Communication Tools to Promote Your Lacrosse Club
Building a strong presence for your lacrosse club starts with clear, consistent communication. Whether you want to attract new players, highlight achievements, or keep your community informed, how you share your message matters. By tapping into various communication tools, you can not only increase your club's visibility but also strengthen its connection with members and supporters.
Local media outlets, including newspapers, websites, TV, and radio stations, are often looking for community stories, especially when it comes to youth sports. With the right strategy, you can capture their attention and shine a spotlight on your club’s activities and successes. Additionally, there are many free or low-cost communication platforms available that require little technical experience, making it easy to promote your lacrosse club effectively.
Let’s explore some of the most effective communication tools for promoting your club.
Local Media
Local media outlets can be powerful partners in promoting your lacrosse club. From newspaper sports sections to community radio stations, they are often looking for fresh, local content. A well-crafted outreach can put your club in the spotlight and bring attention to the efforts of your players, coaches, and volunteers.
Building Media Relationships
Building relationships with local sports journalists, community editors, or radio hosts is a valuable way to generate interest in your club. Consider assigning a volunteer or parent within your club to act as a media liaison that reaches out to local media with updates or pitch specific stories, such as player milestones and club events. Having a volunteer or parent with media relations experience or a contact in local media could be an added bonus, so be sure to identify those individuals within your club.
Sending a Media Release
A Media Release is a key tool for communicating your club’s news to the media. It provides a full story, including important details, quotes, background information, and context to help reporters turn it into a feature. Media Releases are effective for sharing important events, achievements, or announcements and ensuring your news gets noticed.
A successful Media Release not only shares the "who, what, where, when, and why" but also explains why this news matters to the community. Including high-quality images from the OLA PhotoShelter with your release will make it more visually engaging, increasing the likelihood that it gets picked up by media outlets.
To make this process simple, we’ve provided a customizable template that your club can use to easily share its stories with the media. To get started writing your own Media Release, access the template, make a copy, and start editing.
Digital Platforms
Website
In today’s digital world, parents of prospective players are likely to search for local sports opportunities online, making it crucial for your lacrosse club to maintain an active and engaging Website. Your club’s Website should be the cornerstone of your online presence, providing essential information such as registration details, schedules, coaching opportunities, and club policies.
A well-maintained Website not only informs your current members but also attracts new families looking for local lacrosse programs. Regular updates and visually appealing content, such as photos from recent games or events, help keep the site engaging and relevant.
Using clear titles, relevant keywords, and regularly updating content will enhance your Website’s SEO (search engine optimization) and make your site more visible when people search for lacrosse programs in your area. Integrating your social media feeds into the website will ensure that your latest posts and updates are always visible, keeping the content fresh and engaging for visitors.
Email Newsletter
A regular Email Newsletter is an effective way to keep parents, players, and volunteers up-to-date on club news. From fundraising efforts to tournament recaps and upcoming opportunities for involvement, newsletters are a great way to keep your community informed. Make sure to import all emails collected during registration into your mailing list to ensure that all registered members receive important communications from the club.
To enhance the impact of your communications, segment your Email List by birth year or by program for more targeted updates—this ensures the right people get the most relevant information.
Social Media
Social Media is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal for promoting your lacrosse club. To keep your club's Social Media efforts running smoothly, assign multiple people on your board access to the accounts. This ensures that managing and updating the platforms doesn't fall on a single person. You can also encourage coaches, team managers, and parents to share photos and videos by sending them via direct message (DM) along with a suggested caption, significantly reducing the workload for Social Media updates.
Assign a volunteer to monitor and respond to comments or direct messages, or set up an auto-response for DMs that directs inquiries to a general email for official responses.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
Keep the Tone Positive: Avoid getting involved in heated debates or negative discussions, as these can detract from your club’s reputation and community spirit. Encourage positive engagement and, if any disagreements arise, handle them privately and offline. Keeping communication respectful and constructive will help your club remain a welcoming space for all members.
Tag People and Partners: Always tag relevant players, alumni, sponsors, and community partners in your posts to boost visibility and increase engagement. When you tag others, they are more likely to share your content with their own followers, extending your club’s reach even further. This collaborative approach not only strengthens relationships within your community but also helps showcase your club’s impact across different networks, further expanding your reach.
Leverage Local Hashtags: Many communities have their own local hashtags, which can help increase the visibility of your club's content to people in your area. By using these hashtags, your posts are more likely to be discovered by local families and potential new players who are searching for sports programs in the area. Pairing local hashtags with a unique hashtag for your club encourages community engagement and helps to build a stronger, more recognizable online presence for your lacrosse club.
Build One Strong Following: As a best practice, maintain one social media account for your club rather than dividing efforts across multiple accounts for different teams or programs. Having multiple accounts can confuse followers and make it harder to build a strong, engaged community. By focusing on one account, your club can concentrate its efforts on growing a single following, making communication clearer and more impactful. This approach also avoids the risk of team accounts going inactive or off-message, ensuring consistent branding and messaging across all posts.
ChatGPT: Your Personal Writing Assistant
ChatGPT is an incredibly useful communication tool for promoting your lacrosse club, especially if you don’t have writing experience. Whether you need help crafting media releases, social media captions, website copy, or newsletter content, ChatGPT can assist with it all. Simply provide the general theme and point-form information, and ChatGPT will create polished content for you.
Make sure to review and adjust the responses to match your club's unique brand voice. With ChatGPT, you can save time and effort while producing professional-quality content to engage your community.
Additional Tools for Promotion
Content Calendar
Creating a content calendar can help keep your messaging organized and ensure that you're promoting events well in advance. It helps your team plan posts, emails, or website updates so nothing falls through the cracks.
Visuals and Branding
Consistent branding across all materials helps build recognition in your community. Design simple, branded graphics for social media using tools like Canva, and keep the club’s colours, logos, and fonts uniform across platforms. Use high-quality images from the OLA PhotoShelter to capture attention and create a sense of connection with your audience.
Community Bulletin Boards
Always be on the lookout for community bulletin boards in local community centres, schools, and recreational facilities. These physical spaces offer a great way to promote your lacrosse club to a broader audience. Posting flyers about registration or Try Lacrosse events can capture the attention of people who may not be active online or follow your club on social media.
If you have any questions about using these communication tools or need more information, feel free to contact us at info@ontariolacrosse.com.
