$500 to $1,500 a month: the real proposal we sent a youth basketball events program

The client runs a youth basketball training and events program: camps, showcases and clinics announced with flyers, with prices per event and sign-ups handled by hand. The proposal was first drafted in early September at the SearchPod owner's instruction, with a specific direction: a $500 a month baseline and a scaling plan as the program expands and needs more leads.

An events program sells in bursts. Registration opens, a flyer circulates, and the window closes; the marketing job is to catch the parents who search for a camp in the weeks before each event and to keep their email for the next one. The program had the flyers and the events but no site, no list and no way to sign up online.

There was no site to audit, so the scope came from the events themselves: two real events with dates, prices and flyers, a need for online sign-up and a notify-me option for parents who missed a window, and the pattern of demand rising in the weeks before each event and falling to nothing between them.

That pattern drove the plan: event-timed Google Ads rather than an always-on campaign, an email list that gets a registration-open message for each event, and a site whose main job is the events page.

$500 a month to start with the 9-page website included and nothing upfront, stepping to $1,000 when the first lead target is hit and $1,500 at the second, with targets defined as lead volume, sign-ups, forms and calls, agreed in writing, and a slow month stepping back down. A 30-day guarantee, no contract, ad spend separate. The cover noted that the SearchPod owner had set only the $500 baseline and that the two steps were proposed for confirmation.

Included: the 9-page site, SEO, AI search visibility, event-timed Google Ads, a Google Business Profile, an email list with registration-open emails, and access to the client dashboard. The demo was a 9-page site in a design taken from the program's own flyers, condensed uppercase display type, its electric blue with an orange accent, a sticky phone bar on mobile, a home page, an events page with both events, their flyers, prices, sign-up and notify-me forms, and program, about and contact pages. Court scenes were generated images because the licensed stock quota had been exhausted that month, and the cover said so.

The starting fee is half the usual $1,000 because the SearchPod owner set it that way for a small events program with seasonal revenue, with the plan scaling as the program grows. The ladder was tied to lead volume rather than revenue because sign-ups and calls are what the program can count event by event.

Excluded: ad spend; event photography, with generated court scenes standing in until real photos existed; and any registration payment processing, which stayed with whatever the program used. The two upper steps were explicitly left for the owner to confirm, and the dossier records them as proposed rather than agreed.

The proposal was drafted on 2026-09-10 and sent by email on 2026-09-24 at the owner's instruction, personalized to the program's director, with a follow-up scheduled five days later. Only the send is on record; the outcome is not.

For a camp, league or events business, the transferable parts are the events page as the center of the site, sign-up and notify-me forms for every event, an email list that carries the next registration window, and ads timed to each event rather than running all year. SearchPod's public prices are on the pricing page, and a proposal for your program takes one business day.