Vickers could buy a load of tickets,with his pay off from th council,seriously it is a good job their was not more fans to witness that performance,because they would not return

I suppose something needs to give and hopefully this will draw in a decent crowd but then what? Ok we might get a few more through the gates for this game, but then the price will rise back to £20 and we’ll be back to square one. I think Koukash is doing this to test how much interest there really is out there.

I know injuries have been horrific this season and I am proud of how the players have dug in (baring Huddersfield) but as a floating the fan the simple fact is we have now lost five games on the row and have been knocked out of the cup by lower league opposition, given the fact our next three games are Warrington / Widnes / Saints there is a real possibility that could turn into 8 games lost in a row, and a real possibility we will not make the top 8, I wouldn't like to predict the attendance if we were to get London @ Home in the middle 8’s.

It’s unfortunate because we really were starting to look good, and with a full team we would still be in the cup and would have easily beaten Castleford and Hull.

Our core support simply isn't big enough and we need them floating fans which sadly will only bother when they can be ars*d, whilst there is still a lot of work to do I actually sympathize with the club a ‘little’ on this one, if people were really d about when we played it’s not particularly difficult to find out is it?

I also don’t think Koukash & Vickers blocking fans on Twitter is helping matters, maybe they shouldn't use it as much if they don’t like what people say / suggest, I can imagine some fans are tiresome on there but as a business trying to attract new customers is blocking your existing customers really the way to go?

I would agree with that.

I'm a season ticket holder and miss at least 2/3 games a season for potentially a whole variety of reason. The factor is never recent results. 40% is a very high non turn out figure but perhaps the club should also appreciate that lots of fans make a financial commitment with the knowledge that they will not be able to attend all games.

Some of the tweets from the club - Marwan/Vickers - after matches are similar to drunken texts you send when you are staggering home.

Well let’s say they don’t do any extra marketing for this game. If they don’t get over say 4,000, you could assume that ticket price is not a major issue or barrier.

The club puts a lot of emphasis on social media ie facebook and twitter. Yes its easy and cheap to communicate but do we have the right balance? Vickers states we have 18000 followers on facebook but how many are genuine Salford fans in our area? I follow NZ Warriors on facebook & twitter but I certainly wont be attending a game anytime soon.

At present other efforts seem to be ad hoc. We need to reach out to the community with a clear message with a more joined up approach.

I see the red devils logos on the East Lancs but is there a clear message? Is it the brand we need to publicise or fixtures and kick off times. We live in a city of proclaimed ex Salford fans! The old boards that were prominent approx 10 yrs ago were far more effective in my opinion. There used to be one on the main A57 not far from where the ground is now situated. Could we not have an electronic information board on the A57 that publicises the next game with the dual purpose of attracting fans and also advising motorists to avoid the area in the hours before kick off or face delays. Trafford MBC/MUFC do this in the Stretford area.

To be fair to the club, while it is easier to get messages out to people these days, the audience is a lot more fractured. Salford not having a proper city centre is a big hinderance. As is a declining pub culture. As is the huge decline in local newspaper readerships. If a person doesn’t use the web, isn’t on social media or doesn’t benefit from a word of mouth network, they are going to be much harder to approach today than even a decade ago.

I wonder whether putting everything into one match per year, as Wigan did with their The Big One series, is worth a go. Throw £50k of marketing spend at it and see what impact it has.

Totally agree. Social media's great, but it's very easy to think it's more important than it is. Labour would have walked the election if Twitter was an accurate representation of the population.

Aye, but you [iknow[/i whichever game we picked we'd get hammered.

Or has the ability to drive past the stadium and look at a bill board advertising the fixtures and up and coming events?

I was on Google maps this morning looking at the Stadium from the satellite point of view, it was so apparent to me looking down that the new stadium is abysmally in the wrong place. It is land locked by the canal and motorway, only one way in and one way out. I know this is being addressed with the new roads, motorway junctions, smart motorway and new bridge, however I don't even think that will fully solve the problem of the stay away fans? I expanded my view on Google maps to look at the Willows and new stadium on the same screen, it then stood out, the problem is that Salford Red Devils has been ripped out of the heartland of Salford and plonked 4 miles away on the outskirts. It should have been built either where West One is now or even on the Stott Lane playing fields, both a short 10/15 minute walk away from the Willows and still in the heartland of Salford! What are the solutions, if any, of us getting away from this stadium and building something else on either of these two locations? Could we flog the whole thing to Sale Sharks and somehow pay off the councils share in it?

The Club is having go with this latest offer, and a great offer it is too. Trouble is, it's not necessarily an indicator of potential interest if you don't market it properly. By marketing I'm referring to other areas outside of the website and Twitter. As others have remarked above, the offer is only as good as it's marketed. If the Club makes the right noises and a song and dance about this offer in the right places, it will work. If it doesn't then it can't hold it as an example of why we're not getting them in.

This would be a perfect opportunity to market slightly further afield in places like Stockport, who have suffered a footballing decline and are without any other sporting pull. It's also just a quick hop onto the motorway to get to the ground. There wont be a better opportunity for someone who's never sampled RL to do so for a fiver with a kid for free.

Oh, without question.

Certainly. I doubt you would find many Salford fans disagreeing with that. The problem is that even if Salford were able to move grounds and build another (and afford it), we’ve been through this process before – it could take a good ten years to complete.

Agreed, but other posts & tweets are implying that the purpose of reducing to a fiver and free for kids is to test just what the core support & local potential really is. If that is the case then casting the net wider will just muddy the results.

Personally I think the ONLY thing that matters is to find NEW consumers (for that is what we really are), give them an experience to enjoy and then look to be converting as large a proportion as possible to regular attenders.

A key message for marketeers is to have clear aims - If you don't know where you are going, how do you know when you've got there?

Id like to hope there is some sort of plan with this, and for everyone who buys a ticket the in get their details and pester them forever more to buy more tickets. Also canvas them for opinions on how we can improve experience etc

Oh and I wonder if there's anything stopping wire fans taking advantage of this?

I used public transport on Friday 67 pick up Eccles,at 6 30 pm had to get of at the Unicorn and walk to make the start at 8 00pm felt like going home Vickers should try that

The ground is in an awful place to get to, it takes forever to get off the slip road and in and out of the stadium carpark, there's nothing around the stadium and it looks like ground zero around and about. The stewards are miserable and unhelpful and you have to faff about getting a ticket before you can approach the turnstiles. (Yes I know the stadium staff and issues are outside your control) all put people off.
I've travelled to over 50 stadia over many years to watch my team play, on Friday leaving the game to walk to where I'd parked at the aerodrome with my two young children with me it was dark - some of the salford numpties were trying to cause problems outside with a group of Huddersfield supporters (not me and my family) and I genuinly felt uncomfortable- I have rarely felt like that, I just felt so isolated because of the area around.
There is little going on in terms of matchday 'experience' around the stadium, if people can arrive early they may miss the traffic- but there's got to be a reason for them to come early. - people want a 'day out' regardless of the result, if people still have a good time even after a loss they will be more inclined to attend. This £5 deal will only work if people enjoy themselves- and that doesn't necessarily mean a win on the field!