Content Marketing at US Lacrosse

Lane ErringtonSenior Manager, Content Marketing

Roadmap

• US Lacrosse overview

• What is content marketing?

• Content marketing at US Lacrosse

• Building a digital skill set

US Lacrosse

• 501(c)3 national nonprofit governing body fueled by membership and philanthropic support

• Provides leadership, investment and resources focused primarily on youth and high school levels of play

• 450,000 members, 88 national staff, 300 national volunteers, 68 chapters in 45 states

• Headquartered in Baltimore

National Governing Body

Our Brands

Our Brand Purpose

“Educate, connect and influence the lacrosse

community”

What is Content Marketing?

A fundamental shift in the way brands

do marketing

“Content Marketing is the only

marketing left.”-- Seth Godin

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on

creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined

audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Traditional vs. Modern Marketing

• Interruptive ads• Email blasts (spam)• Direct mail• Not targeted• All thing to all people

• Blogs• Social media, SEO• Branded magazine• Targeted by personas• Customer-centric

Consumers have shut off the traditional world of marketing. They own a DVR to skip television advertising, often ignore

magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online “surfing” that

they can take in online information without a care for banners or buttons

(making them irrelevant).

SellingShouting

Interrupting

Instead, consistently deliver useful

information to your would-be customers in

the places they go

Be helpful and relevant, tell a great story,

win trust, loyalty and business

Who’s doing it well?

How We Do Content Marketing

Content Marketing Story

“Meet at the corner of education

and inspiration”

Three Key Questions

For ANY piece of content:1. Who is the audience?2. What is the goal?3. How do we measure it?

If you can’t answer them:A. Let me help you answer them ORB. Come back to me when you can

Our key audiences

PRIMARY• Parent• Coach• Player

SECONDARY• Official• Program leader

Blogging Strategy

Blogging Strategy

Editorial Calendar

Always

Be

Creating (and)

Distributing

Social Media Strategy

Social Media Strategy

“The point isn’t to be good at social media,

the point is to be good at business

because of social media.” -- Jay Baer

“Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.”

Distribute twice as hard as we create

“If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead.”

“Content is still the king, but I would say distribution is now the queen. Good content with poor distribution is just

that, which means it will be litter. Bad content with good distribution is just that, which means it won’t get watched.”

-- Bob Bowman, CEO, Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM)

Our Marketing Channels

Our Marketing Channels

Social Media Channels

Facebook Strategy

Facebook Strategy

Facebook Strategy

Twitter Strategy

Twitter Strategy

Twitter Strategy

Instagram Strategy

Instagram Strategy

Instagram Strategy

Instagram Strategy

YouTube Strategy

Integrating Partners

Integrating Partners

AUTHENTICITY

You are the protector of your audience

Road to the Rockies

Measurement

• Blog: 696K unique page views in 2014, 1300% increase

• Facebook: Reach 500K people/week

• Twitter: 10M impressions/month

• Instagram: Total audience (82K) up 111% since Jan. 1

• YouTube: 450K views in Q1

Brand Channel AudienceAt

ArrivalUS Lacrosse Facebook 78,392 42657

Twitter 71,545 11896

Instagram 56,800

YouTube 14,779

Vine 16,569

LinkedIn 4,845

Google+ 698Lacrosse Magazine Facebook 33,246 11688

Twitter 42,015 1411

Instagram 12,000

YouTube 1,186Soundclou

d

US Lacrosse Convention Twitter 2,330US Lacrosse

Championships Twitter 1,430

World Lacrosse Facebook 8,730

Twitter 9,740

TOTAL 354,305 67652

% increase 424%

Building a Digital Skill Set

In digital marketing, if you stop learning,

you die. Period.

Skills You Need

• Writing• Editing• Inbound mindset• Social media• Data

• Coding• Design • Video• Email• Web

How to Get Them

• HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification• Hootsuite Social Media Certification• Google Analytics Certification• Codecademy HTML/CSS• Mailchimp email marketing course• Facebook Blueprint course

Digital Skill Set

• Visionary• Project Manager• Storyteller• Editor• Creative• Technical Director• Analyst

Social Tools I Use

• Hootsuite (social listening, scheduling)• Bitly (link shortening)• Native analytics (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube)• Pixlr (photo editing)• Google Calendar (editorial calendar)• Google Analytics (measurement)• Google Docs, DropBox (file editing/sharing)• feedly (daily reading aggregator)• SoundCloud/Spotify (sanity)

Recommended Reading

• HubSpot Blog• Contently• Jay Baer• Seth Godin• Buffer Blog• Content Marketing Institute• Hootsuite Blog• Think With Google• #SportsDaily

A Word About Sports

We work when other people don’t.

Contact Me

[email protected]

@Lane_Errington

linkedin.com/in/laneerrington