University of New Hampshire recently conducted an extensive search and analysis of recruiting and compliance software offerings before ultimately choosing the ARMS – Athlete Relationship Management System.  Below is an outline of the process UNH undertook to ensure they were selecting the best tool available.

A product search lead by experience: Carrie Doyle, University of New Hampshire’s Senior Associate Athletic Director for Compliance led UNH’s search for a web-based Compliance and Recruitment Management system.  Carrie has been involved in compliance issues for nearly 20 years with experience both working in the NCAA National Office and overseeing compliance issues as the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Compliance/Senior Woman Administrator.  Additionally, she has lead efforts to automate student athlete information at UNH since 2004 through the creation of a Banner to CAi “bridge” program that has been sent to hundreds of other universities throughout the country.  Carrie’s unique collection of experiences made her the ideal candidate to find the best system on the market.

Surveying the market place: One of the first steps Carrie took was to embark on a nation-wide survey of universities to understand what her peers were doing to automate compliance.  UNH contacted over 120 colleges and universities asking for information about what tools each school was using and their level of satisfaction.  In addition to her nation-wide survey, Carrie spoke with the coaches inside her own department to understand how they were using software and what features they thought were important for their roles as recruiters.

Narrowing down the Field: After her initial research phase Carrie was able to narrow down the contenders to the only three options  that have Active Compliance Controls (rules built into the program that would warn coaches before they completed any action that could potentially result in a violation).  Representatives from these three solution providers were invited to campus to give a presentation.

Getting Input from Compliance AND Coaches: The companies that were asked to present their offerings on campus presented both to compliance officers and to all coaches in the athletic department.  Carrie knew that coach acceptance would be critical because if the coaches felt the software that was selected was too hard to use,  not powerful enough, or “forced upon them from above,” they wouldn’t use it and the entire automation process and compliance effort would have been an ineffective waste.

ARMS stands out from the crowd: All of the finalists offered the features that met Carrie’s minimum requirements for UNH and offered their packages at competitive prices.  But ARMS stood apart from all other competitors for three primary reasons.

1) Powerful, flexible Features – ARMS has a number of features that separate it from the competition, but one of the best parts of the software, it is not a “canned” package that forces Athletic Departments to fit into predefined software preferences; rather, the software is implemented to fit the unique needs of each specific team and compliance office.  The robust features and flexibility makes ARMS the easiest tool on the market for getting information in and out of the system, and easily viewing the data in a way that makes sense.  Tasks that can take hours on competitor tools take minutes in ARMS.

2) Coach Endorsements – Some coaches in the UNH Athletic Department were already using ARMS as a recruiting and camp management tool after switching from a less powerful recruiting tool.  The endorsements of these coaches, strong referrals from  other schools, and the positive feedback the rest of the UNH coaches gave after the ARMS presentation all gave Carrie confidence that the coaches in her department would be very happy with ARMS.

3) A True Partnership Approach – Throughout the sales process it became evident that ARMS was a different type of provider than the rest of the competition.  The ARMS team showed a willingness and desire to listen to the coaches and administration and make changes as opposed to dictating to them about how to use software.  The partnership approach taken by ARMS when communicating with UNH drove home what could be expected from ARMS in the future.

So how can you grow your sport camp business?

Here are a few simple ways…

1)  Know your best customers – If you’ve already run camps for a few years the chances are you’ve had some repeat customers (kids who have either come to your camps for multiple years, or families who have sent more than one kid to your camp over the years).  These are your loyal customers, and as every marketer knows, loyalty rules.  Obviously something you’re doing is working or these people wouldn’t keep coming back.

Talk to the parents of the kids that come back to your camp year after year.  Ask them what they like most about the camp and ask them how they first heard about you.  Chance are there are more people like your loyal customers out there who just haven’t found you yet.  Talking to the parents and kids who like your product will help you understand what you should talk about in your brochure and where you should go to find new campers.

2)  Market at your games – Guess what.  Your games are entertainment just like any movie or TV show.  And do you know what they have before movies and during TV shows?  Commercials.  Why shouldn’t you advertise your camp to fans who already know and like you and your team.  Who could be an easier customer to win?

Will everyone in the stands want to attend your camp?  No.  Not even close.  But that 53 year old parent of one of your current players might have a neighbor with a camp age kid who would be interested.  And besides if you spend $100 dollars on flyers and you get just one extra camper, you’ve already made more profit than you would have if you didn’t hand out those flyers in the first place.  Obviously, you’ll want to check with your school first to see if they’re okay with this type of marketing.

3)  Run Single Day Camps or Clincs – Some people are interested in your product, but don’t want to commit to dropping $400 on a week long camp when they don’t know what they’ll be getting.  And why shouldn’t they be skeptical?  Would you buy a car without test driving it first?

For those customers who are hesitant to commit to a full week, you can offer a lower risk option.  Run a day camp for $50-$75.  The lower initial cost allows hesitant customers to sample a “lite” version of your camp before committing to the week-long version.

4)  Talk to youth coaches – Youth coaches who support and trust you are almost as good as a sales staff.  They have consistent access to the kids that you’re targeting for your camps and have an interest in their players getting better.  Often times they are looking for camps to recommend to their players.  Your only job is put the information in their hands.

5) Keep Records – Remember rule #1 about knowing your best customers?  Well let’s drive that home.  The easiest sale you’ll ever make is to the customer who already knows your product and likes it.  They want to come back.  Now quick, go get all the emails and addresses from last year’s campers and send them invitations to come back to this year’s camp.  What?  You don’t have the records?  Well, when you threw away or lost last year’s records you threw away a set of sure-fire repeat sales.  So accurate records!  It’s the best marketing investment you can make.

The best way to keep clean and accurate records of the kids who attend your camps is with an online database like ARMS.

If you have more questions about how ARMS can help you market your camps, call John 202-425-5681

They actually make their recruits and prospective campers, ugh, print things out.

You know who you are.  Do not look away from the screen.

You might be ashamed, but the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem.  Reading this post is an important first step.

Consider this…If you’re a busy high school athlete or parent of an athlete, which are you more likely to do?

1)  Option 1: Visit the website of a program you’re interested in, click the recruit questionnaire, realize it’s a pdf, walk over to the printer in your house (if you have a printer in your house), turn it, put paper in the printer, walk back to your computer, print the form, find a pen, fill in the questionnaire, find an envelope (if you have an envelope), stuff the form in the envelope, seal the envelope, write down the address on the envelop, find a stamp (if you have a stamp), put the envelope in a mail box.

2)  Option 2: Visit the website of a program you’re interested in, click the recruit questionnaire, fill it out, hit send.

If you can’t figure out which option is better, please close your browser now and never return to this site.  However, if you picked option 2, you’re ready for the help you need.

As a coach, you want to make it as easy as possible for potential recruits or campers to make contact with your program.  If you don’t have online forms, you’re putting unnecessary barriers between you and the athletes you want to attract.

If you or someone you love has a printing problem, reading this post was your first step.Your next step is doing something about it.

Call ARMS today and ask for a demonstration of how ARMS can bring your program into the next generation of athlete relationship management for recruiting, camps, and compliance.

Today we focus on the ARMS Auto-Responder

Managing unsolicited interest from high school athletes can be a time consuming task for many of the country’s top athletic programs.  Some programs get as many as 100 emails per week from high school athletes that they’ve never spoken with or seen.

Ignoring emails from athletes that aren’t on your radar will both reflect badly on your program and possibly result in losing a chance to find a diamond in the rough.

The ARMS team understands coaches and assistant coaches struggle with how much time to spend on these athletes, which is why we incorporated the ARMS Auto-Responder into our Athlete Recruiting Software.

ARMS Software allows you to set up automatic responses to athletes who reach out to you.  We recommend you set your auto-responder to direct athletes to your online questionnaire.

With ARMS Auto-Responder, you’ll be able to respond to every email sent to you without spending large amounts of time crafting individual responses.  You’ll even get the athlete’s information into your database without any manual data entry on your part.

For more info on Auto-Responder and other cutting edge ARMS features email or call John at ARMS.

Also, if you’d like to request a free demonstration of the next generation athlete relationship management system and see how it can help you dramatically improve your recruiting results, click here.

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We had a blast with our arm wrestling competition at the AVCA convention in Tampa featuring Phil Clahar, aka “The Jamaican Tank”.  See if you can find your picture below! Also, if you’d like to request a free demonstration of the next generation athlete relationship management system and see how it can help you dramatically improve your recruiting results, click here.

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There are several other inefficiencies that end up making that homegrown solution not so “free” – if you factor in the amount of time you don’t need to be spending on basic recruiting taks.

If I had to boil down the advantages of web-based software over the “Homegrown World,” here is what I would say:

1.      Easier coordination amongst coaches – with web-based software, all coaches can get to the most recent recruit info from anywhere (except those airplanes without internet that are quickly disappearing) … instead of “hey Susie where’s that spreadsheet? … is it the latest copy? … could you re-send me the last couple emails you sent to Shauna Superecruit?

2.      Easier communications & tracking – you can email multiple recruits simultaneously (e.g. the 10 you just saw over the weekend) and have every email sent by every coach automatically tracked in one, centralized location – in the same place as your phone calls.

3.      Less data entry for you – athletes themselves can enter their information into your database and keep it up to date – without you lifting a finger.

Finally, when you invest in a specialized product like ARMS, you’re also paying professionals to help you with data maintenance, troubleshooting, and ultimately to consult you on how to always be the most efficient possible.

At the end of the day, my feeling is that you’re a coach – not a software developer so the less time you spend screwing with your Homegrown Solution, the more time you can spend doing what you do.  We’re just here to help you do it better.

Many coaches that use a software program to email blast recruits or market their camps love being able to see who actually opened their messages.  Although this is a nice statistic to have, understanding what it really means (and what it doesn’t) is important.

This article from about.com, How To Interpret Email Newsletter Open Rates, explains that because so many people have so many different ways of checking email, it’s impossible to track opens with 100% certainty.

Let me explain …

Without getting too technical, you’ll never get a false open (if a tracking program says a reader opened the email, then he/she opened it), but there may be people who did read the email who won’t show up as having opened it because of “how” they opened it.  The take-away is that you shouldn’t write off a recruit or the success of an email blast if you don’t get the exact open rate you wanted.

However, one stat that is 100% reliable, is the “click through rate.”  The click through rate tells you how many recipients clicked on a link placed in the body of an email.

So what should you do about it?

1. For one, it’s always good practice to put in a couple of conspicuously placed links in your email messages since they are much more accurate in gauging a recruit’s interest.
2. Second, although opens aren’t completely reliable, they can be used as a relative measure, for example to compare the performances of emails sent to similar recipient groups, but at different times or with different subject headers.

Having software that can “track” opens and “click throughs” is an advantage, knowing how to interpret the tracking is a competitive edge.

ARMS has many features that make your email response statistics more meaningful and accessible – thus a competitive edge.  To find out more and watch a demo, signup here.

However, being able to actually use this information to your advantage is a competitive edge, let me explain …

Wouldn’t you like to quickly get a list of all the recruits you and your staff emailed or called last week or month – and see what was said?  What about finding a list of kids that have contacted you, your staff has not responded to, and sending all 97 of them a personalized email inviting each to your camp with a few clicks of the mouse?

A couple more examples …

1. After a sending an initial email blast to 50 recruits,  send a more specific, follow-up email to those recruits who display the most interest in your program (i.e. those who actually clicked on the link(s) in your email).
2. When you get back from a recruiting tournament or camp, send an email specifically to the newly identified recruits and then send a different email to the recruits who you’ve seen and contacted before.

That’s what I’m talking about.  This kind of follow-up and software that makes it easy – that’s a competitive edge.

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ARMS facilitates the ability to deal with a large number of recruits in a personalized way.  Slicing and dicing your recruits based on your communication and their response to your communication is a core competency of ARMS.  To find out more and watch a demo, signup here.

ARMS Group Engagement View – a great tool to quickly see which recruits you’ve contacted and how you’ve contacted them.

ARMS Group Engagement View

Group Engagement View displays an icon for each type of engagement (phone(s), email(s), transaction(s), camp attendance) you’ve made with recruit.  If the phone icon is green, then athlete has been called. If the phone icon is black, you haven’t called them yet.  You can drag your mouse over each icon, as displayed above with the phone icon, to see the count for each engagement type.   Getting the information you need is that simple.