BOF News

[andypat]

I'm not so sure.
My hotmail account blocks normal spam fairly well, but allows through emails from BMBO amongst others, which I read when I get them, despite the fact I have never done an MBO event. I dont have their website saved as a favourite (new laptop) and without the email wouldnt be aware of the events coming up this year in Scotland, one of which I am planning to enter now.

Conversely I did a mini triathlon last year, havent had any follow up from the club and its fallen off my radar. I dont think you can discount email.

And I had no idea what RSS was until it came up on here!

[Clive Coles]

I don't think email prompts from BOF are something we should be advocating ~ it is not selective ( unless of course we build a filtering management facility into the BOF membership database).

If we want anything at all, we need something that can be managed by the individual ~ targeted for their preferences and interests. Even RSS has it's limitations in this regard. But you can at least choose what you want and you can turn it off when you find you get more prompts than you need.

The last thing I want is for my email in tray to be filled by invites to fixtures from distant regions that I have no intention of going to. We each have our selection criteria ~ surely we will just end up pissing off lots of BOF members. One persons idea of event publicity is another persons unsolicited spam.

[SeanC]

Clive - such systems always allow users to opt in or opt out. It's really not complicated development and I would have thought very cost effective to encourage new or the less committed orienteers to orienteer a bit more. Not needed for nopesport types who are probably well aware of events *.

BOF news currently leads on National Family Week. Not very exciting but I've registered one of our events. Apart from the irritating registration form which doesn't tell you which fields are required, it only took 15 mins. They tell me

Once all events are approved they go on the public Events Map, which local people can browse and see what Family Week activities are taking place in their area. Doing this will obviously introduce new people to your club and the sport in general.

You can also order free promotional merchandise (you would’ve received an email prompting you to do this!) such as posters, stickers, balloons etc, which will make your event look official and will advertise it further.

Depends on how well they promote their website, but probably will be 2 or 3 more newcomers so worth 15 mins effort.

* But don't forget the DFOK street event in Swanley tommorrow, 30 minute train journey from Central London.

[AAH]

Indeed – there is a big difference between what is suitable for recruiting newcomers and for providing information to seasoned competitors.

To get newcomers, the modern way is to send emails. Marathons have email lists, adventure races have email lists, charity campaigns have email lists etc. etc. They are mostly sent using services that provide bulk emailing and facilitate HTML layout etc. Anything that is sent needs to be thought out carefully, linked in to other online information (BOF fixture list), interesting articles (online video tutorials etc.) and geotargeted. (Groundspeak have my postcode and send me things with a local bias).

For seasoned competitors, it might well be less of an issue. We all know where to go looking for information, although it is easy to miss e.g. closing dates. Any such emails could be on an opt-out or opt-in basis. There are some things which would be helpful – e.g. automatic reminders of closing dates for events within a defined distance of a given postcode, but that might be something better incorporated into existing third party entries systems by adding a ’remind me about this event’ flag etc.

But for getting newcomers in, and developing the interest of those who are dipping their foot in the water, it’s the modern way. Sure, there are plenty of sports and activities don’t do that sort of thing. But many of them are dwindling away by natural selection, losing out to activities that have marketing suitable for the current era. Given the development of the internet, any marketing strategy which was appropriate 5 years ago should be expected to be obsolete.

There is another more traditional marketing campaign BOF could try sometime – a mailshot to try to get back lapsed members who were keen enough to have previously joined at a national level. BOF doesn’t, to my knowledge, try to mail lapsed members. There must be people out there who were interested in the past and dropped out due to injury, lifestyle changes etc. but who might not need too much encouragement to try the sport again. I was out of the sport for years with injury - I didn’t get any communication from BOF but you can bet that any business with a former customer who spent as much on any activity as any Nopesport regular spends on orienteering would send follow up letters of gradually dwindling frequency to last known address for a few years.

[Clive Coles]

AAH's post ilustrates very well that issuing automatic emails is not just a simple yes/no decision that enables BOF members to opt in or opt out .

Beneath these simple facilities there have to be rules that drive selection/ filtering processes. Some folk want to know just what is happening locally; others will want prompting on a nation scale in case they miss a closing date for a major fixture. We will probably need to store parameters for each BOF member to allow individuals to specify what they want to be alerted to and what they don't need to know.

The alert process needs to know what occurancies should trigger an email. Should it be a change to a web page or fixture registration; the approach of a closing date....etc , etc ? How do we stop minor corrections to data triggering a email to those who have opted in.

To do the job properly requires yet another BOF software development. It is not an insignifacant development. No doubt it will need to be paid for out of our membership levy. If a significant number of BOF members choose to opt out why should they pay for the development of this facility.

We have never been asked how much more we want to spend on BOF IT. The programme seems to roll on and on. Developments need to be driven by costed needs rather than nice to have ideas.

[SeanC]

I believe there is plenty of free software out there to use.

The SEOA mailer is a good example of a simple effective mailer. The more bells and whistles yes the more expensive, but you could just filter the list for the region and send this out to people living in that region . I don't think this sounds very complicated, though no doubt a software service company could make it sound expensive.

Another option is for a volunteer to set something up. *

Also why limit it's use to BOF members? It's the casual orienteers who will most benefit - you could let anyone sign up for it online rather than mixing it up with the BOF membership stuff. Online advertising and promotion is going to be more effective at attracting the 20-40 something as these age groups are less likely to respond to traditional marketing (eg local newspapers) than the older age group.

Don't forget that the cost is mitigated by the revenue from extra levies and membership, maybe even cancelled out completely. In the end though there may be a net cost not covered by existing budgets. Would this be a waste of money? I would say yes if orienteering membership and participation trends looked remotely healthy.

* not me