Using today’s tech can be make or break for any angling club or businesses, but you don’t need a big budget or tech expertise to engage. In this post, we look at a variety of easy wins and ways to improve your online presence.
Love it or loathe it, the online world now dominates everything from ticket sales to tackle in angling. As a fairly traditional sport, often with older participants, this can seem daunting. Cut through some common misgivings, however, and there are lots of easy ways angling groups and fisheries can succeed online.
The reassuring part is that you needn’t spend a fortune or be a tech nerd to succeed. Modern platforms are designed to be easy to use and spare you the headache, Clubmate being a prime example. In fact, the open secret to online success has little to do with algorithms or data, and everything to do with one magic word: engagement!
So, without further ado, here are some golden rules and useful tips to reach your anglers and provide what they want.
What do anglers want?
A great starting point for any club or business looking to grow online is to stop looking inwards and flip your outlook with a simple question: what does my audience want?
More questions quickly follow. Are we easy to find? Where and how are people looking for what we offer? We’ll cover some simple answers shortly, but a few rules always apply.
Firstly, use all the free tools at your disposal to increase your visibility. Whether it’s Google Maps or Facebook, sign up for it.
Second, there’s an obvious way to know your clientele better: ask them! What would they like to see from you? How did they hear about you? Is there anything they’re missing or would like more of? Don’t be shy, ask. Club meetings or business mailouts are just two great opportunities to ask such questions directly.
Google Basics and Getting on the Map
Surprisingly, there are still fisheries and organisations that do not have an accurate listing on Google, let alone an accurate Google Maps entry. For fisheries, a Google business listing alone is a must. A free, basic account will do fine to start with. The amount of customers you’ll miss without one is staggering!
When setting up or updating, it’s also completely free to upload some suitable pictures, and remind visitors to leave a review. Take the time to add a decent description, contact details and to respond to inquiries and you’re already winning.
Although most of this applies primarily for businesses, there’s nothing to stop angling clubs listing their main waters. This way, you become visible to every phone using angler in the country!
A quick search for local club waters and fisheries around the UK reveals a mixed bag. Some venues immediately conjure up great pics and glowing reviews; others are missing entirely! Crazy, given that there’s no cost beyond a few minutes of time.
Quite often, Google also fails to pinpoint a fishery well, simply because nobody has ever corrected or supplied accurate details. Not that postcodes and SatNav are always king- and another great shout for any fishery is to give out a “What Three Words” app location. This is miles better than SatNav and could save a lot of confusion and wasted time for visitors.
A little like a mayfly, social media posts are here today, gone tomorrow! Regular engagement is therefore a must.
Social Media: Do I Need to Be On It?
For all the ills of social media, it remains a brilliant way to engage with anglers. Very few organisations and businesses are not on it these days, but there’s a big difference between a token presence and being engaging. For those with no intention or budget to create a website, sources like Facebook are also a free online home.
While we don’t have space for an exhaustive guide here, a few sensible guidelines apply. Firstly, set up your account properly, with a well-worded description, contact info and appealing images.
Second, establish a regular pattern. You don’t need to live on your phone, but putting some content out regularly matters. Setting a baseline of say three posts a week is sensible. News is only one aspect, and anything that inspires, entertains or gets people talking is worth posting.
Anglers love detail and things that give them value, such as tactics that are working, recent catches or venue tips. Don’t be lazy if you want viewers to keep coming back! Simple things count here, like responding positively to those who engage with you- and occasionally filtering out daft comments.
You needn’t be on all platforms, but a minimum of two is sensible and it’s easy enough to set up so that anything you share on Instagram automatically appears on your Facebook, and these two platforms are still the biggest for angling’s main audience.
Lastly, one huge win is to delegate with social media, especially if you don’t relish it! Find people who enjoy it, are civilised and can take a good picture. If it takes a free fishing ticket to oil the wheels, so be it. Most of us know social creatures who can help, so reach out to those who are busy online and show your appreciation.
Website Tips
As soon as we discuss websites a crunch question quickly arises: Do you need a website, or is social media alone enough? If you are a smaller organisation or perhaps a one-man band, websites are not always strictly needed. However, for the majority, there are so many benefits to having one. Perhaps the real question should not therefore be: “can I afford a website?” but “can I afford NOT to have a website?”
If nothing else, a website will make you far more visible when people search online. And the more text, images and video content you have on that website, the more people can potentially find you.
Angling organisations are lucky in this regard. In so many other hobbies and businesses, competition is fierce and internet savvy. But with fishing often being so badly promoted online (sorry, but it’s true!), there is massive potential for those who can be bothered.
Let’s take Google search results as an example. Let’s say you are a fishing venue or club with a rival down the road. They have a tired website or none at all, or perhaps just a bare minimum of social media. Set your stall out properly and you immediately have a far greater appeal to new members and customers.
Speaking to many fisheries and clubs, we are well aware that costs and technical knowhow can be off-putting. It’s also true that even the slickest website builders out there are seldom very knowledgeable about fishing.
For these reasons, Clubmate offer a user-friendly website service. Our aim is to make the process of creating an effective, dedicated fishing website easy. From a basic small angling club or fishery hub, to larger websites with features such as events, club records and online shops, we can take care of everything. And, of course, your website will also be fully integrated with the Clubmate system, cutting further admin time.For more information, just head to https://clubmate.fish/websites/
How Can I Be Found More Easily?
Another massive key to reaching your customers is having decent written and visual content. Website text is very important for this, because search engines will find the various terms and words on your site.
If you’re in doubt about what to include here, start with a simple question: if I was an angler looking for my organisation, what would I be typing into Google? These days it could be anything from “carp fishing venues near X” to “day ticket fly fishing” to “match fishing venues”.
With AI increasingly powerful, another common approach is for people to type in direct questions, whether it’s: “What is the best bait for tench?” “Where is the best place to fish near X” or “what do I need to go carp fishing?” Why not incorporate some questions into your website, perhaps as headings?
In a nutshell, if you can provide engaging text that is helpful and describes what you do, you’re creating dozens of pathways for people to find you. This also explains why blogs and other website features work so well. If your rival down the road isn’t bothering with much of this, there’ll be only one winner.
Again, Clubmate can help you with all of this. As one of the only dedicated angling website builders in the UK, we understand the needs of clubs and fisheries, and how to optimise online performance and make you easy to find.
Visuals go a long way to being found and engaging with anglers. Don’t forget to tag and caption your pictures to make them more visible in searches!
Say It With Visuals!
On the topic of being found, visuals and images are more critical than ever in today’s world. Just having quality photos will help with this. If you can give them fishing related tags and captions (always include “alt text” where you can), that will instantly help them show up in online searches.
The value of great images, and increasingly video content, cannot be overstated here. And while we’re not all visual masters, every organisation can reach out to talented content creators! Being generous and bigging up those who add their flair is a no-brainer. Other routes certain to boost your visual archives and engagement levels include photography and catch competitions!
Further Thoughts and Connections
There are too many ways to boost your online presence to list in one blog post, but I hope we’ve given you food for thought. The bottom line is always that single, magic word: engagement.
Perhaps your fishery or club could reach out to influential anglers or YouTubers? Perhaps you have some amazing fish, surprising history or quirky things about you that would make great social media or website content? Perhaps you do things that help your local community or make a difference that deserve sharing?
We’ve not even broached the subject of wider media and channels, such as experience providers, tourism and activity platforms. Nor should traditional media and engagement routes be neglected, of course. The more you explore, the more you’ll gain!
All of which brings us back to our initial point. Succeeding online often has little to do with techy stuff and everything to do with human connection. You needn’t spend your life online, but if you can make your organisation friendly and easy to find, with great visuals and regular, engaging output, you’re already winning. Get in touch with Clubmate today and we can help make it happen!
