In short, I want to help reshape the future of coarse pleasure fishing in the UK.Currently, the coarse fishing industry is growing in popularity, with over 300k angling licenses sold between May-June in 2021 compared to 95k sold during the same period in 2018.Having been a keen angler for my entire life, I have a wealth of experience and have always sought a way to leverage that into a career.So I got to exploring my area of the UK and the fishing opportunities within a reasonable drive from where I live. Safe to say this is where I ran into a few issues.Of the dozen or so venues I've fished at over the last few years, maybe half of them had a website and half of those looked like they haven't been updated since the '90s. Then I started to run across other venues, smaller but just as quality as any other lake I had fished - these venues had zero online presence. People knew about these places through word of mouth.This got me thinking. A fishing lake isn't a cheap place to run, what with fish care, water costs, equipment hire/repair, so why would these places not want to be known about. How would casual or new anglers ever learn about the place when most peoples first port of call is good old google.They must be in desperate need of a website! Huzzah, I've found an untapped market!So I asked around. Granted I haven't canvased the hundreds of venues in my small part of the country, but the few that I spoke to are from a different era. No real interest in social media and shrugged off my queries about having a proper website.But if I were a new angler, why would I risk venturing to a place that I can find zero information about? Wouldn't I rather pop online, find a neat little website with informative pictures of the lake, bios of the owners, fishing tips from regulars? Seems like a no-brainer.On the other side of the equation, these places charge as little as 5 to 20 GBP per angler. I'm no marketer, I have never done anything like this before, so I don't know how much traffic I could increase to their venues by doing something different for them.A few ideas I could see being popular would be:- Interactive images of the lake where each peg (platform) can be clicked to show a water-level view of the fishing area (perhaps with relevant stats/information regarding that particular peg)- Ariel footage of the lake, a short drone camera tour of the area- Clear and concise information on venue rules and pricing.- Online booking and payment service (Its currently all cash collected on-site)- Help or information on obtaining a temporary fishing licence (Required to fish almost all waters in the UK)- Equipment hire (Provided by myself)- Mentor/tutoring for beginners (Provided by myself)There is currently a government scheme running to get people of all ages into fishing, as it promotes a relaxing, healthy and exciting hobby that has a positive economic impact on an area. (you can read more about it here if you're really interested. But I feel they are not focused enough on local venues and instead are looking at the bigger picture.So I guess I'm asking, how would you convince a stubborn, willfully outdated business that relies on public engagement to invest their hard-earned cash into what essentially boils down to a marketing budget?I will add, there are a small number of venues that already have a (relatively) large social media presence, but again these are run by individuals (usually the sole owner) who aren't from a very communicable era. These sorts of interactions can be offputting to potential new anglers looking for information.I know this is all a bit niche, but you wouldn't believe the amount of these venues scattered across the UK, it'd take a couple of lifetimes just to contact them all. Which makes me more passionate about helping keep this hobby alive.If you think I'm wasting my time, feel free to say, I appreciate any feedback which might help me along the way. see hubwealthy.com/wealthy
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