I don't disagree with you at all but.....Im 53 a lot of us guys don't facebook even if we have facebook presence, so if you wanted lets say a bunch of guys to come in during the day to practice and play. You might try sending something to the barbershop where people talk about it. Word of mouth will always be a powerful tool in marketing but first you have to get people talking and nothing does it better that direct marketing to an address readily found on the internet or even in a phone book.
I just find it hard to understand that when all of this information is present and accessible that more marketing isn't done. Im sure if there were a need that it would get done because people tend to find a way when they are backed up in a corner. For me the overall health of the industry is going to be directly related to the entrance of youth into the life cycle of pool players. We have an very inactive governing body when it comes to the lifecycle I speak of. So one could say its their fault that they have not come forth with a program for education for room owners but those statements would only be partially right. When you see the numbers of people that play pool and adore pool players on this planet in other countries you have to wonder....just what in heck did we do wrong?
We need a drop kick of some kind to get us moving in the right direction but it seems that pool leagues are providing the only marketing that is being done that owners don't have to fool with, which is nice but that doesn't always put a high percentage of profits in an owners pocket.
What I would think would, would involve some soft marketing practices, a local instructor to give people free pool lessons to get them to where they could play and enjoy the game. If you create a player at the beginning of the life cycle he has to enjoy himself/herself a lot more and around that you can build something beautiful right there in your home room. One room at a time.
What I hear you saying about Facebook is totally true but when you look for a demographic for instant customers the guy that has the time is retired and not necessarily of the Facebook age and he is not alone so marketing on Facebook could miss a base of customers that you could get to become regulars.
I don't see this as a right or wrong issue. I see it overall as a conundrum. People know of pool so why is so little marketing being done for pool? It surely isn't the responsibility of anyone other that the owners of the rooms. You can suggest all day long ways to do it but they are busy enough Im sure just keeping compliant with the rules and regs of running a business that serves alcohol. Anything involving state government in your business is going to take up a lot of your time. As a retired State Government Employee I this only too well. At any rate if people don't know of the availability of a product they wont even think about it, this is where I see that pool is. People just don't know its available and in many cases it isn't being packaged right.
