April 2008 -- When looking for ways to promote yourself as a USPTA tennis-teaching professional and your tennis business, paid advertising is one potential option, but definitely not the only option. When deciding between advertising and public relations to get your name and business out to the public, you might want to give public relations a try. For starters, public relations is often cheaper than advertising and, at times, may touch more prospective customers than traditional advertising. Equally important, successful public relations usually leaves the public with a positive feeling about your firm or your products. Public relations is a great, economical way to get the image of your business out to the public and build the brand of USPTA tennis-teaching professionals. It's not uncommon for positive feelings created through public relations to be translated into more customer traffic, sales and profits.
You do have a choice. Numerous creative, low-cost public relations opportunities are available to you right now as you attempt to get your name and message across to the public. And these opportunities are not limited to press releases, photo opportunities and the occasional special event. Since we have focused much of our attention previously on these publicity tools, which are still available online at the USPTA Career Center, we will now focus on other low cost promotional opportunities. To refresh your memory or obtain these templates, members can visit uspta.com and hit PR tools under the Career Center.
At the World Headquarters we are doing our part to promote and build the USPTA brand for the benefit of our entire membership, but this will be most effective if members also do their part to build their businesses and the USPTA brand at the local level. To get you thinking about the ways creative public relations can enhance your promotional efforts, following are some examples:
Booklets - In our information-conscious world, customers are often delighted to receive "how-to" or instructional booklets on new products, problems they face or other topics of popular concern. Publish your own booklets or purchase stock material and imprint it with your name and address, and make it available to your customers and prospects. USPTA already has information booklets available on Little Tennis and will soon have booklets and other information pieces available on
Tennis - for the health of it! SM These can be used as takeaways on the great mental and physical health benefits of tennis for current and potential students. The USPTA also has several information pieces and fliers on other programs that may also be useful to students.
Bouncebacks - A "bounceback" is simply a repeat-business incentive. You might, for instance, place "bounceback coupons" on shopping bags that are distributed to people as they leave your place of business; the bag coupons entice customers to come back. Bounceback coupons, special offers or announcements of customer educational programs can be produced on the back of receipts, enclosed with invoices and statements, or given to people as they leave your retail outlets. For example, tennis-teaching professionals can do a take on this and offer coupons or certificates for half-off a lesson for any student who refers a friend or new student, or for new students that sign up for five lessons, give them a sixth lesson free as an added incentive.
Bumper stickers, car magnets, T-shirts, luggage tags and pens - If you have a group of loyal fans, ask them to place bumper stickers bearing your firm's name on the backs of their vehicles. The publicity value of these items stickers can be enormous. Why not give away USPTA car magnets ($3/each), T-shirts ($3.80/each), luggage tags ($1/each) or pens ($1.50/each) to new students as a way to show appreciation for coming out and trying tennis or use them as prizes for on-court contests? These items are a great way to build name and brand recognition for yourself and your affiliation with the USPTA.
Bulletin boards - The community bulletin board phenomenon is sweeping the nation. These popular bulletin boards are located in banks, shopping malls, grocery stores, laundromats, libraries and numerous other locations in just about every community. Many of these bulletin boards can be accessed at no charge and others require a modest advertising fee. Either way, you can use community bulletin boards to promote everything from customer events to special product offers. Why not use these to promote free Tennis Across America™ clinics, Little Tennis
® programs, Junior Circuit™ or tennis lessons in general with your USPTA contact information? People DO read these!
Consultation - By offering advice or consultation to the public at no charge, you'll establish yourself as an authority in your field and you'll identify a ready-made pool of prospective customers. You might set aside a day of the month or a time each week when you'll be freely available for consultation. This can be slightly altered to promote a first half-hour lesson free with a USPTA-certified teaching professional. This is a great way to generate interest and build relationships and a student base, especially if you are a new tennis-teaching professional in your area.
Charitable tie-ins - Not-for-profit organizations throughout the nation are searching for new fundraising ideas and are usually eager to form revenue-producing partnerships with commercial firms. If you're trying to introduce a new product or service in the marketplace, you might publicly note that a portion of the proceeds will benefit a favorite charity. Or you might offer a charity a large number of retail coupons at no charge. The charity can sell the coupons at face value and you can end up with more customer traffic. For Lessons for Life, you can hold a tournament where half of the proceeds go to a local charity or have half of all the proceeds from the lessons in October go to your favorite, local charity. Or if a local charity is looking for donations for auctions items, you may want to donate a free lesson package from a USPTA-certified professional. This can be a package of lessons once a week for a month, for example. You will be esteemed as a great contributor in your society and as a side note you will be building the image of your USPTA tennis business in your community.
Cross-promotions - Make a list of non-competing firms that you believe serve the kind of customers or clients you serve. Ask the owners of these firms if they'd be willing to distribute traffic-building coupons for you in their outlets, if you do the same for them. You'll fertilize each other's customer pool in this manner, without diminishing each other's profits. For example, using
Tennis - for the health of it!, you can cross-promote with other health-oriented businesses, such as smoothie stores (Jamba Juice, Smoothie King, etc.), Whole Foods and vitamin stores, to name a few. They can promote your lessons and you can promote their products with coupons, discount lessons, etc.
Demonstrations - People love to watch live exhibits! If you're interested in promoting a new technique, tool or process, stage a public demonstration. Invite the public in at no charge and offer liberal opportunities for questions and one-to-one practice. If your community or your market stages public gatherings of people, such as fairs or trade shows, that's even better. These are perfect opportunities for demonstrations. Try to get involved and hold demonstrations and invite/encourage people to participate. This will help build interest in tennis and may lead to new students and more lessons. Little Tennis and Tennis Across America clinics and are great programs for demonstrations.
Endorsements - No, you need not run a huge multi-national conglomerate to enlist the help of a spokesperson or use a celebrity endorsement. Consider asking a local DJ or entertainer to serve as your spokesperson. Or ask a not-so-famous amateur with a distinctive voice or face to represent you at public gatherings. Find local media members or local celebrities who love to play tennis and see if they will get behind and help promote
Tennis - for the health of it!, Tennis Across America, Little Tennis and Lessons for Life and any other programs you might have available. Invite them out to tennis events and ask them to help promote USPTA-certified tennis-teaching professionals and tennis in your area.
Media events - If you'd like to attract the attention of the mass media, don't hesitate to stage a made-for-the-media event: a tasting contest, a celebrity visit, a sporting event, an unusual photo opportunity, or any other novel activity with strong visual appeal. The media loves events with kids and celebrities. Hold a Tennis Across America clinic or Little Tennis event and invite local celebrities out to participate with kids. This will be a great photo opportunity for local media.
Public service announcements - Radio and television make "public service" time available to charitable groups and causes. Why not run cause-oriented advertising that associates your firm's name with a compelling public issue. This is a great tool to promote such programs and initiatives as free Tennis Across America clinics and
Tennis - for the health of it! in your community.
School programs - If you're marketing to young people or their families don't hesitate to make educational materials and opportunities available to teachers and entire classrooms. Filmstrips, printed materials, samples, demonstrations, talks, tours and field trips, all bearing your name, can help cultivate large numbers of prospective customers at one time. Why not promote Little Tennis, Tennis Across America and
Tennis - for the health of it! at your local elementary schools? Introducing these programs and doing demonstrations can help build interest in tennis and a new student base.
Speaker's bureaus - Word of mouth can be a powerful promotional force. So consider setting up a simple speaker's bureau composed of yourself and perhaps one or two trusted associates who can offer informal talks at civic, business and social clubs in you area. Even the smallest of communities can boast of a dozen or more civic organizations and large communities may have hundreds of these organizations, many of them hosting weekly talks for their members. The USPTA's newest initiative of
Tennis - for the health of it! is a great topic to speak on and one that will resonate with many audiences since health and fitness are such a big focus in our society today. Tie this is in with other USPTA programs you have at your club/facility and help generate interest in tennis in your community.
Specialized media - Your community or region is probably served by a number of specialized media, in-house company publications, club newsletters, club bulletins and more. Compose a list of these media and, when you prepare press releases, send copies along to them. It is always a good idea to be aware of your local and community media and constantly keep them informed about new initiatives, programs and events at your club or facility. It is very important to always work on networking and building those relationships.
Use these techniques as starting points for your own successful promotions. And remember, only your imagination limits the breadth and depth of the promotions you can develop and the impact your name can make on the public.
