - China there's a lot of revenue from shirts from over 1 billion population but nothing done :-(

There alone we'd have China, Australia and USA and then we'd Radzinski - Canada, Yobo and Yakubu -Nigeria, Bilic and Jelavic - Croatia, Idan Tal - Israel, Apostolas Vellios - Greece, Bilyaletinov - Russia , Distin, Gueye, Saha - France etc


Our current squad:

Ireland- Coleman, Gibson, McCarthy, McGeady
USA - Tim Howard and use the whole Irish thing for Irish/americans
Bosnia - Besic
Costa Rica - Oviedo
Belgium - Lukaku, Mirallas, Henen
Cameroon and Africa - Eto'o
England - Jags/Baines best left back in PL, and then Stones/Barkley the future of England
Scotland - Naismith

The club should market this to the media, get rid of Kitbag and open stores and get players to visit them so fans can meet their heros in real life And also do deals to sell in sports stores

I live in france and everytime I've ordered for me or for my godson who lives in Ireland from club/shop website I've always had hassle so let me buy the stuff in a store ffs! It often took 2 months to get :-(


The club should run all the aspects at the ground regarding food and drink! We'd make the revenue not the company who give us pittance for doing an average job but also Everton will employ local people for them and have local companies supplying the ingredience etc

And they should ensure that they are all Everton fans so they ensure they take pride in their work etc!

 

[SerenityNigh]

I mean like a proper marketing agency who's sole purpose would be to get our name out there...
Kitbag clearly aren't doing the job...

Just saying 3rd party services aren't always what they seem...

 

[Efcjake]

I was thinking about this when I saw the news that American investors were looking at Swansea before I saw the release of our record profits.

I've been living in Canada for 12 years since I was 12 and I've learned a lot of the reasons why they have chosen their football teams. The biggest one was exposure to the big football brands when they were kids as they had a higher probability of seeing Man Utd, Arsenal, and Liverpool on the TV over here when the premiership was just growing. Additionally, some of them chose teams they didn't see as much on the telly but were better teams on the FIFA soccer video games, usually because of one really good player (There are a lot of them who claim to be Inter and AC Milan fans, or have at least bought the shirt). Continuing on from that a load of them have stories about watching one player just win a game on their own and they became fans of the player and then the team they player for as a result of that.

Since the money started to creep into the League I saw how Chelsea and Man City were able to attract the more glory-hunting types around here, though I will say Chelsea gained fans with the African immigrants over here because of Drogba and Essien and Manchester certainly benefited from the Manchester United brand association. A lot of it has to do with the exposure aspect I mentioned first. Most of the Canadians I've met have picked teams in the Champions League not specifically for the glory-hunting but because they can watch them at a reasonable time during the week on TV. They're used to sports with lots of games in a season, and they aren't particularly fond of the early kick offs. Since they get more exposure and they get talked about more their brands grow much quicker in these markets than ours has. Five years ago most of them didn't know their was a second team in Manchester, or for that matter anything of consequence outside of the Premier League.

This next generation over here though is getting more exposure to a wider amount of Premier League games and analysis and that will only help. However, if you look at the recent teams that have been getting investment from overseas you can see that their branding is what separates them from the rest of us. Hull and Swansea are good examples of this, they've been invested in because their animal-themed branding imagery is a good match for the expectations of the North American sports markets. Our branding on the other hand is not so strong over here. A large portion of even those who claim to be somewhat informed about football might not know us, and they definitely don't know too much about us. They know us mostly as: most recently the team the gave United Felliani and Moyes, where Wayne Rooney came from(in some cases), the one Tim Howard plays for, and for the more intelligent, as where Ross Barkley plays.

The only way for us to really see commercial growth here is for us to continue to compete in Europe and keep making a big signing each year like Lukaku to get people on the hook before they learn more about our wonderful club. Our name and our badge don't generate significant brand awareness or interest on first glance.

 

[blulouie]

Sack Kitbag is a must, their stranglehold on our merchandise is holding us back bigtime.
Flew from JLA last week, that nasty Warrior kit right in yer face .Ours , I found a Keyring and a car air freshener...embarrassing !
Marketing is shocking surely we can do better than this , Surely if Terry Leah is advising the club he could sort this out.

 

[Ruairi77]

Ireland- Coleman, Gibson, McCarthy, McGeady
USA - Tim Howard and use the whole Irish thing for Irish/americans
Bosnia - Besic
Costa Rica - Oviedo
Belgium - Lukaku, Mirallas, Henen
Cameroon and Africa - Eto'o
England - Jags/Baines best left back in PL, and then Stones/Barkley the future of England
Scotland - Naismith

It's worth noting that there's a huge amount of soccer mad CostaRicans here in the US. Search for Tico Toffees.
I'd echo the jersey and merchandise concern. I don't think everton realize the size of the US appetite for merchandise

and I have no idea why my font is resizing.

 

[exiledtoffee]

We literally had something like a 10 page thread about this after the World Cup. We knew there was a huge market in the States and that the board was doing a big f-all to capitalize on it. Its astounding that we can come up with (much) better ideas than people who are paid huge sums of money.

I actually did write a letter to the club and very suprisingly I did get a response from Robert Elstone. The letter stated that Daniel Conlin is working on it..it said he has been asked to scope the club's international potential across territories and products. A clear assessment will then allow us to refine our international strategy..... He then continues with some open ended comments like "what's most important is we go forward with a clear perspective" and a couple others, but to me his final line of his response about sums it up (again I am an ex-pat now living in Canada so my letter was focused on opportunities in North America) he says when it comes to marketing over here "Almost every club, with perhaps only a couple of exceptions, have had very modest returns"......... He then promised Daniel would be in touch to advise of any marketing strategy..... That was in August and I have still haven't heard from him, but to me it was clear at the time that we have no idea how to take advantage of the US (and I'll throw Canada in) market, and ultimately don't even regard it as an opportunity