Recruitment Ideas

 

Ways to recruit new members, suggesting things that are most likely to work and those to avoid. It is generally not korfball-specific

Recruitment can be:

• Ongoing - getting your name known - this is an attempt to keep new people “ticking over”

• Targeted - you set a date and try and get as many people as possible

Targeted recruitment is the most successful as it means you can plan your coaching for new people (rather than having to keep going back to the start all the time when one new person turns up). If you can get a number of beginners starting at the same time they tend to keep coming, whereas individuals are more likely to drift off. Ways to improve the successfulness of targeted recruitment are:

• Financial incentive – always make the first session FREE. Say the second session is free if they bring a friend

• Think of the time of year. People are most likely to be looking to try a new indoor sport in October (start of winter) and January (New year’s resolution)

Although ongoing recruitment is likely to show less return, it is still a good way to get a few new people each year and should not be ruled out completely.

Remember that recruitment is generally cumulative – don’t rely on only one thing to get people along. Some people may come along the second or third time they hear about something.

Ways to recruit

(in order of their successfulness)

	Word of mouth	This is responsible for at least half of all recruitment. Get people to bring along friends or work colleagues. Hearing about it from someone you know will mean you are more likely to consider it.
	An article in the paper (not to be confused with an advert in the paper – see below)	Ten years ago, simply the name of “korfball” was enough to get an article in the paper to tell people about your club. Now you have to try a bit harder – try and think of an angle that will make it interesting to the editor e.g. “An alien came along to my club – you can too” or parachute nude into a football stadium. Ok, a bit sensationalist but I think you get the idea Try and get a photo published alongside the article Do something unusual as a club e.g. push a bath to Newmarket and raise money for charity
	Posters	Make them eye-catching and not too wordy. If there is a place where the poster will be up for a while, make more effort with it (rather than just a photocopy) – use colours or even consider making it 3D!! If possible have a leaflet dispenser or tear off strips with contact details. Make the important information biggest – think of an eye-catching title, stress it is a “beginners session” (for targeted recruitment) to make it clear everyone will be in the same boat, make “first session free” very visible. Keep the description of the sport to a minimum e.g. Come along and try the world’s only mixed team sport. If you put on phone numbers, try and have one man and one woman (both men and women are more likely to contact a woman’s number) Places to put up posters are: Libraries Sports Centres Offices – not just of people you know, but go round business parks and ask them to put them up on their social notice board Shops (it is difficult to get shop keepers to display posters and they won’t be up for very long) Supermarkets – maybe not a poster but put up a card on their free notice board
	Leafleting	One of the most successful ideas previously has been to go along to an outdoor sporting event e.g. Rounders that is running on the same evening as your event (so go along a week or a fortnight before). The thinking is that these people are relatively sporty and are quite likely to be free on that evening. Just handing out leaflets to everyone in the street is unlikely to get results
	The web	A web site with a memorable name is likely to be easier for people to remember than a phone number. Don’t expect to get many people through search engines but get your web site listed on as many free directories as possible e.g. Goggle groups. Try and get your event listed on “What’s on” type websites

The above probably account for 99% of recruitment. Some other less successful ideas are:

• Paid newspaper adverts. These may seem like a good idea but they are expensive and people tend to ignore adverts in newspapers. I have seen them tried a few times with almost zero success.

• Demonstration Games. May work if associated with handing out leaflets but not successful in the past

• Exhibition stalls at days out. Relatively expense and difficult to get bypassers interested

• Fliers in a free newspaper Expensive and people ignore them

• Leaflets posted direct through letter boxes. It is difficult to target the right people and get enough coverage.

Retaining Beginners

Once you have someone you want to try your best to keep them coming along!

• Be welcoming – if people are ignored they are less likely to stay
• Pitch the coaching at a beginners level – you may need to split the session and coach newcomers separately for some exercises but don’t make them feel isolated
• Get contact details – so you can chase them up if they stop coming (although this is likely to have limited success). Have a “new members” person
• Have an active social diary – plan some events to follow on from your beginners session