WrestlingGear.Com

Web 2.0 Marketing for Wrestling Coaches

I was sitting at a seminar a few weeks ago about marketing techniques for the next generation of the web, e.g. Web 2.0. I thought to myself this might be a good topic to start writing about and since one of the techniques is blogging, I figured why not talk about some of these techniques on my blog.

There are several techniques that will help wrestling coaches improve their image to outsiders, generate news, speak with other wrestling fans and keep them interested in their program. I will talk about what college coaches or college programs and build, but it also applies to high school kids, high school coaches and youth clubs as well.

To give a little background about myself, I have used many of the web marketing ideas of the previous generation to help build one of the largest Internet/Catalog wrestling companies in the country. Granted it took me ten years to do this, but I did not have hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the company and market it.

One thing I read somewhere, now that I am writing about it I wish I remembered where I read it...but when you are runnin your business you have two constraints, time and money. In the beginning I had time but not money. So I taught myself how to design a web page and build it so search engines would rank it highly and developed my email list.

I think coaching wrestling you are in the same boat, you have time and money as a constraint. All programs and businesses have budget constraints and no one in the world has more then 24 hours in a day. After you decide you want to do something, you should ask yourself two questions: 1) Do I have the time to learn this myself? 2) Do I have the money to pay someone else to help me?

Our first Web 2.0 marketing technique will be about blogging. I have been blogging since August 2005. I believe WrestlingGear.Com is the only major wrestling Internet/Catalog company with a blog even today. It is really easy to set up and if you can post a message on a message board, you can post a message on your blog.

My blog is not perfect, not even close, but we do get a lot of activity on the blog and I think it creates something for my customers to look at to find information about new shoes, new gear, specials, promotions, links of interest etc. For a wrestling coach, you can have your schedule, links to preferred dealers, links to other wrestling sites, a history of the club, photos, links to youtube videos and more. Most of this you can do for little or no money, just time.

For us, we use blog.com and started out with a free blog. There are limitations on the free blog so we did wind up upgrading and spending I think $25 to $50 a year for the blog. Most wrestling teams can get a donation to cover that expense.

Another idea if you don't have time to maintain the blog, is to work with high school students or college students to run the blog for you. At my old high school, I just met with the Business department chair and she talked about how the students built a website for a local hot dog stand at a significant discount. If you ask around, I am sure there is a college student, a high school student or a parent that can help you get started or even maintain the site for you.

This weeks challenge - go to blog.com or blogger.com or another blogging website set up a free blog and post back your blog on my comments. Let's see how many blogs we can generate in the next couple of weeks.

THE FUTURE

We will talk about a Web 2.0 marketing technique each week on our blog - http://www.wrestlinggearcom.blog.com - we will discuss tools like linkedin (someone already created a wrestling group are you in it), flickr, youtube, del.icio.us, RSS, Google Reader and other web marketing ideas that you as a wrestling coach can use to inform your team, inform sponsors, keep in touch with alumni and more.

Post a comment under this blog posting, if you have any questions, I'll try to respond within 24 hours...

UP COMING EVENTS

We will be hosting a series of lunch and dinners in Las Vegas and the Chicagoland area. WrestlingGear.Com and sponsors will pay for the dinners, space will be limited and details are still be finalized. Tenative dates and locations are: Las Vegas June 2008, Elmhurst, IL July 28 and Chicago/Evanston December 2008. Call WrestlingGear.Com to add your name to the mailing list for these events.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Pape was a member of the University of Illinois varsity wrestling team for 3 semesters - earning All Big Ten Academic awards each semester. Jeff graduated from Illinois with a BS in Accountancy and is a licensed CPA in the state of Illinois. In 2005, he graduated from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management with a MBA in Marketing and Operations. Jeff is the founder and sole shareholder of WrestlingGear.Com, Ltd, one of the largest Internet wrestling stores in the United States.