Here is a good question I thought you might find interesting:
Q: tried to send an email to a coach not involved. The email didn't go through and instead I was informed that an invitation was sent to coach. If he doesn't respond does that mean. I will not be able to email him going forward at all?
Also, the new coaches that I am going to send to you - will they also need to respond to an invitation before I can email them?
A: I put together a messaging system that will hit the coach from all sides.
The intra-messaging inside RTA is the most effective but does require that a coach be using RTA as these messages show up in their RTA inbox. When a message is sent the coach get's a notification in their regular mail that they have a new message in their RTA inbox. Now the college coach's DO want to use the RTA inbox fo their messaging! Why?
Because they can filter and sort these messages by their recruit profiles! This is very powerful considering a coach get's literally 100's of messages each day. Example:
Coach has 200 messages in their RTA inbox. It is Wednesday and coach cannot read all of these messages. But the coach is going to a showcase this weekend. So coach can filter the messages to show only those from players who are going to that event. When they read the message from a prospect and they are interested, they just click on the players name in the message and it takes them to the players profile/location and team data page where they can add them to a list, add their event to their calendar and much more.
Now we also can send the coach messages direct to their email accounts via the email marketer. This is a powerful tool that now only allows you to create professional looking emails, but you can send 100's of messages at one time and personalize all of them! The system also tracks opens, url clicks, forwards and much more. The idea behind this tool is to create a broad based marketing plan. Then use these metrics to narrow the focus on those schools that show interest through RTA messaging.
Coming in summer I plan to add an additional function where a player can create an message and mail merge with her college list to create personalized hard copy letters! The power of the post office still rules over email!
Two additional points on marketing yourself:
1. use the comments post on your dashboard regularly! When a college coach adds a player to a list these comments are updated in real time just like twitter. College coaches use this to stay updated in an easy way with player they are interested in. Here is a screenshot from a cc dash on players they have on their watch list:
http://screencast.com/t/S1MbnT8y2. use the News Feed function to add your facebook inside RTA. I suggest you set up a facebook page just for softball and academics. Coaches can find your page inside RTA and you can make quick posts on your achievements, status etc.
You can see the focus is to give a player all the tools she needs to maximize her exposure to colleges. BUT, it's not a "shot in the dark!". We give you back real metrics to see those schools that are showing interest.
Let me know if this helps
Thanks
Carter from @RTA
Your Real Time Athletes Support Team
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