Ideas for Getting the Word Out About CCA

I picked up some fish from a member of the club yesterday - great guy, his place is literally filled with fish tanks and he's a really active and involved member of the club.

He only recently found out about CCA through Uaru Joey's YouTube Channel / The Big Fish Deal. That kind of surprised me!

While CCA is one of the largest, best attended and most active fish forums in the country, I'd bet only a small fraction of the freshwater fish keepers (or even cichlid keepers) in the area know about the club or what it's all about.

With more active CCA members come the resources (monetary and man/woman-power) to bring in great speakers, host events, negotiate great group buys, etc.

And - generally - once folks become members and start attending CCA meetings, they're hooked

What are some of your ideas to get the word out about CCA and get new folks involved?

If you're relatively new, how did you learn about CCA? What motivated you to join the forum? Come to a meeting? Become a CCA member?

Thanks,
Matt

I suggest seeking out the other local fish keepers where they're bound to be- The local fish stores. We should have a well made poster of some kind in a visible place in each LFS that will allow us. We could get these professionally printed on some kind of hard poster board so they last a while.

I was seeking local fish clubs when I found out about CCA and I googled Maryland fish clubs or something like that.

Splash info page for the website could help new comers get a good glance at what is there. Sometimes, looking at the home page to a forum can be misleading.

Creating a video to advertise the club.

A lot of people probably just don't know what we do or what they can expect from going to a meeting. I think giving them a little taste by having a page with that information properly laid out and then a video would help.

One of the other forums I use, PlantedTank.net, has a local section in it and not too long back someone posted asking about local clubs. Rachel and I chimed in but you can see by peoples response they are just not informed on what is happening: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/54-maryland/896305-any-aquarium-clubs-near-me.html

I think once people know what we do, what the CCA is about, then they can get excited about it then the rest will be easier.

I found out about it at a LFS (TFW...RIP). There was a poster about an upcoming speaker posted.

We used to have cards put in the stores. I can get more made, but we'd need someone to help put them out and check on them regularly. Same thing with any posters. These sorts of things need regular care and feeding to be attractive.

And that has always been a concern. It cant be 1 person putting in all the stores, yet it has to be someone that represents the club well.

We used to have a large poster that was in multiple stores. The person who made them is no longer in the club. I think I have one left but probably bent up. The biggest problem was finding space in a store to post it where it not only showed but also did not take up retail space.


The rack cards, I think, are the best choice.

I sort of found out about the club because of a store. LOL I happened to follow our first president into the parking lot of an old store. He had a bumper sticker on his van about CCA. I wrote it down and looked it up on the internet when I got home.

Hi Christine - I found a stack of cards during my recent garage clean-out and will bring some to Congressional in Rockville (they already have a couple of posters and the plaque from when they won the large tank class at AquaMania).

I'll bring the rest to the club BBQ.

Tropical Fish World (RIP) was the last LFS that was really club friendly (although HOT and Congressional have both sponsored things and give club discounts), especially since Greg left Congressional.

There really aren't many LFS left and I, honestly, don't frequent them.

If you're a member and have a good relationship with one or more LFS in the area, PM me with your name and address and I'll mail you some cards to bring to the LFS (and some extras for re-stocking).

Matt

chriscoli said:

I found out about it at a LFS (TFW...RIP). There was a poster about an upcoming speaker posted.

We used to have cards put in the stores. I can get more made, but we'd need someone to help put them out and check on them regularly. Same thing with any posters. These sorts of things need regular care and feeding to be attractive.

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Local stores seem to fit into one of two separate camps - either they are club friendly and see clubs as a way to bring business into their store OR they are anti-club and see clubs as taking away from their business. There are a few locally that fit into the second category.

jonclark96 said:

Local stores seem to fit into one of two separate camps - either they are club friendly and see clubs as a way to bring business into their store OR they are anti-club and see clubs as taking away from their business. There are a few locally that fit into the second category.

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Yeah, Its always hard to convince them that we can be good for them in many ways. All they see is the fish we can buy at auction and don't think of the other things.

The average customer they have will buy a set up. Fill it with fish. Kill the fish. Purchase fish again. The next time they kill them they put the tank in the garage or attic and are done with it.
The average club member has multiple tanks and will be in the hobby for years.


The average club member that has 3 tanks and a heater goes up will be running to the store if its winter time. Not the club meeting or internet. They know the fish cant wait that long.

Most of the club members have quality fish and could be a good local source for fish for the store to sell. Most club members realize that a store can not afford to pay retail and then sell it at retail. Most would gladly sell the fish for store credit so they can buy food, lights, heaters, or more tanks. LOL

They just need the right person to talk to them. The problem arises when you get someone who does not have a relationship with the store or never buys anything.

I found out about the club when I started switching over to cichlids, when I talked with the sales staff at Congressional aquarium.

Oh another idea that I used to do back in the day.

Anytime I went to a fish store I tried to wear a club
shirt. That way people would possibly ask me about it.

Happened a few times.

LFS are one channel to get the word out. It would be awesome if we had an (employee) champion for the club at each of the handful of LFS that remain in the region. Club members who frequent the stores are best for cultivating that

That said, we tried the LFS full-court-press for awhile: making sure that the posters were up, cards were stocked, employees know about our events. Heck, we even used to do monthly flyers for our speakers. Honestly, it didn't seem to make much of a difference.

What are some other ideas, folks?

Matt

Pat Kelly said:

Yeah, Its always hard to convince them that we can be good for them in many ways. All they see is the fish we can buy at auction and don't think of the other things.

The average customer they have will buy a set up. Fill it with fish. Kill the fish. Purchase fish again. The next time they kill them they put the tank in the garage or attic and are done with it.
The average club member has multiple tanks and will be in the hobby for years.


The average club member that has 3 tanks and a heater goes up will be running to the store if its winter time. Not the club meeting or internet. They know the fish cant wait that long.

Most of the club members have quality fish and could be a good local source for fish for the store to sell. Most club members realize that a store can not afford to pay retail and then sell it at retail. Most would gladly sell the fish for store credit so they can buy food, lights, heaters, or more tanks. LOL

They just need the right person to talk to them. The problem arises when you get someone who does not have a relationship with the store or never buys anything.

Click to expand...

Back before the rack cards we had a paper trifold flyer with general club information. I used to put them under the wipers of any car with MD tags every time I went to That Fish Place. LOL
I would not recommend do that any more. Too many people probably got pissed at that.

Also
The black and white club business cards. The original idea of those was that members could have them. If they happened to strike up a conversation with someone in a fish store looking at fish they could hand them one and tell them that we were there to help.
They were cheap to make. Heck Li paid for them.

Considering a lot of people are online these days and a lot of people my age look for these things online, I think providing the splash page OR design the website so that there are information pages and a more clear navigation. I think the second one will have a bigger impact, but a combination of the two would be ideal. I know we are looking to take on MFK's forums but maybe we can do something else beyond that...

Before I found out more about the CCA from Joey's YouTube channel, I found it before on PlantedTank.net when someone suggested it. At that time, I didn't look too much into it because it just looked like a forum site (the information wasn't readily available and it required digging).. I saw there were meetings but didn't feel comfortable going to one. It wasn't until The Big Fish Deal where I got really excited and had to go. After I went, I felt like I had been missing out on a lot once I attended a meeting.

Providing that appeal online would at least enhance our presence on the internet. Educating the public on what the CCA is will be sure to draw in those people were looking for.

That's my 2 cents.

Victor, I like your idea of doing videos. Maybe club members could contribute videos to a CCA Youtube channel?

Hmm

CCA has never had a Youtube channel. I thought we did but we used one called CCAdoesACA

Good idea

Do you guys remember this one? If you've joined in the last few years probably not. Others should. Never been an introductory video for an ACA like this before.
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One of the best ways is to grow our presence on Facebook (and other social media). Honestly, I had to check and see if CCA had a facebook page -- most of the posts and such on it have only a handful of likes and maybe one or two shares. Other clubs that are really active on there get a lot of members.

As to working with LFS, I think the club needs to accept that the traditional brick and mortar LFS is a dinosaur; we can, and should, reach out to the online LFSes. Batfish has brought A LOT of people into the clubs -- CCA and others. I get someone ordering fish who asks me to ship to a local address, or pickup, and I tell them, "Why don't you pickup at CCA?". (And I've had the same happen with Raleigh, Richmond, PVAS, NJAS, PA clubs, many other clubs... it seems every time I speak, someone orders from that neck of the woods who has never heard of the club. . We could look at some of the Big OFS stores. See if places like Drs F&S and DeadAquaria would fly a banner -- if your IP address is within 60 miles of Silver Spring, MD you may get a CCA banner when viewing it. This could always work as well with google. I'm not smart enough to tell you how to do it, but I know there are people who can. Google "where to buy fish" and you're in this region, CCA shows up.

Similarly, though it's hard to do, we could get into the big box stores as well. I'd be glad to see an influx of people from Petbox into the club -- a lot of them are novices and would really benefit, plus they'd bring a lot of new energy into the club.

Pat Kelly said:

Back before the rack cards we had a paper trifold flyer with general club information. I used to put them under the wipers of any car with MD tags every time I went to That Fish Place. LOL
I would not recommend do that any more. Too many people probably got pissed at that.

Also
The black and white club business cards. The original idea of those was that members could have them. If they happened to strike up a conversation with someone in a fish store looking at fish they could hand them one and tell them that we were there to help.
They were cheap to make. Heck Li paid for them.

Click to expand...

I have a bazillion club business cards, I'll send them to anyone that wants to keep a few on hand!


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

I found the club when I moved to MD back in 2009. I wanted to set up a tank and looked for an LFS not PetBox, the closest place was HOT but they were seemingly 2hrs drive away. Then I went to the internet. I found the club and Craigslist where a guy was selling cichlids. For whatever reason I was leery about attending a club meeting but I decided to make the drive from the eastern shore all the way up to Aberdeen(?) or somewhere in the hills. Yeah it was ridiculous as I passed just about every LFS around Baltimore, except one store which I can't remember was north of the city, but it was funky smelling, the tanks had dirty glass and calcium stains, and the fish seemed overpriced. :beamup: So, I end up at none other than David Glover's house who has this awesome setup, with CCA stickers on the racks. He told me all about the club, the meetings, etc. then handed me a CCA business card and said I should check out a meeting. He sold me a group of Ruby Green haps from the grow out contest(?) and a bunch of Julidochromis Marleri. I went to the next meeting, joined and haven't looked back since....


Sorry for being so long winded but Pat got me reminiscing and it was fun.:angel2:



I remember the ACA video. It was freaking hilarious! As I volunteered at that convention, people kept referencing it. Everybody has such big expectations just because of the video(?) and how different it was in comparison to previous years.

Sounds like the key is to get random people from the Internet to go to Dave Glover's

How do we make people less leery to come to a meeting? It can be intimidating for some, I think (I've been going to fish meetings since the '80s so I pretty much know what to expect!)...

Matt

Leffler817 said:

I found the club when I moved to MD back in 2009. I wanted to set up a tank and looked for an LFS not PetBox, the closest place was HOT but they were seemingly 2hrs drive away. Then I went to the internet. I found the club and Craigslist where a guy was selling cichlids. For whatever reason I was leery about attending a club meeting but I decided to make the drive from the eastern shore all the way up to Aberdeen(?) or somewhere in the hills. Yeah it was ridiculous as I passed just about every LFS around Baltimore, except one store which I can't remember was north of the city, but it was funky smelling, the tanks had dirty glass and calcium stains, and the fish seemed overpriced. :beamup: So, I end up at none other than David Glover's house who has this awesome setup, with CCA stickers on the racks. He told me all about the club, the meetings, etc. then handed me a CCA business card and said I should check out a meeting. He sold me a group of Ruby Green haps from the grow out contest(?) and a bunch of Julidochromis Marleri. I went to the next meeting, joined and haven't looked back since....


Sorry for being so long winded but Pat got me reminiscing and it was fun.:angel2:



I remember the ACA video. It was freaking hilarious! As I volunteered at that convention, people kept referencing it. Everybody has such big expectations just because of the video(?) and how different it was in comparison to previous years.

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