Covering Business & Events of the  Carnival Industry

In Business, the best tool you can have is the ability to communicate in mass to the broad public. This is why the krewe website is almost indispensable!  

     August 4, 2009 ............ Organizations that have chosen to stick with tradition and the status Quo, have chosen to take the long hard road instead of allowing themselves an easy smooth surface to at least try some new things that can help them in the long run. What we are referring to is the ability to allow one of the many business tools you SHOULD HAVE in your tool belt to help you in these tough times!

 There are a fist full of dollars that are escaping the krewes with no websites! How!? Ads! Why is it that these guys need to get out here and solicit the businesses for ads? Because a krewe needs to cultivate and have at the very least 7 streams of revenue for the club. The need to pull away from bingo as a cash cow has become self evident in the last few years! 

Even though Bingo has paid the bills for decades, new market forces, demand a change in the methods a krewe utilizes to support itself. Especially when the club's city legalizes gambling, or has a Casino come in, or as it is now, a hard recession brings a downturn in discretionary spending habits. Captains who have stuck with the traditional ways are fast finding that even the people who regularly are not always susceptible to the financial squeeze, have come under some heavy pressure partially thanks to the downturns in a very volatile stock market.

Pictured: The Krewe of Rex: King of the New Orleans Carnival,  the premier organization here in the Big Easy. The club uses it website to educate, inform, and to offer for retail various posters and merchandise.      

So what are these other opportunities that are out there? Well there are several that can bring in significant revenue for the club while also aiding the community. They include but are not limited too;

(1) Invest in & operate a community retail store. Instead of letting neighborhood outsiders come in and drain the finance out of the community, open and operate the local market. Not only is this a win for the club, it's a win for the neighborhood as well, and a hedge against tough times! Appropriate the funds and move slowly, operating with volunteers that can be trusted to be there and be square!

(2) Invest in and operate a neighborhood Bar & Grill. This is currently being done by the Zulu Social Aide & Pleasure Club in New Orleans, with terrific results. Not only does it supply funds for the club, it also brings the community together. The added bonus is the club has a building to throw parties, hold meetings and such.

(3) Invest in & operate snowball stands in the summertime, hotdog stands during the winter time. This is the hot new way the krewe of Scorpio in Hattiesburg, Mississippi is making some cool cash to strengthen its financial position on the bank books.

 The one necessary component to all of this, of course, is the ability of a club to use a website to generate ideas, pull knowledge, advertize the effort, and finally be a contact and sales point!

Any club's website, when properly utilized, cared for and tasked, can be developed into a full fledged plan that can produce some seriuos revenue for the organization. Here are a few examples of a properly done website that increases options for the club.

   Pictured: The Royal Krewe of Privateers, is an organization out of Florida that runs with the Gasparilla Festival in Tampa each season. The website is beautifully done with all the information a person would need to make a decision or peak a future members curiosity. They even have a krewe song and you get to hear it! 

Is your website, acting as a point of sale for your ball tickets, coronation tickets, or other event that you want the publics help? Are you using your website as the community bulletin billboard? Is your website helping to advertise the picnics, barbeques, dances, snowball stands, etc.? Do you run ads on your website to help with the website monthly costs? Are people, supporters,  businesses, paying you to run ads on the site? 

Plus running a site is a great way of keeping the overhead down in the Business. Other ways the site can carry the load is;

 The Low Cost - Compared to other media, the Internet enables a club to advertise itself at considerably lower prices. It may not be a replacement for other marketing, but the Internet is generally cheaper than advertising on television, radio, or in newspapers, magazines and even by direct mail.

As an example; posting out a mailing to customers will probably cost around $1.50 a pop (allowing for printing, postage etc), whereas to email the same message to customers costs next to nothing! Maybe $0.0003 a pop!

 Open 24/7 - By automating a web site, a web business can be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No extra staff costs and no overtime rates to pay! It's perfect for selling those extra doubloons, beads, gowns, bobble heads, dolls, etc.

 Serving The Local Area - Not everyone wants to take the time to drive all over town to shop. It is a fast moving world and it seems that we all want things to be quick and easy. Using the Internet is a quick and easy way for people to access information about products and services from the comfort, convenience and privacy of their own home. No fuel costs, no traffic jams - no time wasted! Locally based businesses can usually get a free website listing in their local Internet directories.

 Reaching A Global Audience - More countries are getting on the Net each year. The Internet breaks down geographical boundaries and limitation. With the help of search engines, people can now locate and buy products and services from every corner of the world.

Pictured: The Krewe of Armon Ra, one of the top creators of some of the most beautiful costumes in all of Carnival. Well known as winners in the Bourbon Street Awards in the French Quarter each season. The krewe is Top notch and so is its website.

 Customer Feedback Made Easy - The Internet makes it possible to capture visitor information. Keeping in touch (via email) helps to cultivate long-term relationships, and members. Also, the widespread use of discussion forums is a popular way to get quick, low-cost customer feedback. The krewes of Sparta, Choctaw, and several others collect email addresses to keep not only members engaged, but potential members informed as well. 

 Frequently Asked Questions - Questions that may normally be answered by phone can be answered on the Internet. A website can list the answers to the most frequently asked product or service related questions. This can save on phone bills and free up a lot of time and maybe an extra employee. How many members can the site generate? A LOT!!!

Having a website opens so many doors of opportunity to the organization because as the site, is designed to improve with age and the krewe mission, the site can be utilized for so many missions. It gathers visitors as it makes the sales pitch for the krewe each and every time someone visits the site. Here's the great part, every visitor is fair game, even if he or she pulled up the site by accident!

Make no mistake, Looks and colors do matter! You get to pitch everyone, but you only get one chance to impress and to lure them into the club! A local master of this is the Krewe of Armon Ra. their website is eye catching, alluring, and it makes a compelling argument to at the very least you should check out the organization!

Suffice to say, not all websites are pulling the load as hard as they should or could be, but at the very least these sites are serving the organizations that have them as well as they can, and that is a competitive advantage that these clubs have over those that do not have sites.