The marketing class at De Soto High School has recently come up with a way to promote the girls’ basketball team and improve attendance at games.
After marketing teacher Ben Stamey offered a variety of projects for the students to work on, the students chose promoting certain athletic events to increase attendance at games.
“It was a student’s idea to generate higher attendance at girls’ basketball games … they have created a Twitter account and researched different things that might motivate students to show up to games,” Stamey said.
The goal is to get at least 50 students in attendance for girls’ basketball games by using many different techniques the students have learned in marketing class.
“We are using Twitter as our main source of communication and then we made multiple posters around the school and made pictures to on the TV’s at school as well,” said junior marketing member Hugo Nascimento. “We’ve also been doing simple things such as spreading the word at lunch and to friends to gain attendance.”
Aside from encouraging students to attend, the marketing students are researching down to the root of the problem: why are students not attending these games in the first place?
“The research they have done is ‘What would motivate a student to come to a girls’ basketball game? What are some factors that would make it more enjoyable for them?’ and try to emphasize those things in the marketing approach,” Stamey said.
As a girls’ basketball player herself, senior varsity member Linnea Searls has some ideas for the marketing team to improve attendance at their games.
“The marketing team could help promote for our games by encouraging students to come by providing themes and mentioning our success in the past,” Searls said.
The marketing team’s plans don’t stop with the girls’ basketball team though.
“Our future plans for this project are to spread it over to boys’ basketball games and eventually other sporting events second semester to give our athletes a better atmosphere to perform in,” Nascimento said.
More information on this, can be found on the De Soto girl’s basketball promotional Twitter account, @DesotoHome.