USFA Marketing Survey

[oiuyt]

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=311002810236

Takes ~5 minutes. A few of the questions are poorly formed

"14. How many hours are you participating in Fencing per week?
Radio"
*snort* If ANYONE selects that they spend more than 0 hours/week participating in fencing via radio there's likely a problem.


"15. What is the primary reason for your membership?"
While I answered Participant/Athlete, there are three given answers which apply to me, any of which, on their own, would be enough for me to maintain membership.

"20. How much do you generally spend on travel?" without specifying for a single event, per month, per year, etc. The typical event I spend very little, it's less than a 2-hour drive. When flying somewhere it's significantly more. Depending on what they're asking my answer could be at either end of the given spectrum.

Anyway, go take the survey. Help out the marketing committee.

-B

[qatet]

$500 + per night for a hotel! *splutter* But that's 5 FIE blades!

[eac]

Took the survey. Kind of odd questions. Anybody care to speculate about who cares about any of them, aside from the obvious "do you shop online?"

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by qatet

$500 + per night for a hotel! *splutter* But that's 5 FIE blades!

Or 25-30+ blades for a real weapon. :)

-B

[peet]

It was fun answering (honestly) alternating extremes for this one:

[KD5MDK]

13. How many years have you been a member of USA Fencing?

None, but I've been a member of the US Fencing Association for a while.

22. When you are not competing, what do you spend your time doing? (Check all those that apply.)

Is this at tournaments, or in the rest of my life?


Said survey also shows how it pays off to have a USFA membership card in your wallet, so you can check your member number when suddenly needed...

[noodle]

worst survey ever

[oso97]

Originally Posted by noodle

worst survey ever

Well, not QUITE the worst, but definitely not the best.

[noodle]

Originally Posted by oso97

Well, not QUITE the worst, but definitely not the best.

worst survey by a professional organization intended to obtain serious data from and about about the people who are the reason the organization exist.

[oso97]

Originally Posted by noodle

worst survey by a professional organization intended to obtain serious data from and about about the people who are the reason the organization exist.

Oh boy are you living in a sheltered world if you think this.

You should SEE some of the stupid things I've had to deal with over the years in totally different enviornments. Trust me, while I'm hardly singing the praises of the survey in question, I've seen a LOT LOT worse.

That being said, there were some real problems with the wording of the questions and the answers, I suspect due to some assumptions that the writer(s?) had going into it and the techinical limitations they chose to (were forced to?) operate under.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

Is this at tournaments, or in the rest of my life?

Spend sufficient time at tournaments and the answers will converge. :)

-B

[Peach]

It wasn't the worst by a long way. It did, however, look as if someone handed them a template and they tweaked it a little using search-and-replace. The purpose, of course, is to convince sponsors and advertisers that we are obsessed participants with spare cash who spend on things related to our obsession. It's always nice to have a report with numbers like that to show people when trying to convince them to provide services, develop products, or make products available to your membership.

So declare a sufficient income and be sure to check "shopping" and similar things as one of the things you do when you're at a tournament. Meanwhile telling the truth.

[Phaeton]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Spend sufficient time at tournaments and the answers will converge.

-B

Or go to one or two of the wrong tournaments and you might just end up spending the rest of your life there.

[jfarmer]

Originally Posted by Peach

It wasn't the worst by a long way. It did, however, look as if someone handed them a template and they tweaked it a little using search-and-replace. The purpose, of course, is to convince sponsors and advertisers that we are obsessed participants with spare cash who spend on things related to our obsession. It's always nice to have a report with numbers like that to show people when trying to convince them to provide services, develop products, or make products available to your membership.

So declare a sufficient income and be sure to check "shopping" and similar things as one of the things you do when you're at a tournament. Meanwhile telling the truth.

I suspect that this is the closest to the truth. And really, the USFA does need that sort of info to convince sponsors and possible venue locations (think bid packages for NACs, etc.). I believe that several attempts to get sponsors to bid for hosting NACs, sections, Nationals have failed due to the inability to provide this information or what wasn't provided wasn't very impressive...

John Farmer

[jfarmer]

Originally Posted by oso97

Oh boy are you living in a sheltered world if you think this.

You should SEE some of the stupid things I've had to deal with over the years in totally different enviornments. Trust me, while I'm hardly singing the praises of the survey in question, I've seen a LOT LOT worse.

That being said, there were some real problems with the wording of the questions and the answers, I suspect due to some assumptions that the writer(s?) had going into it and the techinical limitations they chose to (were forced to?) operate under.

Designing a good survey instrument that provide good reliable data is hard. Some marketing firms do a good job of it. Others, approach it like this was done, attempting to shoehorn odd-ball groups & interests into a standardized set of bins...

(Yes, I've designed a statistical survey or three in previous lives...)

John Farmer
Coach, Oak Ridge Fencers Club

[peet]

I remember reading an article about Summer Nationals in a local publication in the host city (Greenville, IIRC), and they cited that the tournament was expected to bring in two million dollars of business to the area.

I was pretty amazed, to be honest.

-p

[oso97]

I"m actually surprised its not more.

Consdier - hotel, food, car rentals, taxi... it all adds up in a big way.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by noodle

worst survey ever

So...you're saying that the poll...is....

[edew]

Originally Posted by Peach

It wasn't the worst by a long way. It did, however, look as if someone handed them a template and they tweaked it a little using search-and-replace. The purpose, of course, is to convince sponsors and advertisers that we are obsessed participants with spare cash who spend on things related to our obsession. It's always nice to have a report with numbers like that to show people when trying to convince them to provide services, develop products, or make products available to your membership.

So declare a sufficient income and be sure to check "shopping" and similar things as one of the things you do when you're at a tournament. Meanwhile telling the truth.

If that's the case, why doesn't USFA just manufacture the data and presented to corporations. It's not as though the corporations don't do the same in reverse.

[edew]

Originally Posted by oso97

I"m actually surprised its not more.

Consdier - hotel, food, car rentals, taxi... it all adds up in a big way.

I agree. Anyone with minimal knowledge of math (addition and multiplication is sufficient) can compute that 1000 fencers plus tagalongs (parents, spouse, siblings) plus coaches and officials (so, about 2000 people altogether) will all spend about $100/day in expenses for food, room, extraneous non-fencing shopping. That's $200K/day. Ten days or so and that's $2Million. That doesn't include the airfare or gas cost.