Smashing the Competition

A closer look at coaching facility Ace Tennis in Hervey Bay, Queensland, and how Facebook turned their double-faults and unforced errors in marketing to concrete business victories in no time

Interview by Dan Willersdorf
Edited By France Pinzon

Owner: Head Coach Luke Harvey
Years in Business: 2011 to Present
Website: www.herveybaytennis.com.au
Facebook Page Likes:: 1,160 and counting

  

Founded by Luke Harvey back in 2011, Ace Tennis are the resident tennis professionals for the area and are based at the Hervey Bay & District Tennis Association. Tennis coaching for ages and all levels of ability is offered. They also promote tennis in the region by running lessons, fixtures, social days and tournaments.

“It’s all tennis coaching, and then so each tennis club has a resident professional, like a golf club sort of thing,” says Luke. “That just sort of gives the members someone there all the time to get advice off or just someone that’s in-the-know.”

HITS AND MISSES BEFORE FACEBOOK

Luke wasted no time in doing promotions when he first started Ace Tennis. From asking assistance from his reliable networks, to reaching out to various schools, the business went all out, but realised they should be taking another more cost-effective approach.

“So we’d go and do free days at schools; Tennis Australia helped us a fair bit with that. They’d give us packs, tools, like prizes and stuff for the kids, so when we see a class, we can deliver a little tennis program and then give each kid a prize. And from that, a lot of the kids would then come back and join the club,” Luke recalls. “But yeah, it was newspaper ads, which were not very good for us. I mean, that has seemed like a massive waste of money.”

Just six months in, Ace Tennis Hervey Bay decided to open their Facebook business page, which has now become more important than a website for the club.

 

FINDINGS

Why Facebook

1. Customer Care

One of the many valuable things that Ace Tennis has gotten from Facebook has been extending their means to provide customer service. “I try and update it, if not every day, every second day,” Luke shares, “Because I’m on call every day, I don’t get to see every one of our customers that comes into the test center. I’m often tied up doing a lesson while they’re there having a lesson with another coach, so by having a Facebook page, at least those people can communicate with me by just sending a message or just interacting through a post on the page.”

“We try and sort of highlight some kids that have done well or doing well or even give away prizes, something like that just to engage the people there more,” he adds, “So it really bridges the gap between the customer and the service provider. And if you want to promote an event and get people excited about the event [you post it on Facebook].”

2. Budget-Friendly Focused Ads

Are the Facebook ads really all that effective?: “We’re using ads for things like cardio tennis to try and get it out there and get people in interested in it. But the more I’ve done those, the more I found just by promoting the page is enough,” Luke suggests. “It’s really more about promoting just the page in general and getting people to like the page and then they see those events and products coming up all the time.”

“I think it all just depends on the time. At the Australian Open we were doing about $10 a day and we just figured for that month—30 days—at $10 a day it’s only $300. Compare that to a newspaper ad in the independent at $400 or $500,” he explains. “In the 30 days it was probably four or five new likes a day.”

3. To Attract More Attention

“I took a picture of our basket with all the balls in it, and I did a guessing competition and I did an ad at the same time,” Luke narrates, “It kept not just promoting our page, but it kept promoting that post in people’s newsfeeds, So we had something like 80 comments on one post, which, you know, that’s way above what we normally have.”

And when you DO get your business on Facebook…

1. Back-and-forth the conversation should go!

“Try and be really engaging to your customers. Obviously, answering or recognizing their comments, I think, is a good thing,” Luke says. “Like their comment or comment to show you’re interested in what they’re saying as well.”

2. Use it – Wisely and regularly

Trying out Facebook Advertising? Luke shares some tips on how to run ads better: “Run ads around times that you think your business would benefit from it. In our case, around the seasons of tennis,” he adds, “maybe running just on the weekends or something.”

“Facebook is way more important to us than a website. It’s reached many more customers for tennis than our website,” Luke reveals, “and it’s so much easier to keep updated as well than a real website.”

Click here to visit the Ace Tennis Hervey Bay Facebook page