VAFA SPONSORS NIGHT A BIG HIT

VAFA sponsors and clubs learnt a great about each other at last night’s VAFA Sponsor Night, oh and they learnt about the power of Twitter too!
More than 60 VAFA club representatives attended the VAFA Sponsors Night at the Mantra on Russell in the city to engage with 18 VAFA sponsors about prospective deals and partnerships for the coming season. To top off a great night of sponsor engagement, keynote guest speaker Jonno Simpson from Twitter Australia’s informed all in attendance how Twitter can be used to ‘engage and grow your supporter base as well as create revenue’ for a club or business.

The VAFA Sponsors Night was reintroduced in 2014 by VAFA General Manager of Commercial Operations, Blair O’Hara as a means to engage clubs with VAFA sponsors.

“The VAFA were keen to put the night back on the calendar after several years because we have a number of new sponsors and also a number of new committee people” said O’Hara on the night.
“Sponsorship is very important to the VAFA as it provides revenue that is not derived from affiliation fees or club purchases. The more we can increase our sponsorship revenue, the longer we can maintain a freeze on annual affiliation fees or look at start reducing fees.”
“So it is in the interests of all clubs to support VAFA sponsors, particularly when there is no conflict.  If you feel you are getting a better deal from another supplier, give the VAFA sponsors a chance to beat it whether on price, service, or other product.”
The event ran smoothly with the room broken up into 18 groups that would rotate every three minutes to the next sponsor exhibit. This rotation was broken up after the first nine rotations for the guest speaking presentation on Twitter by Jonno Simpson.
Simpson had a key message to the VAFA clubs: “There is something for everybody on Twitter, you can follow the news, you can follow sport.”
“You also don’t have to tweet anything to be on there, 40% of people on Twitter do not tweet anything, yet they are still considered active users”
Simpson parted a wealth of knowledge on the room about how all VAFA clubs and sponsors can use Twitter to “engage with fans, grow fan base, and create revenue”.
The VAFA Sponsors Night was the first in a series of nights for Clubs and the VAFA as we build towards the start of the season.
The next event on the calendar is the first Members Meeting of 2014, to be held next Monday 3 March at VAFA headquarters at Elsternwick Park.