I have always been rather mistrustful when it comes to marketing and sales. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps early on I was conned once too often by clever sales staff and ended up buying things that I didn’t really want, or were overpriced or didn’t work properly. I think that’s why I’m always wary of buying stuff full stop – the thought that I might end up getting something I don’t need or value. It may also explain my attitude to date on social media and promotion material.
I’m probably not unique in that, but I’ve come to realise that most of the world gets on pretty well with it and I’m really a bit out on a limb here! Notwithstanding that, over the years, and particularly since I’ve got involved with this local charity, I’ve better started to appreciate the importance of marketing, because in a mixed economy like ours (and most of the world these days), it is a necessary part of selling any product or service in whatever sector.
I’ve mentioned before that our financial model is pretty simple at Wimblecomm. We sustain ourselves via a dividend from an investment, which we secured when we sold our third of the old St Georges Road site back to the Council in 2013. We kept hold of some cash reserves from part of that although over the years they have gradually reduced. Other than one small grant and a temporary focus on sales a few years ago plus some donations earlier on, we have largely managed without needing to call on other funds to date, partly because as trustees we took the view that the effort and staff time involved was better targeted elsewhere.
We can continue as we are almost indefinitely but as I’ve pointed out in several blogs, running this charity can take up a lot of trustee time and if we are to grow the site and build upon our success to date, we need to generate more money each year to pay for extra staff and other resources. I appreciate now that marketing is an important part of getting our message out there in order to achieve our wider aim of making this site the online community hub for Merton.
Whilst I will openly admit to being no expert in this field, I do now understand the need to target audiences effectively and get our messaging to those audiences clear, if we are to start raising additional funds from donations or have another go at generating sales or membership fees. I think part of the problem is that so many people these days sign up to various websites for ‘free’ on the assumption that the business is using their data to sell advertising, but as you’ll have seen we have largely avoided ads on our site, so to date, we have genuinely been a free service.
Our constitution (which was last revised in 1999/ 2000) requires us to have a membership so being a member of Wimblecomm has added benefits – and responsibilities! And at some stage in the near future, we will want to review that constitution and discuss it with our members. We will cover it in our annual report later this year. As you may have seen we are making a bit of a marketing push to engage more members at our AGM scheduled for 26 November by aligning it with a fun ‘pub quiz’. Initial information is here, but please watch out for further details in our newsletter.
As I mentioned last week, I am always slightly in awe at the achievements of my beloved AFC Wimbledon, who made the national news this week after Sunday’s storm resulted in a major deterioration of the pitch and the rescheduling of the biggest cup tie the club has had to date. But never to be daunted, one fan set up a Just Giving page with a simple message which has raised over £115,000 at last count. It demonstrated to me the power of both good marketing and effective social media. It’s an area I still have much to learn about but I am always willing to be taught! My colleagues at Wimblecomm are doing a great job alongside me but we would welcome others from your membership and beyond to help take our charity to that next level.