6 November, 2026
Over the past year, Collegians has worked with Nick Lavery of Black Market Communications to improve how the club communicates with players, members, sponsors and the wider community.
The approach was simple. Keep the message clear and uniform, make information easy to find, and build systems the club can keep using.
The work started with the website. Our old site had plenty of useful information, but it was hard to find. The rebuild brought a cleaner structure, purple and gold accents, and fonts that reflect our heritage as the oldest club in the VAFA. The website is now easier to navigate, with fixtures, memberships, events, merchandise, our history and club contacts a click or two away.
Next came sharpening our weekly comms outputs. Around The Ground went out weekly, and behind each edition sat match recaps, photo galleries courtesy of Bruce Tobin and Kristin Meachem, player stories, event details and sponsor recognition, all simultaneously published on the website so each story had a permanent home. The newsletter, website, social channels and Square store were all integrated so they started working together, helping community members go from reading the story, to finding the details, to taking the next step.
Much of the work happened behind the scenes. Weekly member sweeps kept the members page and mailing list current. Campaigns ran for home game lunches, reunions, the President's Raffle and the finals, and memberships, tickets and merchandise moved into a cleaner Square setup.
The club also gained the foundations to plan ahead: brand guidelines, a communications strategy, social media best practice resources, along with quarterly reports for the committee outlining trends and how the club can improve it’s communications year on year.
Results followed. Website visits grew approximately 81.6% in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the first, led by newsletter referrals, match reports and galleries. Merchandise sales grew 181.3% over the same period. Our mailing list nearly doubled, with an average open rate of 50.2% in the third quarter. Josh Sugden’s consistent posting helped lift Instagram interactions by 146% in the second quarter compared with the first.
The club now has a communications system with tested weekly rhythms, an understanding of seasonal trends and a foundation to support a growing base of memberships, sponsors and the step back up to A Grade footy.
Through Black Market Communications, Nick supports clubs, businesses and community organisations without an in-house communications team. The work covers brand and messaging, communications strategy, websites and online stores, email newsletters, content and campaigns, sponsor programs, and reporting and training. Every engagement is scoped to what the organisation needs, and each one leaves behind systems the organisation can keep running itself.
Need help with your own communications? Get in touch with Nick at nick@originalsource.co.
See more of Nick’s work on the Black Market Communications website: blackmarketcoms.co.
Help Collegians keep improving its comms. If you can, please fill out the Collegians Annual Communications Survey through the button below. It takes about five minutes and tells us what to keep, what to fix and what you'd like more of in 2027.
