Andre J. Carter

Increasing the Numbers

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Andre
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I recently wrote Industry Problem #1, touching on the need for the industry to increase the average number of teams per division by increasing the number of teams, decreasing the number of divisions, or some combination of both. That article focused on decreasing the number of divisions so I’m writing this one to touch on increasing the number of teams. Increasing the number of teams in a positive way would come from increasing the number of athletes participating in cheerleading. How can this be accomplished?

My first thought is to make more non-cheerleaders aware of cheerleading. I would start with young kids and try to get them involved with cheerleading before they get involved with another activity. Most of the parents I know are going to put their kids in an extra curricular activity, so it’s a matter of making them choose cheerleading over activities. What can we do to help this? Step 1 is making parents aware of cheerleading and the benefits of it. Right now it seems like most cheerleading information and advertisements are placed in cheerleading magazine, but who subscribes to these? The answer is people already involved in cheerleading. Is this helping cheerleading grow? What if some advertising was placed in parenting magazines to make parents not involved in cheerleading aware of the activity?

The question is how to pay for it. Would the USASF members be willing to chip in and launch a campaign in parenting magazines or something similar? Would promoting cheerleading in general lead to enough new participants joining gyms that will eventually go to competitions and buy uniforms to make the campaign beneficial to the industry? I don’t know if it would, but I think it’s something worth considering.

On the local level is there a way to get gyms to spend more time and money trying to get new people involved in cheerleading instead of getting existing cheerleaders to switch to their gym? Would gyms be willing to work together to increase the size of the cheerleading pie assuming they would all benefit from it? Would the gyms be willing to set their differences aside to try to benefit everyone?

I may be oversimplifying things, but we won’t grow as an industry unless we start making more people aware we exist.

Comments

6 responses to “Increasing the Numbers”

  1. seanrreid Avatar
    seanrreid

    I agree that right now it seems more kids are being pulled from other programs than there are new kids being brought in. I think, to an extent, there is so much focus on All*Star "studs," awesome Level 4 & 5 athletes with tons of ability, that the businesses are overlooking the vast customer base of younger kids, "spirit only" cheerleaders and potential rising stars that need to be trained up. They're missing the proverbial forest for a few trees.

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  2. seanrreid Avatar
    seanrreid

    I agree that right now it seems more kids are being pulled from other programs than there are new kids being brought in. I think, to an extent, there is so much focus on All*Star "studs," awesome Level 4 & 5 athletes with tons of ability, that the businesses are overlooking the vast customer base of younger kids, "spirit only" cheerleaders and potential rising stars that need to be trained up. They're missing the proverbial forest for a few trees.

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  3. Jeff Watkins Avatar
    Jeff Watkins

    While I agree that generating "new cheerleaders" is the optimal way to increase greater participation, I strongly believe that the easiest way to increase membership is for gym owners to do a better job of keeping their existing customers happy so they are less inclined to leave. In a national study that I conducted among patents who are active cheer internet users (CIA's – Cheer Internet Active), 44% are currently or have considered leaving their program for another gym or extracurricular activity. This is significant. Of those, to support SeanRReid's point, 62% are youth age or younger. Remember that these are their most "active" customers, and not the ones who just drop their kids off and leave, where I venture to bet that the numbers are greater.

    Gym Owners HAVE to do a better job of taking care of their current customer base and minimize the numbers at risk of leaving. To be successful it is imperative that they convert them from "we are just trying this out" customers to "we love this, and are going to tell everyone we know about it" customers.

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  4. Jeff Watkins Avatar
    Jeff Watkins

    While I agree that generating "new cheerleaders" is the optimal way to increase greater participation, I strongly believe that the easiest way to increase membership is for gym owners to do a better job of keeping their existing customers happy so they are less inclined to leave. In a national study that I conducted among patents who are active cheer internet users (CIA's – Cheer Internet Active), 44% are currently or have considered leaving their program for another gym or extracurricular activity. This is significant. Of those, to support SeanRReid's point, 62% are youth age or younger. Remember that these are their most "active" customers, and not the ones who just drop their kids off and leave, where I venture to bet that the numbers are greater.

    Gym Owners HAVE to do a better job of taking care of their current customer base and minimize the numbers at risk of leaving. To be successful it is imperative that they convert them from "we are just trying this out" customers to "we love this, and are going to tell everyone we know about it" customers.

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  5. Jeff Watkins Avatar
    Jeff Watkins

    Yes, plenty of reasons. I haven't done the full analysis on it yet, but lack of communucation, lack of professionalism of coaches/staff, and because their friends were leaving to go to another program were among the most popular reasons. Parents pay a lot of money to have their kids in all-star cheerleading. Many gyms out there need to be better about understanding that there are expectations.

    Also of note, 2/3 respondents were previously members at another all-star gym. So, most have switched programs at one point, and behaviorally, are more likely to switch again if dissatisfied.

    The general rule of customer retention is that it is 10 times more difficult and expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.

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  6. Jeff Watkins Avatar
    Jeff Watkins

    Yes, plenty of reasons. I haven't done the full analysis on it yet, but lack of communucation, lack of professionalism of coaches/staff, and because their friends were leaving to go to another program were among the most popular reasons. Parents pay a lot of money to have their kids in all-star cheerleading. Many gyms out there need to be better about understanding that there are expectations.

    Also of note, 2/3 respondents were previously members at another all-star gym. So, most have switched programs at one point, and behaviorally, are more likely to switch again if dissatisfied.

    The general rule of customer retention is that it is 10 times more difficult and expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an existing one.

    Like

    Reply

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