Customer stories


Premier Sports Camps

FileMaker Pro 8.5 performs like a champ in marketing and administrative tasks for Ohio instructional sports camps

Whatever the sport, whatever the age level, Premier Sports Camps has a program to suit the student. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Premier offers residential camping experiences that put the fun in learning the fundamentals of popular team and individual sports like tennis, lacrosse, hockey, softball, and basketball. With hundreds of campers participating each year, Premier Sports Camps are some of the largest in the Midwest – and their data management challenges are significant. FileMaker Pro database applications fill a vital behind-the-scenes role in keeping camp programs on track.


Business Challenge

Managing one camp is a challenge – managing several camps can be a handful – especially with an individualized instructional approach.  "Our residential camps accommodate every level of young player," explains Premier Sports Camps president David Schilling, "from beginner to advanced high school players. With an emphasis on individual attention and instruction tailored for each particular skill level, each camp offers a fun and competitive environment for all its students."

But each camp also generates a mass of data – student enrollments, housing information, team assignments, individual statistics, as well as year-round marketing information. There are plenty of off-the-shelf database products available for small-business management – but as a longtime FileMaker Pro user, David knew right from the start where he'd find his own solution. "With FileMaker Pro I'm able to design databases to my particular needs and create reports based on these needs," he explains. "This was extremely attractive, since no pre-made solutions were available to fit my niche market. The ability to work with relational databases made FileMaker Pro even more attractive – I was able to build a suite to cover all aspects of my company, rather than having to use multiple applications.


Successful Solution

David began building his FileMaker Pro solution a decade ago – and it's grown and evolved with each successive FileMaker Pro upgrade, gaining new features and new capabilities with each new version. Currently, the Premier Sports Camp suite consists of six relational databases covering all essential camp functions, including student registration, scheduling, facilities management, contact management, record-keeping, and marketing. All together, the system stores more than 5000 records.


Customer Benefits

In any sport, productivity counts – and it's just as true in managing sports camps. The efficiency of David's FileMaker Pro 8.5 application allows him to accomplish the maximum while spending the minimum, especially when it comes to marketing. "Being a small company I need to use my dollars to the fullest and be sure I know who my customers are," he emphasizes. "With FileMaker Pro I can quickly get a handle on this. I can do market and demographic research, I can easily see how many repeat campers I have, how often they attend my camps, which camps they attend, and then measure these figures over time. With FileMaker Pro I see the health of my company today – and over time!"

Logistics of camp management also become much simpler thanks to FileMaker Pro. "I'm able to group players by skill, age, roommate requests, hometowns, and so forth," David continues, "in order to quickly organize my camp efforts each week. I'm also able to import data on camper registrations through my online registration form, eliminating the need for manual data entry. This saves me 5 to 10 hours each week!"

Time savings means cash savings in any business, and Premier Sports Camps is no exception, with David estimating that using FileMaker Pro 8.5 saves him up to $7000 a year in improved productivity. "The most significant cost savings I've encountered is through the use of the email function," he explains. "I'm able to send out all my camp correspondence and confirmations directly from my databases, thus eliminating the need to send traditional mail and saving the cost of postage. I have the ability "I figure I've saved several thousand dollars by not needing to hire an outside consultant to build a database to meet my needs."to send out large amounts of email direct from the database without the need for an additional email client. I can manage my contacts much more efficiently to ensure the proper marketing and contact efforts are reaching the appropriate customers."

Most of all, the ease of use and development built into every version of FileMaker Pro means that the Premier Sports Camp database system remains under the personal supervision of the man who knows the camp and its needs better than anyone – David himself. With no need for outside help, David can fine-tune the system to meet every evolving need, quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.


" I figure I've saved several thousand dollars," he concludes, "by not needing to hire an outside consultant to build a database to meet my needs."

David Schilling, President, Premier Sports Camps



Contact information

Contact Info for Customer:

David Schilling
President
Premier Sports Camps
614-893-2632
dms@columbus.rr.com
http://www.sportscamp101.com


Filemaker Contact:

Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com


Overview
  • Sport-specific instructional camps for children and youths from ages 8 through 18.
  • Based in Columbus, OH
  • Approximately 20 employees
Industry
  • K-12 Education
Solutions
  • FileMaker Pro 8.5 databases control program scheduling, camper registration, contact management, email, and marketing research functions.
Benefits
  • Enhanced productivity saves time and money – up to 10 hours a week and up to $7000 a year.
  • Flexibility of FileMaker Pro 8.5 allows easy customization of fields and data.
  • Email functionality streamlines marketing operations, and simplifies contact management.