So I have been swimming with a masters team since august and have since then paid my usms membership fee at the end of October to be able to swim in a meet we recently had. I haven't recieved my usms card in the mail yet. In two weeks and am going back home from school for a month but need to swim in a structured program and am gonna find the masters team at home and wanted to know if I could still swim with them without my membership card, is there a way to prove my membership without it?
It is pretty clear that membership growth is desired by the top brass in USMS. My question is a little more basic: whom are we trying to entice to join USMS?
You bring up fitness instructors. Do we want to aggressively market to (say) people who until now are in aqua-aerobics classes? What exactly are the consequences of success?
It seems to me that -- with its interest in expanding OW swimming -- USMS is very interested in enticing triathletes to cross-over into USMS. Do we want this?
(These are true questions, not a comment from me on desirability or lack thereof.)
Based on the brief interview of Rob Butcher on Gold Medal Mel, it seems that maybe Butcher is pursuing former big swimming names to get them back into competition. You've been known to do this yourself. Broadening this: are former competitive swimmers the market we should pursue most aggressively?
Or all of these things?
We set up a USMS booth at a local (big) 10k road race here in Richmond last year. We had many, many people come by and ask about USMS (it is not clear to me how many signed up). When they were asking about swimming opportunities in Richmond and I gave them all the information -- we had it all ready -- I found myself wondering if my own small workout group would become so large that it would be unmanageable. (There are now days when we have 6-7 people per lane for awhile, making anything beyond 50 repeats problematic.)
It seems to me that the answers to these questions play a pretty big role in whatever strategies we decide to use to increase brand-recognition.
Excellent post! This is the kind of basic question I've been wanting people to ask and both you and Jim have gotten to the crux of the debate...is growth good? And who should we target.
USMS has been very clear that the "fitness swimmer" is the largest percentage of our membership and arguably the hardest to detrermine what they want and/or need beyond access to a workout group.
The smaller competitive side seems to be far more vocal...but probably not to much different than the fitness swimmers when it comes to the biggest concern over gowth and that is crowded lanes...which we all may see a lot more of if the economy worsens and we see inevitable pool closures.
Here's my opinion...I think growth is good and the more people getting involved the more likely we'll have more voices screaming when we face pool closures, programs dropped as well as possible expansion of programs and building of pools.
Who should we target...everyone. And to me the most basic, fundamental step is simply getting the brand name out there any place we can...and the easiest way and most cost effective is using the 50,000+ members we already have as walking billboards...
How do we do it? As i said long ago on these forums the dog should wag the tail...the parent organization can and should leverage itself and create more value in the sponsorships it accepts. We shouldn't have every suit manufacturer as a sponosor...have one, charge more and ask that a one time20% off coupon be provided to our members who renew/or first time members or. Instead of having every on-line/catalog swimming retailer have one...and find a similar benefit to be offered to members. LMSC's can/should also find a way to share revenue and do things like offer a USMS logo t-shirt with memberships at a deeply discounted price (I figure is a meet host can provide a t-shirt with a $35 entry fee we can find a way). Every nationals host should be given USMS stickers to go into goodie bags when swimmers check-in and on and on and on.
I'm not syaing these are the best or only options...I put them out there off the top of my head and ask people to throw a few out themselves vs. get caught up in the feasibility or costs...call it a brainstorming session and see what happens.
It is pretty clear that membership growth is desired by the top brass in USMS. My question is a little more basic: whom are we trying to entice to join USMS?
You bring up fitness instructors. Do we want to aggressively market to (say) people who until now are in aqua-aerobics classes? What exactly are the consequences of success?
It seems to me that -- with its interest in expanding OW swimming -- USMS is very interested in enticing triathletes to cross-over into USMS. Do we want this?
(These are true questions, not a comment from me on desirability or lack thereof.)
Based on the brief interview of Rob Butcher on Gold Medal Mel, it seems that maybe Butcher is pursuing former big swimming names to get them back into competition. You've been known to do this yourself. Broadening this: are former competitive swimmers the market we should pursue most aggressively?
Or all of these things?
We set up a USMS booth at a local (big) 10k road race here in Richmond last year. We had many, many people come by and ask about USMS (it is not clear to me how many signed up). When they were asking about swimming opportunities in Richmond and I gave them all the information -- we had it all ready -- I found myself wondering if my own small workout group would become so large that it would be unmanageable. (There are now days when we have 6-7 people per lane for awhile, making anything beyond 50 repeats problematic.)
It seems to me that the answers to these questions play a pretty big role in whatever strategies we decide to use to increase brand-recognition.
Excellent post! This is the kind of basic question I've been wanting people to ask and both you and Jim have gotten to the crux of the debate...is growth good? And who should we target.
USMS has been very clear that the "fitness swimmer" is the largest percentage of our membership and arguably the hardest to detrermine what they want and/or need beyond access to a workout group.
The smaller competitive side seems to be far more vocal...but probably not to much different than the fitness swimmers when it comes to the biggest concern over gowth and that is crowded lanes...which we all may see a lot more of if the economy worsens and we see inevitable pool closures.
Here's my opinion...I think growth is good and the more people getting involved the more likely we'll have more voices screaming when we face pool closures, programs dropped as well as possible expansion of programs and building of pools.
Who should we target...everyone. And to me the most basic, fundamental step is simply getting the brand name out there any place we can...and the easiest way and most cost effective is using the 50,000+ members we already have as walking billboards...
How do we do it? As i said long ago on these forums the dog should wag the tail...the parent organization can and should leverage itself and create more value in the sponsorships it accepts. We shouldn't have every suit manufacturer as a sponosor...have one, charge more and ask that a one time20% off coupon be provided to our members who renew/or first time members or. Instead of having every on-line/catalog swimming retailer have one...and find a similar benefit to be offered to members. LMSC's can/should also find a way to share revenue and do things like offer a USMS logo t-shirt with memberships at a deeply discounted price (I figure is a meet host can provide a t-shirt with a $35 entry fee we can find a way). Every nationals host should be given USMS stickers to go into goodie bags when swimmers check-in and on and on and on.
I'm not syaing these are the best or only options...I put them out there off the top of my head and ask people to throw a few out themselves vs. get caught up in the feasibility or costs...call it a brainstorming session and see what happens.
