In the 1950s and 1960s there were very few things for people to do with their leisure time. Sporting activities were at the top of people's list of very few options.
Nowadays, competition for people's time and money is huge. It's difficult to get noticed and for the most part not cheap to get noticed. The bottom line for all businesses is that if you don't get noticed, you will suffer a decline in your business.
As a club, we need to look at what is cheap but may be effective. As Weighman said, we don't have a lot of cash to throw at the problem.
Posters in shops around town seems like a must do, as Geoff mentioned. I'd even consider giving shopkeepers a commission for selling tickets which in effect encourages them to become sales agents for the club.
As a one off, I'd allow all Rovers season ticket holders into a Dons game for nothing - possibly the Sheffield game. If they won't come for nothing, we know we're wasting our time targeting them in future.
If they do come, we can work on them further to convert them into long-term, paying spectators.
The Swindon double-header was a complete flop last year but that doesn't mean we should give up on the hope of getting some Rovers fans through our turnstiles. After all, we know they are prepared to pay to watch sport, which is probably something that the majority of Doncaster folk aren't prepared to do.
Improve links with supermarkets. Most Donny folk will visit one at some time. It's in the business interest of the supermarkets to be seen to be supporting local communities. We need to use this to our advantage.
As Donny hkr mentioned, on our side of town in Intake, we see nothing about the Dons. We have to reach out to the people, we can no longer rely on people finding us. Let's get some posters up in the out of town areas too.
Give pubs half a dozen free tickets to use as prizes for their pub quizzes on the condition they put up a matchday poster for us.
I'm sure we can come up with lots more ideas that might work. We need to try as many as possible because we don't have a magic wand that tells us whether any will work or not, but collectively they ought to do some good.
I'm sure the club have tried lots of things that we're not aware of, and Ray Green probably shakes his head in despair because the people of Donny don't turn out, but we need to keep trying ... because the Dons are in all our hearts and we want to see them succeed!
