How to sell a roller derby team

Posted in CULTURE by Mark Laughlin on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at 9:59 am

Paul Edwards may not be passionate about roller skating, but he's definitely passionate about marketing Champaign-Urbana's own Twin City Derby Girls.

"For the derby girls it's a passion—the skating, the hitting, hearing the screams of the fans, the bruises.  It's almost fetish-like," Edwards said.  "They see the bruises, but I don't really look at that.  I look at the image—where are we going to go with it? You knew roller derby from the 70s, but to take that and say, 'It's different now; it's nonprofit, you've got a bunch of PhDs skating out there.'  How are we going to convince 100,000 people to learn about this sport?"

As previously covered in Smile Politely, Twin City Derby Girls have come a long way in a short time—from their beginnings as a few skaters rattling around at Skateland during weeknight practices last January to selling out their first bout less than five hours after tickets went on sale in May. The bout itself, held on May 21st at the Savoy Recreational Center, was a roaring success with approximately 300 people attending, and talk of TCDG competing at Assembly Hall one day is starting to sound more and more like something that could actually happen. 

Paul Edwards and his wife Jenny Edwards run the local marketing and web development firm Midnight Graphics out of their home offices.   Their working relationship with TCDG began when the girls came to them in desperation just before their "Talk Derby to Me" fundraiser at Boltini's last February 3rd.  The league wanted a promotional "package" for the fundraiser—including t-shirts, logo, business cards, and fliers—and the freelancer they were working with wasn't coming through. 

So the couple agreed to help.  Jenny Edwards explained, "We got the designs done in three days and then, of course, it was off to the printers to let them do their magic."

Having a good logo was important to TCDG.  Jenny Edwards elaborated, "When we met with them, they said they wanted to have a Barbie girl type of derby girl on it and a tattooed kind of derby girl on it.  So they had that, and [Paul] sketched it out while we were there." (see picture)

One slogan of Midnight Graphics is "The 'logo' is only the start," and this turned out to be true enough in the case of the Edwards' relationship with TCDG.  Intrigued by the idea of marketing to the masses of East Central Illinois a nonprofit roller derby league that contributes money beyond costs to charity, the husband and wife team continued to volunteer their spare time—and then some.  TCDG has other local organizations backing them, but Midnight Graphics is the only one listed at the "Grand Slam Jam" sponsorship level of $5,000 or more, in their case in the form of volunteer hours. 

On the Midnight Graphics website it states: "We're always looking for an especially hard 'puzzle' to solve.  Paul Edwards feels that marketing TCDG is just such a puzzle: "It's a novel concept—the notion that there's freedom in art.  For most of our small business clients, they're mainly concerned with retail issues.  Here with the Twin City Derby Girls, we have an opportunity to deal with a dynamic commodity.  We're not selling widgets.  It's a little bit kinky and a little bit kitschy.  So we have a chance to explore and do things we don't do every day of the week, but at the same time it's still a business.  It's got the same issues as a business."

For Jenny Edwards, working with TCDG was a chance to get involved with an organization that appealed to her without having to lace up skates: "I did all the paperwork to skate with the league, but for me, I decided I'd much rather market the league than fall on my tailbone."

In addition to the services listed above, Midnight Graphics developed and currently maintain the league's website and also send out e-blasts to subscribers.  However, both Jenny and Paul Edwards are careful to give credit for the league's initial success to the girls themselves.  Paul Edwards said, "These ladies are running around as fast as they humanly can to involve themselves in the community.  We just took this excitement and channeled it." 

When asked what he was going for when creating the TCDG website itself, which is relatively simple in its design, Paul Edwards said, "I tend to design in a straight line, at least for the web.  I used to do very elaborate flash sites.  Very elaborate html sites.  Lots of moving pieces.  The problem is that now the web has to be viewed on a cell phone.   You have to design for mobile devices, for iPhones.  Get a maximum amount of information to the eyes as quickly as possible.  It used to be you had ten seconds to make a point on the Internet; now it's like four.  I tend to now cut back on what I call 'fancified' design."

The weeks leading up to the May 21st bout were hectic for everyone involved with the TCDG organization.  For Jenny and Paul Edwards in particular, getting the online ticket ordering system off the ground during this time was a challenge.  Jenny Edwards said: "We've done reservation systems for other clients, and of course e-commerce, but this particular ticket reservation system was something we'd never used before."

Paul Edwards added, "What happens when someone puts in their name five times?  That's the kind of stuff we were dealing with."

Nationwide, there are plenty of roller derby leagues that do well in terms of selling tickets, raising revenue in other ways, and in getting themselves noticed.  Arch Rival Roller Girls of St. Louis are a good example.  But rarely do things come together as quickly as they have for TCDG.  While stressing the importance of marketing, Paul Edwards noted that even the best buzz can't sell a product that isn't there:  "You hear about leagues that haven't had a bout in two years.  How can you keep that going?  How can you go to people and ask them for money?  The product is the skating.  That's what it is.  There was a lot of pressure to get the Twin City Derby Girls on the track quickly.  Champaign-Urbana will buy the product not because they're such great skaters, not because it's new, but because there is such excitement.  There is something there that is extremely palatable to a lot of people."

Paul Edwards was originally a graphic artist working in the C-U area.  When the Internet took off in the 90's, he saw it as an opportunity to get into marketing, especially since he felt that graphic artists were often "treated like clerical staff".   So, he founded Midnight Graphics in 1999, which now works with a variety of clients.  One recent project is with National Council of Teachers of English. 

Jenny Edwards, who has a background in English and journalism, joined the business in 2005.  The pair said that they get a lot of their clients through word of mouth, and—while a marketing firm—don't aggressively market themselves. 

Paul Edwards elaborated: "Midnight Graphics is a process in rebellion.  I have been adamant that I don't want to run the company intellectually like a bricks and mortar.  I don't want the office to go to; I don't want the cafeteria staff.  I don't need overhead; I'm very much a minimalist.  Just shut it down.  Because at its core, what any real design or marketing firm has is an understanding of the small business or company they're working with, so when you go out to talk about them you know what the hell you're talking about."

Both Paul and Jenny Edwards said that they did with TCDG pretty much what they would have with any of their paying clients: immerse themselves in the business first and develop a strategy from there.

TCDG plan to do at least one more bout by the fall.

An enthusiastic Paul Edwards described where TCDG and their marketing are at the moment as follows:  "We've gotten to the end of the start-up phase.  We've done everything we could to launch a nonprofit organization.  We're going into a growth stage now.  Right now, there's a lot of planning going on.  They'll get some input on our side, but eventually they'll have to decide where they want to go."

He also said, "I like to think of the process as immersive.  Go there and learn as much as you can.  Take in every girl's name and find out about them because eventually we're going to need that data.  We can start talking about fleshing out the mythology of individual skaters.  At some point we're going to need posters of a star—as faux as that kind of will be.  I mean, it's derby!"

 So who looks like star material at the moment? 

"Houchebag [see picture].  I'm telling you, she's like mercury."