07776 103 785 john@makesportfun.com

Learn how to engage inactive people with a workshop


You might be feeling frustrated with how to engage inactive people. You’re using posters and leaflets and you’re not getting the results that you know you should. You’ve got great activities but you can’t reach the people who you want to take part. 

We can help – get us to run a workshop for you and you can:

  • Learn what works for us. We’ve run dozens of engagement campaigns. Don’t go through the pain of learning everything yourself, let us show you what works.
  • Learn what works for others. As well as running engagement campaigns ourselves we study engagement campaigns from round the country and around the world, so you can learn what’s working for others.
  • Learn what resources can help you. There are lots of resources available online, some are even free. We’ll tell you where to find them.

What training we offer

We have used our experience to develop a practical and effective training workshop. Here’s an outline of what it includes.

Before workshop

I set up a call with you and/ or some of the participants to understand current frustrations with engaging inactive people, and 3 specific projects that you would like to engage inactive people more effectively. 

I then have a call with someone in your the marketing/ comms team to understand how you can make best use of their skills and time. 

Morning – Theory

  • Discussion of people’s biggest frustrations with marketing to engage inactive people.
  • Discussion of why it’s hard to engage inactive people.
  • Explanation of the two types of marketing (brand v. direct marketing)
  • Overview of the marketing messages and imagery that work for engaging inactive people.
  • Overview of marketing tactics that work for engaging inactive people
    • Facebook Ads – how you can use Facebook Ads to engage thousands of people in activities across the borough. 
    • Email marketing – how to use behaviour-change based emails to support the hardest-to-reach people through the various Stages of Change so they become active over time
    • SMS marketing – how to use SMS to get huge engagement from people and get them to specific sessions 
  • Case studies – bringing the ideas to life.
    • In Buckinghamshire we have engaged over 3,000 people so far using this approach. 
    • In Hounslow we’ve been able to engage over 1,000 people so far who are interested in walking groups
    • In Chichester we engaged over 1000 over 65s
    • We worked with Macmillan to help them to increase their engagement 3x with certain hospitals

Afternoon – Practical

Practical application of the insights from the morning. 

We will all plan out the target audience, marketing messages, marketing tactics, imagery, budget, responsibilities for one project together, and then everyone will do this for their own project.

We’ll provide templates of campaigns that have worked well, so everyone can copy them and save time when putting their own campaign together.

Everyone starts planning, writing and setting up their campaign so they’re ready to hit go after the workshop. 

After workshop

Also included is a 30-minute call 1-2 weeks after the workshop with each of the participants to discuss what other help and resources they need to start implementing these ideas. This is followed with a call with the workshop organiser to review how it’s all gone.

Who it’s for

It’s for people who want to increase participation in inactive people – including over 55s, women and girls, lower socio-economic groups, people with long term health conditions.

It is perfect for public health teams, CSPs, sports development teams in councils and long term health condition charities. It’s not appropriate for sports centres or sports clubs.

Up to 15 people can attend the workshop and we come to you to deliver it.

Costs

The cost of the workshop is £990 + VAT. We’ve kept this cost as low as possible in order to make sure this is really accessible.

Many people also book in a 6-monthly 1/2 day workshop so everyone can get a refresher on what was covered, get updated on any changes to best practice and to keep everyone moving in the right direction.

“We work with a range of local sport and physical activity organisations to help them promote activity sessions and programmes. They’ve all struggled with the common problem of how to create good quality marketing which reaches their target audience with a limited budget.

“John delivered an engaging workshop which introduced us to the basics of creating good Facebook adverts and how to effectively target them. Many of the organisations ended the session with adverts ready to start running the next day.

“If you’re thinking of using Facebook to promote physical activity opportunities then this workshop is a must.”

Chris Norfield

Public Health Behaviour Change Strategist, London Borough of Hounslow

“We really enjoyed the training, and the whole team is really motivated to put it into practice. We’ve got our first Facebook promoted post live already. A lot of times you attend training and it’s really boring. At the end of the day you think ‘well I’m not getting those 8 hours back.’ But this really wasn’t like that.”

Alison Burford

Sport & Health Manager, Vision Redbridge Culture & Leisure