Liverpool Football Club
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Liverpool Football Club
Background
Liverpool football club was established in 1892; the club is in Liverpool England and participates in the premier league. It has been credited to be a club that has received the highest number of trophies compared to other English football clubs. The club was formed after a dispute arose between Everton football club committee and john houlding who was the president of the club; they were in business collaborations with Tory councilor (Strasler 2004). They realized Tory had some personal agenda that were contrary to the interests of the club. They all had contradicting views of how the club was to be run which ultimately strained their relationship. The conflict originated from the sale and purchase of Anfield site, which was a stadium that had been used by the club for eight years. The club was later changed to Liverpool after it refused to be recognized as Everton in June 1892. Despite the above challenges, the club has continued to perform better. It has also continued to adapt modern means that will ensure that it performs even better.
Project rationale
The objective of this research proposal is to identify some of the marketing strategies that have been used by the club to attract more fans. The club offers a variety of products that can be bought at the different centers either of the club or online. Fans that are equipped with such products have an easy access to watch the different matches of the team. Such merchandise includes jerseys, tickets, foodstuff and other products. Even though the club is based in England, it has fans all over the world. The following is a discussion of some of the strategies that have been used and are being used to market their products and update their fans on their activities. The club has gained a lot of popularity especially amongst football fans and is one of the clubs that enjoys a large number of fans that appear during their matches to support them. The club utilizes such opportunities to sell off their merchandise using Liverpool TV club and the internet. The club also organizes tours for its fans and any other individual that subscribes to such services. We are also going to look at some of the strategies that are employed by the club to ensure that all their fans have access to their products.
Objectives
As the club desires to launch its products deeper and wider, it is working towards fulfilling certain objectives. The management of the team understands that it will not always enjoy the fame and popularity it currently has unless practical efforts are implemented. Before we critically look at the most important objectives of the club, we will need to consider some of the areas that the club is most threatened. The club has to maintain and increase the number of their fans; the more fans a football club has, the more it will be motivated to perform. Liverpool may be having a good number of fans that they can bank on. These fans have been with the team and vowed to support it no matter what happens to it. They are the fans that not only enjoy the matches but also are also ready to do anything in their capacity to ensure that the club grows. The club uses such fans especially to act as agents during their matches in selling off their merchandise and usually sells tickets in different denominations. There are tickets that are sold to high profile individuals that go at a slightly higher rate, these tickets are usually referred to as VIP. Such people will be given front seats where they will be able to watch the game clearly. They are also offered with some other facilities, which include refreshments during the time of the match.
Catering services are usually provided for the fans, which help the club to generate some more income. Most of these services include drinks and other kinds of refreshments. The club also sells some merchandise to the fans, which include tee shirts, capes and banners. The other group of fans may be temporal and unpredictable but still play an important role to the club. The fans that are attracted to the club due to its performance; the more the club performs better the more of such fans it will attract. Interestingly, this portion forms the highest percentage of fans. It may not be easy to retain such fans considering the various interests that they hold towards the club. However, they cannot be ignored because they help market the club internationally. They will mostly be attracted to the products of the club, which includes jerseys, tickets and other attires (Liverpool fc 2009). The club may also not realize how important these fans are until when they go to play their matches internationally. Most of the staunch supporters of the club are in England but the team many not be able to carry all the fans in its international matches. International fans are necessary in ensuring that the team is well supported even as they play their matches. It will also give them feelings of security that will let them know that they are not amidst strangers but among people that will stand and support them. The best way of maintaining such fans is to ensure that the team is not involved in certain activities that are likely to piss the fans. They also need to ensure that their products are reliable and available to their fans. They should maintain constant communication with their fans by ensuring that they are updated of the current activities and matches of the team.
Another important area that is likely to let a club down is the management. The club has experienced how critical this issue can be considering the earlier conflicts that led to its rebirth. The managers of the club are the real determinants of the progress that the club will make. They are the people that make decisions for the club and determine the players and coaches of the club. The club therefore needs to ensure that the people that are involved in the managerial issues are having the interests of the club at heart (The Guardian 2009). The players of the club are the main people that need to be treated and selected well. Some clubs may concentrate so much on marketing the club that they forget the very people that are making them gain their popularity. Fans are usually attracted to a club mainly due to the skills that are used by the players to play and win their matches. Most fans may like a club due to a specific player that they want to be associated. It will therefore be useless for a club to desire to sell as many tickets as possible, air their matches in as many channels as they can and distribute their merchandise all over if they are not taking good care of the players.
The club therefore needs to ensure that the players are given good remuneration packages. Whenever the club performs better, the management should ensure that players are credited by being given some extra allowance. Treating the players well will motivate them into higher productivity, which is the main area that will market the team. Players are not only motivated by good remuneration packages but also ensuring that their physical and psychological health is well taken care of. The coach and other managers should ensure that this area is well taken care of by ensuring that they have reliable psychiatrists and nutritionists (Forbes.com 2009). Players may also be affected by any wrangles in the management. They should thus ensure that issues are well taken care of and well sorted out so that they are always motivated to play well in their succeeding matches. Let us now consider some of the means that are employed by the club to ensure that the team soars even higher.
Attracting and maintaining as many fans as possible
The club has been employing various strategies to ensure that the team attracts more fans. It puts effort not to only attract them but also to retain them; the club has to consider the regions where it is likely to get many fans. This was done by finding out the regions where football has taken much root. One the continent that has been targeted much by the club is Asia; it is a region that has more football fans than any other region. Considering the fact that the club is based in England, more efforts need to be employed to ensure that the club is accepted and appreciated. One thing that the club realizes is that there are other clubs fighting for a share of fans in Asia. They are employing certain strategies that are likely to attract people to the club. The club therefore has to ensure that the means that are being used to market and publicize their activities are unique. In its efforts to fulfill this, the club has to target a certain nation for instance china (The Mirror 2009). They have to study the cultural values of the nation and ensure that the strategies employed are not contrary to their religious and cultural standards.
They therefore need to ensure that the language that they use to communicate with their fans is appropriate. Using china as an example, the club needs to know the kind of technological developments in the nation on how reliable they are to their fans. This will enable them to establish the most appropriate media that they will use to communicate their events (The Sun 2009). China is known to be having some of the latest technology in communication and it will therefore do the club no harm if they decided to use Media like the internet and other wireless devices to communicate to their players. They also need to understand that china is composed of diverse languages and collaborate with the local community to ensure that some of the fans that may not be able to get the updates in English are updated in their local languages.
Approach and method
In this approach, we are going to consider some of the most used channels and media of communications that are used by the club to generate their income and to maintain and attract more fans. It is important to note that football is the world’s most famous game; Liverpool may therefore not be the only club that is seeking attention from fans (Levy 2006). The club has adopted modern means of communications to ensure that their activities are well marketed. The internet being the most appropriate means of marketing is preferred to other means due to its accessibility and wide used. The club uses some of the most accessible websites to ensure that its fans are well informed of their matches. The club also uses some of the international sporting TV channels to ensure that their matches are viewed by their international fans. BBC is one of the channels that have been utilized by the club. This is because of its quality services and the fact that it can be accessed everywhere in the world. Live matches of the club can be accessed on the internet and those that may not probably have the time to watch the entire match can get updates from the internet. The club also liaises with mobile phone companies to ensure that their fans are able to subscribe in order to receive the current updates of the scores.
Reporting and presentation procedures
Liverpool has unique procedures that it is used to present its matches. It has always looked for people that are able to give them a good presentation that is sure to attract more fans their way and has hired specific individuals that are to report the activities of the club (Levy 2006). The club understands that with the numerous fans that it has, they are all itching to know what is happening in the club. A good report therefore has to be written to ensure that the club is given a good display. Any information about the club has to be thoroughly edited before it is presented to the media houses. There are stern measures that are taken by the club against any individual that gives unreliable information about the club. Most of their football matches and updates are usually presented over the internet; they therefore ensure that they are done in a colorful format so that they attract their viewers. They also look for websites that have skilled designers to ensure that whatever is presented is clear.
Timing
To ensure that the players maximize the ninety minutes that they are given for their matches, the club ensures that they are given adequate training. Despite the experience the club and the players have in football, they have never taken it for granted. They consider every match that comes their way a new experience that has to be given adequate attention. They have never despised their opponent team by not practicing match; they understand that football is a game whose winner is determined by the last whistle. This has therefore made them to be serious in their training practice to ensure that they do not loose the game because of inadequate training. As they play, they are always reminded to know that they have ninety minutes in which they are to either win or loose. Such sensitivity within them strengthens them throughout the match. This has made the club successfully to finish their matches without having to complain about inadequate timing.
Fees
The club has always had good remuneration packages for its marketers, as it ensures that they serve the club well. As it looks forward to implementing more marketing strategies, the club will start paying its marketers on commission basis apart from the retainer that they will receive. The more merchandise that a marketer manages to sell, the more they are likely to get. The club also generates its income through the fee that is charged on the advertisements made on their official websites and the Liverpool TV.
Personal CVs
The club looks forward to having people that are going to support it in its marketing strategies. They therefore need to be people of knowledge and experience. They will need to have some skills in marketing with a proven working experience probably in a similar setting. This will therefore enable the club to launch its activities further and generate more income to the club. Apart from the relevant academic qualifications, the candidates need to have an interest and knowledge of football as a game. They also need to be acquainted with the history and the relevant information about Liverpool football club. This will ensure that the work they are doing is not only a career but also a passion that is birthed within them (Underhill 2000).
Related experience and references
Liverpool has been in existence since the late 1800’s and this makes it to be one of the clubs that understands a lot of information about football. It therefore looks for people that are informed about the club from such times. The club believes that anybody that wishes to stand with them should be acquainted with the objectives of the club. They therefore encourage their stakeholders to have the vision of the club at heart and ensure that they are working towards the fulfillment of such objectives. The club has gone through various challenges and experiences and thus putting it in a better position to face any forthcoming challenges. They must be people that are ready to support the club no matter the challenges that are faced by it. It is therefore necessary for such individuals to have been staunch supporters of the club and ensure that they employ their best (Christensen 2003). As the team invents more avenues to generate income, it will be assured of a financial security that will ensure that they soar higher.
REFERENCES
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http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/
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Underhill Paco, (2000) Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Simon and Shuster, New York pp 18-23