10 WAYS TO MAKE SPORTS MARKETING WORK HARDER EARNEST’S CUNNING...
10 ways to make sports marketing work harder
Dec 05, 2014
Following last year’s Olympics, sport in Britain has never had such a high profile. This has resulted in an increased desire for TV and online content, ring-fencing of government sport funding, more grassroots initiatives to deal with our successful Olympic legacy, a wider choice of modern sports, not to mention medal winners appearing in numerous advertising campaigns. All of this activity increase the challenges than sport face over the longer term.
Sports of all sizes are now in fierce competition to own a piece their target audience’s precious leisure time, whether that be playing, watching or volunteering. The more messages and coverage, the harder to focus audiences to your specific need. And sports are not just competing against themselves; they are challenging other entertainment sectors (festivals, holidays, weekends away etc) for budget, time and future national success.
So what does this mean for marketing sport? As governing bodies, clubs, venues, grassroots programmes, sponsors and media look to drive home their messages, it means campaigns need to do more to stand out across an ever increasing number of channels. Bearing in mind a fan may receive numerous forms of communications from different sport stakeholders, it could mean it gets very messy, very quickly. So what the best ways forward?
As the new financial year looms, here is Earnest’s short guide to making your life easier:
Sports of all sizes are now in fierce competition to own a piece their target audience’s precious leisure time, whether that be playing, watching or volunteering. The more messages and coverage, the harder to focus audiences to your specific need. And sports are not just competing against themselves; they are challenging other entertainment sectors (festivals, holidays, weekends away etc) for budget, time and future national success.
So what does this mean for marketing sport? As governing bodies, clubs, venues, grassroots programmes, sponsors and media look to drive home their messages, it means campaigns need to do more to stand out across an ever increasing number of channels. Bearing in mind a fan may receive numerous forms of communications from different sport stakeholders, it could mean it gets very messy, very quickly. So what the best ways forward?
As the new financial year looms, here is Earnest’s short guide to making your life easier:
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Transcript
10 WAYS TO MAKE SPORTS MARKETING
WORK HARDER
EARNEST’S CUNNING...
1. LESS IS MORE
When it comes to your marketing programmes it is better to focus on a smaller number of critical campaigns, rather than trying to do everything at once. It also makes a difference if you can put specific timings and objectives to these projects, so you have a benchmark for the success of specific budgets and messages. It often allows your customers to understand you require one single ‘desired action’ – eg: buying tickets by a specific deadline to qualify for a discount.
2. DO YOUR RESEARCH
It seems obvious, but we’ve seen some fantastic marketing planning coming from good research. We feel that it’s more important than ever to really get to know your audiences. If you know them, then you talk to them as a fan, a lapsed fitness fanatic, a parent, a die-hard advocate, a disgruntled season ticket holder, a volunteer. This changes your relationship with them and takes it from being about you and them, to just about ‘us’.
3. MAKE IT FUN
We’ve seen some marketing campaigns that sell ‘entertainment’ as if it was life insurance. Fans expect you to show the same level of passion that they feel. If you look at the information you’re sending through the eyes of a punter, then it will often give you the confidence to simplify what you say. Better still, show it to some happy (and not some not so happy) fans and ask them for feedback – we did this recently and won the pitch off the back of it. Footnote – this is equally important for b2b.
4. MAKE YOUR CUSTOMERS YOUR MARKETING DEPARTMENT
Once you have fans advocating, you’re onto a winner. You lose the corporate jargon and see your sales messages embedded into third party content. A great example is where sports re-purpose fan video (with permission), promote fan articles and provide content via social media channels to the ringleaders. It’s a two way street – ask for opinions rather than rants and get them on-side.
5. CHOOSE YOUR CHANNELS CAREFULLY
It’s inevitable that your existing and potential customers will receive a lot of marketing messages. So it’s important to be seen in places where you can get positive standout. Follow the lead from Birmingham City FC who were one of the first football clubs to become an early adopter of Twitter’s new 6 second video sharing app – Vine. It’s new and different, so audiences will want to share to show they’re in the know.
6. KEEP CREATIVE CONSISTENCY, EVEN WHEN IT GETS DIFFICULT
This can be a tough one when time is short and multiple stakeholders are high. The key is to make sure every marketing touch point reinforces your brand values in an effective way, without hindering the creative execution. If you can follow a practical brand guide it’ll help your awareness and credibility in the long run, meaning your budgets work harder and your messages ring true.
7. GET YOUR SPONSORS INVOLVED
This is an area where there are varying degrees of success in utilising sponsors as an extension of your marketing, in addition to their own objectives. There are quick wins that can work for both – the key is to have sight of each other’s plans early and ensuring they are aligned. An example of when this really worked was when a sponsor marketed their event so well that non-customers felt that theirs was a secondary experience. You want this level of passion to truly bring unique experiences to the customer and the brand.
8. BRING YOUR HEROES CLOSER TO THE FANS
When speaking to clients, this is the one thing we hear about more than anything else. Whether it is at games or through content, fans want to feel part of the story. A good example of this was the story of Tyrone Mings, who offered a fan two free tickets after they said they couldn’t afford to go to the Ipswich game. Aside from the positive coverage it generates, it shows that actually amongst all the money and fame stories, the fan is central to the sport.
9. KEEP INNOVATING
Your fans will expect you to move with the times, your boss will ensure you demonstrate ROI. It’s fairly easy to do both – offering fans more than just historical content is one way. Take Manchester City who offer multiple ‘behind the scenes’ social media content and continually innovate with channels like Tunnel Cam and Man City TV. At times, they have over 30,000 simultaneous live video streams.
10. CHOOSE THE RIGHT PARTNERS…
Always a tough one for the client to find an agency that will push back at the right time and know when to just get on with it. A bit of advice we got from a client recently was to ‘challenge why the brief was written’ – ie: going back to the starting point to find other factors that influence the solution. Nice to get that sort of advice from the client, especially when it means potentially more time and money involved.
So there you have it, a starter for ten. At the very least it will help keep budgets more effective, channels dynamic and relevant whilst putting fans front of mind. Let’s hope sport continues to be as competitive on and off the field, as it’ll mean the work gets better and way we approach the marketing challenges will be more interesting.
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