Polo Club Development Report
By Kris Bowman, USPA
USPA Regional Polo Center in Wichita has unleashed a dynamic duo of marketing on their upcoming 2010 polo season. Sean Clem, marketing and advertising sales along with polo instructor/manager Dan Healy have pulled out the stops on their opening event “Chukkers for Charity” June 27th, to benefit the Southern Winds Equine Rescue. They have invited a variety of spectators with various forms of marketing strategies attached. First they aligned themselves with the Wichita Chamber of Commerce and will be hosting the “Young Professionals” group which should attract over 100 upwardly mobile young business men and women from the area to attend the opening match. They have arranged for several business’ and civic organizations in the area to give out $10.00 general admission tickets to their staff, members and customers. Recipients so far are: Wichita Rotary Club, City of Haysville, Trust Company of Kansas, The Conlee Group, EL Bailer, and the Wichita Business Journal. “This is the back-door approach to advertising”, says Clem. “We are anticipating over a thousand spectators for next Sunday.” Sean has customized the tickets to reflect which organization should receive credit for their attendance and also to track which business utilized the offer. Sean also targeted several Advertising Companies to show them the potential marketing opportunities that polo has to offer their clients. They hope to sign on sponsorships from many of these opening day invites. In addition to the opening day benefit, Sean and Dan have a few other tricks to attract a crowd on Sunday. “Church Days” is in the works, a program that will enable the pastor to sell tickets to their congregation to attend a Sunday polo match and 1/2 of the proceeds of ticket sales will be donated to their church. They will also be applying a similar approach to various civic organizations in the Wichita metro area. Attracting a crowd to polo has always been challenging, but it seems like Wichita is on their game for 2010!