Recreation professional: we want you. If you are on LinkedIn, we’d love to have you as a member of the “Recreation Management and Technology” group on LinkedIn. Why you may ask? Here are five reasons to join:
1. Get free resources: Members of the group post discussions about recreation tips and trends. If you join the group, you can set up email notifications to receive those updates and view the ones that appeal to you. Continue reading
As a recreation professional, you may be wondering, “What does my website have to do with Amazon and eBay?” Although you probably won’t be selling billions of dollars online, you share the same strategy. Whereas Staples.com wants a website visitor to buy a printer or reserve paper for in-store pickup, you want customers to sign up for a Yoga class, buy a membership to the gym, or book the indoor soccer field for a birthday party.
Since four of the biggest e-retailers have this process down to a science, it’s time for you to steal some ideas. Check out these five website strategies you can implement today: Continue reading
Source: artpretty.com
People love to slap acronyms on everything, especially in the technology world. And since that’s where we live, it’s important to define these acronyms – it gets confusing otherwise. From SaaS, IaaS and PaaS to POS, CRM and CMS, techies give you a few letters and assume you know it all. For that reason, let’s make it the unoffical acronym week here.
On Monday we broke down SaaS and today we’ll talk about CMS. If you work for a recreation organization, here’s what you need to know about content management systems (CMS): Continue reading
No matter what profession you are in, it’s important to keep up with trends, news, and ideas. If you’re a social media person, that’s easy with blogs like Mashable and Social Media Today. But it’s a bit harder for campus recreation professionals. So today, we’ll cover five resources that can help you stay on top of the industry (note: we’ll lean heavily on NIRSA). Here they are: Continue reading
Here’s a scenario to think about today: You offer tons of programs over four seasons of the year, so you have a good idea of what classes, times, and parts of the year are popular with your customers. You know when people register. But do you know when your customers get motivated to register?
To find the answer to that question (as is the case with many questions these days), just Google it. Actually, “Google Trends” it. Google Trends is a tool that shows how search volumes change over time. YMCAs, for example, can put in different search terms to see the peaks and valleys of the term through Google. That way, you know when your customers want to kick off a new journey of exercise and can market to them in a timely way. Continue reading
The average Joe may not think much about managing members: you get someone to sign up…what’s the big deal? Even the gym, Average Joe’s from Dodgeball, may not consider it too hard: a signup sheet, a handshake and some cash – we’re good!
But let’s look at it from the perspective of the real-life YMCA. YMCAs and gyms that offer memberships have a number of tasks to do to collect just one member. From information and money collection to enforcement, membership management can be a time-consuming task. If you’re behind the desk, you know what goes into it. Continue reading
Source: photobucket.com
If you offer online registration for your activities, you know how valuable it is for your staff and customers. You also know that the higher that percentage is of your total registrations, the easier life is for parks and recreation staff. But maybe you can’t seem to get more people online. For some reason, they keep calling in and lining up at peak registration periods to sign up for activities.
The problem may be you, not your customers. If you are doing any of these 12 things, your customers may feel likes the guy above: Continue reading
The National Intramural Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) is hosting it’s annual conference in Tampa, Florida from March 27 – 30, 2012. For our campus rec people out there: will we be seeing you there? More than 2,000 campus recreation professionals and students will gather to discuss new innovations and more at the conference titled, “From Ideas to Innovation: Navigating the Future of Collegiate Recreation.”
Photo by Eric Gillespie; ucsc.edu.
Campus recreation departments strive to make the campus community healthier by opening great facilities and offering active programs, classes, and events. But sometimes, the day-to-day management takes time away from focusing on that mission. Here are four examples of how campus recreation software has helped management, staff, and students spend more time on health and less on paperwork: Continue reading
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