It doesnt work, Reduced matches for example the past 2 seasons have only reduced income, Boxing day is a important income stream for the club and with 3oo+ getting in for free it be massive decrease
How do you know? There is no metric that allows you to measure the effectiveness of these kind of promotions in terms of their true aim, which is to cultivate new supporters. I can offer some anecdotal evidence though.
As a young 13 year old, many years ago I was handed a free ticket on one of the clubs promotions via school. I hadn’t considered coming to a Boston match before, but I was hooked after one game and came to every single match afterwards for about 5 years. I bought plenty of merchandise over the years and even persuaded a whole group of friends to come along. I visit less nowadays but I’ve passed my passion on to my kids who are now avid fans themselves. That free ticket may have cost the club £5 in lost revenue back in 1993, but it’s been paid back and then some.
My point is that these type’s of promotions are very much slow burners and are unlikely to yield obvious short term results. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do them though. In this day and age with all the distractions kids have we should be working even harder to attract the next generation of fans if we want to survive.
One final point, re Alfreron, I don’t think it’s a good idea to point at a poorly run club and give ourselves a pat on the back. We should be comparing ourselves to the best and realise we are not competing with the likes of Alfreton for fans. We are competing with Smart Phones, X Boxes, Televised matches and all the other things kids can do nowadays. If we want to compete with that we have to think outside the box and offer an excellent product. Or die.