Introduction

The Coogee Ocean Events committee is focused on looking to the future, with a strong and sustainable strategic approach to raising the profile of our events and creating a centralised hub at Coogee for large-scale, outdoor community sporting events for the Eastern Suburbs. We are incredibly lucky to be based in the middle of the Eastern Suburbs beaches and we have some of the best coastline right on our doorstep to run events like these.

The Problem

In 2019, Michael Scroop, a Coogee Surf Club member and senior digital marketing and transformation consultant at TW9 Digital, joined the volunteer committee to help with social media marketing and online event registrations of the Coogee Island Challenge and RunSwim Coogee Aquathlon.

Up until that point, there was no marketing by the club of these events as this activity together with event registrations was entirely outsourced. This meant that the club was completely reliant on these external service providers on the overall success of our events.  It also meant that we had no contact or any engagement with participants of our events.

The Solution - Digital Marketing Strategy

Michael then created a digital marketing strategy centred around building a brand and managing our events in-house in a staged phase.

The first milestones included updating our event specific landing pages on the surf clubs website to provide better information to our audience and sharing that information on newly created social channels. We also adopted a new ‘self-serve’ registration platform known as Race Roster (previously named Register Now) and promoted the events in-house.

The next stage was to create an entirely new online brand for our community events as having a single page within the current surf clubs website made it hard for visitors to find and provided inadequate event information.

Objectives

A new year, a new website and a new direction for Coogee Surf Life Saving Clubs ‘Ocean Events’. On January 1 2023, we launched a fully branded Coogee Ocean Events website developed by TW9 Digital that would allow us to:

  1. Increase visibility – having a strong online presence will help to increase the awareness of our brand and make it more easily discoverable by potential customers
  2. Improve customer engagement – providing customers with a way to learn more about our brand and interact with it through social media, blogs and other online channels
  3. Enhance our credibility – a well-designed and professional website will help to enhance the credibility of our brand in the eyes of potential customers, sponsors and stakeholders
  4. Provide better customer service – we can now deliver improved customer service by providing easy access to information about our community events. We also have a fully integrated HubSpot Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system meaning we can respond to enquiries from any of our digital touch-points in 1 central location.

Having a fully branded and dedicated Ocean Events website that is the home for the Coogee Island Challenge, RunSwim Coogee Aquathlon and the Minnows new LaPa Gold Iron Classic events, allows us to achieve these objectives and provide an exceptional online and event day experience.

Creating the new brand design

Our main goal was to enhance Coogee Ocean Events brand and raise its profile, while also increasing community participation and attracting greater sponsorship opportunities. We knew that by achieving these goals, we could help grow the fundraising of these events with proceeds going towards important lifesaving equipment necessary for patrolling Coogee Beach.

To achieve this, we carried out several activities and made design decisions that were aimed at creating a cohesive and engaging brand identity that would appeal to a wider audience.

To create a cohesive brand, we incorporated the existing Coogee SLSC logo into the Ocean Events brand. Our goal was to emphasise the connection between the two organisations and convey their shared values of community, safety, and fun.

Next, we created separate logos for each of the events – the Coogee Island Challenge, RunSwim Coogee and The LaPa Gold – and used a series of blue colours for each event. The ‘Coogee Two Blues’ are a colour combination used for Coogee SLSC branding and distinguishes the club within Surf Life Saving Australia community along with being a colour commonly associated with the ocean. This helped to create a consistent visual identity across all of the events.

We also used a lot of ocean imagery to create texture and relate to the environment in which the events take place. We wanted the website and our social media channels to evoke the feeling of being at the beach, with images of waves, sand, and people having fun in the sun.

To create a sense of movement and excitement, we used typography and graphical elements that conveyed a feeling of speed and energy. We used bold, sans- serif fonts for headlines and graphical elements that create a sense of motion.

Getting the priorities right

One of the key decisions we made was to prioritise the event information on the landing pages. Rather than starting with the home page, we created landing pages for each event that included everything a participant would need, from an event countdown, to imagery and video from previous events, course maps and timings, testimonials, news, FAQs, results, merchandise, and sponsor information.

With so many important elements to convey, we knew that the success of the project would hinge on our ability to present the information in a clear, concise, and visually compelling way.

Strong call-to-actions (CTAs) throughout the website encourage visitors to sign-up to our latest event information, online merchandise and registrations. These CTAs were designed to be eye- catching and persuasive, with clear
and concise language that conveyed a sense of urgency and excitement.

Overall, our goal with the new brand design was to create an identity and website that would help Coogee Ocean Events stand out from the competition, appeal to a wider audience, and ultimately help increase participation and sponsorships. By using ocean imagery, typography, and CTAs, and prioritising event information on the landing pages, we believe we were able to achieve these goals and create a website that is both functional and engaging for visitors.

Outcomes

Having a dedicated Ocean Events website will allow us to share more event related content to wider audiences that we couldn’t have done from single pages on the surf club’s website. It will provide many more benefits to our customers including easier access to information, merchandise, event registration along with more personalised and responsive customer communications.

What does the revenue from the events support?

Our patrolling season starts in September and goes through to April each year. We patrol every weekend, all public holidays during this time and our Surf Lifesavers are highly skilled in many areas of surf rescue to ensure the public’s safety

at the beach. Being a charity and volunteer organisation, these events generate funds that go towards the purchase of vital lifesaving equipment required during our patrolling season and other club-wide improvements.

Conclusion

Over the past few years and particularly during various lock-downs, we have seen a significant uptake in participation of outdoor fitness training and community sports events like the Coogee Island Challenge and the new RunSwim Coogee Aquathlon. We hope this new community events hub inspires more people to get involved and facilitates easier access.

Coogee Bay awaits!

Client feedback

“We recently engaged TW9 Digital to develop an entirely new brand and website for our community focused ‘Coogee Ocean Events’ and the Management Committee is thoroughly impressed with the results! The website design is visually stunning, with a user-friendly layout that incorporates our brand colours, logos, content and imagery seamlessly. The branding design is modern, unique, and consistent across all platforms. TW9’s attention to detail and responsiveness throughout the process was outstanding. The new website, which is completely integrated with our CRM system, has elevated our online presence, increased visitor engagement and event registrations. We have received numerous compliments from our members, the community, partners and sponsors about the professional and visually appealing design, helping us build trust and credibility. We highly recommend TW9 for their creativity, professionalism, and outstanding work!”

Pat Garcia, President – Coogee Surf Life Saving Club

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