2 March 2011 | Tennis Victoria

The Melton South Tennis Club has been looking at innovative ways to increase membership numbers and participation in the club over the last six months. The club has been working hard with its coach to promote not just the Melton South Tennis Club but tennis in general. Melton is the fastest growing suburb in Australia but all clubs have struggled to create an interest in tennis in the area in the last 10 years and, as such, numbers have dropped significantly.

The club decided to run a huge campaign over November and December in the lead up to the Australian Open to create some awareness about tennis in the area, which it would then follow up with a huge campaign after the Australian Open when interest is high. The club created and promoted a new website, utilising the new www.tennis.com.au site, hit the major shopping centres for three days by setting up a information desk promoting competition, coaching, MLC Tennis Hot Shots and the Mums’ Program.

The Melton Shire holds an annual Djerriwarrh festival, and the club wanted to become involved in the get active expo at the Melton Recreation Reserve.  The club’s coach volunteered her time to come down and run the day with some of her MLC Tennis Hot Shots students  in which they set up five mini tennis courts and utilised Tennis Victoria’s new signage to draw attention to the fact that tennis was at the event.

The club had long queues most of the day with people wanting to give tennis a go and had people of all ages jumping on the courts to try it. It was great to see parents hitting with their children, but also grandparents trying to beat their grandchildren. They targeted children of all ages and were surprised with the number of adults that took the time to give it a go. The Melton Shire ran a passport program in which all children who attended and registered on the day needed to try all sports to get marked or signed off to be eligible for prizes and giveaways. The more sports they tried the more entries into the draw. This proved EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL. For each child that participated we rewarded them with information on how to get into tennis and gave them a giveaway – wristbands proved popular!

At the end of the day, the club gained 53 new members, 23 players into competition and 42 new pupils enrolled into regular coaching.

With the two major promotions out of the way, plus the active after schools program, the club and coach  then took the opportunity to be involved in Tennis Australia’s MLC Tennis Hot Shots activations, the first of which was the December Showdown. This proved a successful tool to utilise in the local media such as local newspapers and Facebook to promote Melton tennis, by taking photos and inviting eight new pupils to take part in the unique opportunity. The kids and coach had a blast and whilst at Melbourne Park during the Australian Open Wildcard play-offs secured three new students who were viewing the day’s tennis.  The second opportunity came about being involved in the Melbourne Zoo activation, in which the kids had the once in a lifetime opportunity to play tennis at the Melbourne Zoo, have their photos taken with the animals, and gain more exposure. The zoo activation was an amazing experience and the kids didn’t want to leave. The local newspapers also got on board with the session and have published a story and photos from the event to promote tennis the week prior to the Australian Open.

The last leg of the promotion will involve the coach and club volunteers going into 10 local primary schools to promote MLC Tennis Hot Shots and donate their time to run programs with a target market of over 5,000 children.  

To date, over the last few months the club has gained over 120 new members, the coaches have taken on 60+ new students, promoted its participation programs and have 41 women registered for the Mums’ Program and secured a number of sponsors. The club hopes those membership numbers will only get bigger.