[Ansteorra] Participation vs. Recruitment

[Casey Weed]

Good point, Hosey.

As a marketer, I've been looking at the different user types for the SCA.
The recent data from The Really Big Survey was helpful.

The case you lay out largely relates to Kingdom Players only.  This is a
class of player in the SCA, with common goal sets and characteristics; they
are deeply involved in the large scale travel and frequent eventing you
describe.  They are generally on track for a peerage of some kind, they are
decision makers in at least one of the major areas of activity, and they
are strongly entrenched in the cultural aspect of the kingdom (they know
who's king, what the politics are, who got what doodad, and they value all
those things).

The Local Player... totally different profile but perhaps some
similarities.  They play *just* as much... just not in the same places.
They go to guild meetings and fighter practices and their own two or three
events a year.  They are likely doing SCA or historically related things
while the Kingdom Player is out there on the road to Nacadochamronarillo.
They may or may not be on a peerage track or know (or even care) about what
the current political climate is in the kingdom but they are still invested
in the club.  And they're having fun... which is attractive, as you've
pointed out, to an outsider.

So... which of these types is easier to recruit?  Which one is the tougher
sell to a new person?  KP's use more time and money to play their way; the
natural answer is the LP.  Which brings me to my point: recruit to the
local player level... get a zillion of them.  The KPs will spring up out of
this pool eventually as a byproduct.

No need to catch a whale... that only happens once in great many trips to
sea.  Better to use your resources to catch fish every time you get in the
boat... and some will grow into whales.  As long as you don't eat them... I
think my metaphor broke down, but you know what I mean.  Grow your guilds
and local meetings as your biggest recruitment priority.

Ritter Dieterich

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 4:36 PM, Cionaodh O'Hosey <
CionaodhOHosey at verizon.net> wrote:

> There is a lot of discussion about recruitment on this list, i hope this
> is because we want more people to participate in our events. We can also
> increase the participation at our events if we all participate more often
> ourselves. For example lets say we have 48 events a year, and our goal is
> 200 active players people at each event then the following things are true:
> If we all go to every event then we only need 200 people total to meet our
> goal. If we all go to two events a month then we need 400 active players.
> If we all go to an event just once a month then the we need 800 active
> players. If we all go to just three events every four months, that's just
> nine events a year, then we need 1066 people, that is also the minimum
> number of events a person needs to attend to save enough on non-member
> event fees to break even on a sustaining membership. If we all only show up
> once every two months, six times a year, we need 1600 active players. If we
> all go to an event once every quarter, four times a year, then we need 2400
> active players. If we all go to an event twice a year then we need 4800
> active players. Lastly if we all go to an event once a year then we need
> 9600 active players.
>
> It becomes immediately apparent that the fewer events we all go to the
> more people we need to successfully recruit to meet our goal. But lets also
> be honest, the fewer events you go to the harder time you are going to have
> getting new people to go to more events. If it is not worth your time to go
> to an event why would a new person, who looks up to you as an experienced
> player, want to go to that event? It is a simple matter of leadership, you
> cannot recruit people to do what you don't do.
>
> Cionaodh O'Hosey
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