Managing Booster Club Marketing Budgets

Introduction

In order to have a successful booster club, members will need to have proper management and guidance over club activities. One of these activities that take the utmost importance is managing booster club marketing budgets. Booster club marketing is a fundamental tasks that can ensure your club gets its name known in your area as well as bring in funds for needs and operations. However, without the proper guidance in marketing your booster club you can easily pour money down the drain.

What is Booster Club Marketing

In general marketing is the promotion of a product, service, or business. We see marketing daily on our smartphones, TV’s, newspapers and through many other avenues both online and tangible.

The act of managing booster club marketing budgets is the act of reviewing and evaluating the expenses and costs associated with promotions for a booster club.

Like most small businesses or non-profits, booster clubs and booster club promotions need to have proper marketing for many reasons including the following:

• To get their name out and get recognized: there may be sponsors or donors who are looking to give, but if they don’t know about your club then how will they find you?
• Advertising for events: The more you post and get the word out about your event, the more people can hear about it and possibly donate.
• Recruit Supporters: As a club you’re not just looking for funds, but also volunteers to contribute their time and resources to your club as well.

Types of Marketing for Clubs

Booster clubs will implement many of the same marketing channels or means as regular businesses. However for most booster clubs their area of reach is more local. Some of these avenues and means booster club promotions will utilizes include:

• poster printing
• flyer printing
• event promotion (booths or placement at events)
• local newspaper, radio, tv
• cross promotion with local businesses
• cross promotion with other local nonprofits
• cross promotion with other booster clubs
• perhaps hyper local online promotion (ie. Facebook geography ads, google geography ads)

Since all clubs are different and have different needs, the way each club markets itself will be different as well. Booster club promotion and booster club budgets will be different depending on each specific clubs needs and desires.

What is a Booster Club Marketing Budget

A booster club marketing budget is a budget for all marketing and promotions. It is essentially a plan that details all costs and expenses for both events to come and past events. For events to come it will detail all of the costs needed to have the event. For past fundraisers or events it will express how much was used to promote an event.

How to Manage Booster Club Marketing Budgets

Proper management of your clubs booster club marketing budget can be done in two ways.

First, is by implementing structure and resources to track and review costs. For every fundraiser and event your booster club will need to track how much it will cost just to promote the event by the channel or means you will be using. For example: If your club is planning a bake sale that will be advertised with posters around town, then your club should track the cost for the posters and how many you will be using.

You should have the costs for each fundraiser marked down specifically. Each fundraiser will differ based on the type of marketing used, and for the reach desired as well. The great thing about budgets is that they provide the structure for you to insert and review information providing much efficiency in managing booster club marketing budgets.

The second way to manage booster club marketing budgets is to adhere to the budget. There is no point in having structure and order if you’re going to ignore it. Be careful to set a hard number for costs

Make sure that on top of your structure, and adherence to the budget that you have more than one set of eyes reviewing it. Accountability and transparency are great factors that help to spot when the budget may begin to balloon or if the budget needs to be increased.

Why Have a Booster Club Marketing Budget?

A booster club budget for your club’s marketing can be helpful for many reasons including:

1. Providing direction
2. Helping you observe how much you are spending and allow you to cut costs
3. Helps you better plan: By knowing how much you have to spend, you can find the particular avenues to meet that fixed cap.

Managing booster club marketing budgets helps you to manage not just your booster club marketing but gives direction and feedback that is useful for managing your club as a whole.

Tools to Use When You Manage Booster Club Marketing Budgets

• Marketing director who sets budget: In order to do the right job, you need the right person to manage a marketing budget. Consider(if you do not have one already) implementing a marketing director to oversee your club’s budget and review it along with other executives.
• Budgeting software: There are plenty of options available online for clubs and non-profits to simply plug in their information and be all set up to budget.
• Be Informed: You want whoever is in charge of your marketing budget to be familiar with all kinds of marketing channels. It is vital to know when to use big marketing avenues or small avenues based on specific events and target audiences. Additionally today in our digital age, social media is a must. You need someone who understands social media and all types of marketing to know how much they will cost, and what methods will give you the largest reach for the lowest cost.

If you or your marketing director is out of the loop there are many great books and websites that provide much insight into these aspects.

A Great Budget means Less Burden

To have a thriving booster club means properly managing booster club marketing budgets. You cannot properly manage your booster club if you do not manage a marketing budget. With a great marketing budget your club will properly be able to see and use the right channels to promote events all while getting the greatest reach at the lowest cost.