Sport sponsorships

Sports are as popular as ever and a great business opportunity for those that want to be involved.

 

Due to the fan base and engagement, sponsoring sporting events/teams/leagues can be a valuable part of a business marketing strategy. By leveraging the built in support of the organization, you can align your business with that organization and capture their market. Building on this sponsorship via additional advertising and promotions can be a valuable way to create new customers, engage current customers and support your community.

 

If you are the sport organization, then getting sponsorships from businesses is a great way to develop partnerships, generate revenue and build community support. Aligning with local businesses allows you to use the business to reach potential fans and offer cross over services to fans through special promotions.

 

The benefits of sport sponsorship are valuable to both sides of the equation and when groups work together, everyone benefits.

 

http://www.thebusinessofsports.com/2016/01/20/tips-for-building-your-brand-through-sports-sponsorships/

In house marketing

Business is changing and so is the marketing.

Large advertising agencies are struggling to keep up with the current trend in consumer relationships, and as a result, more marketing is being done in house.

 

So much of marketing relies on adapting to the current consumer environment and responding quickly to what is posted. The typical ad agency cannot do that: they don’t have the people power or the decision making ability to respond that quickly. As a result, the marketing plans are falling flat or are not able to take advantage of new developments.

 

In an attempt to counter that, businesses are looking to do more of their marketing in house. This means that they have a team that is able to adapt and respond quickly to changes. To be fully effective, they need to understand what the ad agencies do. 

 

For a business to truly turn in house, they have two options: hire a full marketing team that creates all the advertising, marketing plans, evaluates their effectiveness and is able to respond accordingly. Alternatively, they can work with an outside agency with expertise in marketing to develop a plan and oversee the global implementation of that plan and have an in house response team that monitors social media, analytics and communicates directly with hired agency. This can help decrease the lag time in response and still provide for the expertise and evaluation that is vital to running a successful campaign.

 

For those companies that have the budget for a full marketing program it can make sense to shift things in house. For others, it is still necessary to work with a professional company, but having an in house team can really help campaign reach its full potential. 

 

https://hbr.org/2015/07/6-reasons-marketing-is-moving-in-house

NBA marketing tactics

If you are looking for an interesting marketing promotion, check out the one by the Golden State Warriors during the playoffs.

 

They put shirts on the back of every seat in the arena for fans to wear. During the contest, the color shows a huge base of support and since they keep the shirts and presumably wear them afterwards it shows support around the town, too.

 

If you run a stadium, this is worth looking into.

 

http://www.athleticbusiness.com/marketing/the-ab-extra-may-29.html?topic=6,300&eid=277204494&bid=1083940

 

Social media use in sports

New media, which includes social platforms, the internet and blogs, have changed the way that consumers access content. Understanding how they consume content is important for engagement and marketing to increase brand awareness.

 

73% of internet users actively engage on social media with the vast majority of the younger demographic being active. A research review on social media use was published in Sport Management Review and they describe three impacts that social media has: brands use social media strategically to build relationships with customers, brands seek to cultivate and sustain relationships operationally and users co-create content.

 

When brands use social media strategically they are seeking to engage with fans, communicate and develop relationships in order to build the brand. Brands use social media to promote the sport, rather than market promotions. By engaging in conversations with fans, brands can generate more ‘likes’ and increase users. Twitter can be used as a tool to disseminate information and promote messages and different platforms have different values: twitter is used for real time information and facebook enriches the consumer experience. While the platforms may differ, the use is to create relationships with users.

 

Opportunities and challenges exist through strategic social media use. The opportunities are enhanced knowledge of consumers, advanced interaction, effective engagement, and efficient use of resources. The challenges include lack of control, concerns about credibility, concerns of effectiveness, difficulties identifying true consumers and allocating organizational resources. I have written previously that activity on social media is expected among users, but may not transfer into direct revenue.

 

Operational use of social media consists of how brands utilize differing platforms on a day to day basis. Athletes posting about their personal lives allow fans to connect with the person behind the player and leads to more engagement. Brands engage their fans by offering behind the scenes looks into the daily routine of the players and staff. Social media use allows for a personal connection between the brand and the fan.

 

Users of social media vary depending on the brand. NCAA users are predominantly male, educated, affluent and older. Younger fans of the NCAA used facebook and youtube to connect and that twitter is not heavily used by college sport fans. Fans use social media to gather information regarding their favorite teams, players and organizations. There are gender differences in fan consumption based on the sport with women more likely to pay more attention to informational, commercial and social functions of the team’s social media. Fans are also more likely to follow those teams and programs that are more successful.

 

This article leaves us with some increased knowledge regarding social media use and allow brands to use these platforms more effectively. Strategic use allows the brand to communicate with fans, build relationships and promote activities. Operational use of social media by brands shows that they use social platforms to interact daily with fans, share behind the scenes footage, share news and information and promote the brand. Users of social media tend to be younger, educated and more male than female. Information that they are interested tends to be gathering information, entertainment and connecting with other fans. These conclusions are useful when evaluating your social media presence and content development.

 

Filo, K., Lock, D & Karg, A. Sport and social media research: a review. Sport Management Review (18) 2015. 166-181

Porter's 5 factors

I recently read Michael Porter’s 1979 HBR article on Competitive forces. It serves a great reminder of all the factors that can affect the business, and that a strong business takes into account the relationship of all those factors.

 

In quick summary the 5 factor model encompasses threat of new entrants, bargaining power of customers, threat of substitute products or services, bargaining power of suppliers and the current state of the industry including competitors. A pull or push from any of these directions can throw the business out of alignment. In order to hedge against the uncertain future, the business needs to constantly monitor to their environment.

 

Ongoing success lies in understanding the current state and planning for the future. This can be done in any number of ways. As Porter points out this can be done by creating strong relationships with buyers, entering a new technology partnership and differentiating the product through marketing. However, these are just possibilities, any number of areas can be effective for increasing or sustaining market share. Each possibility means that the current and future landscape needs to be assessed and understood when formulating the specific strategy.

 

A failure to accurate assess the landscape in any of the factors can lead to a loss of business or position. In the current business climate with so many niche companies not taking the time to survey the competition in close fields can lead to a deterioration of the existing customer base. A lack of attention to suppliers and buyers can mean that costs creep up and profits erode, or that the product is not in line with current trends.

 

The interactions on a company are many and understanding each of these factors can lead to ongoing business success.

Ivory tower marketing

If you are having trouble with your marketing plan it may be that you are not in touch with your target audience. If you do not engage in ongoing communication with your customer base, how can you meet their needs?

 

Running your marketing plan without getting to know your customers is not the most effective way to reach them. Sure, it may work in the short term, but it will not generate the interest and ongoing loyalty that is vital to growth and success. You may be one of the best in your fields, but if you lack the relationships with your customers then they will not purchase from you. Getting out and interacting with target audience where they are can help you gain a deeper understanding of their habits. What are the similarities in their purchases? Do they shop at similar places? Do they move in similar social circles? Where can you engage with them?

 

The best way to get to know your customers is to talk with them. If you show an interest in them they will respond in kind. They will know that you care about them as a person and do not look at them as a customer and just a source of income.

 

If you run your marketing from an office and rely on your perceptions of what your target audience wants, it can be seen as fake. People know when they are being talked at rather than being talked with. Marketing should be a conversation with your audience based on listening to what they want and need and offering solutions. If you are telling your potential customers what you think they want you could be missing the boat completely.

 

Take the time to interact with your base and really get to know them. Taking the time to nurture relationships will pay dividends in the long run through effective marketing, brand loyalty and referrals of new customers.

Growing a customer base

The ability of a business to develop a strong customer base will determine the value. The businesses that have more accessible, readily engaged customers were more likely to perform well in mergers and acquisitions. Now, this is considering those businesses that were bought by others, but the lessons can be transferred to others.

The brand recognition and brand value has been less important in the past few years than the ability of that business to have a strong customer base. The more these customers and potential customers can be converted into sales leads to the growth of the business.

In order to be a successful company, identify the customer you want to reach and determine what their needs/wants are. Then create a product that meets their needs, communicate with that customer and engage with them by demonstrating your desire to meet those needs. The customer will reward with the basics of business: sales. Business comes back to relationships. The better you establish and grow a relationship over time will result in a strong, stable customer base.

https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-strong-customer-relationships-trump-powerful-brands

How effective is social media?

If you use social media for marketing, do you know how effective it is? Chances are, it is not as effective as you want it to be.

 

The main goal of business is to create sales and generate revenue. Your marketing plan should be set up do just that. Most consumers expect that businesses will have a easily navigable website and social media presence, but putting a lot of marketing dollars toward that may not be the best use for those dollars. 

 

Any marketing plan and campaign should be evaluated for effectiveness. Knowing how many sales or new customers are created for each campaign is vital to see where your consumers are coming from. When posting content and ads via social media, the same applies: how many potential customers did it reach, of those, how many were converted into actual customers, how many new customers were created and how much did they spend. Knowing the answers to these questions will help to evaluate the effectiveness of your various campaigns.

 

Social media is an easy way to reach your current customers and creating content can be effective in setting your brand apart, but be wary about thinking that it is the golden marketing ticket. Only by evaluating the effectiveness of your platforms can you truly tell how beneficial they are in generating revenue. And revenue is what pays bills.

 

https://hbr.org/2015/03/is-social-media-actually-helping-your-companys-bottom-line

 

Fan engagement

The Carolina Panthers NFL franchise made quite the stir when they responded to the request of a 12 year old boy from Oklahoma who emailed all the NFL teams asking them why he should be a fan of their franchise. The only team to respond was the Panthers, and they did so in dramatic fashion: the owner of the team hand wrote a personal note to the boy and sent an autographed helmet to boot. That is certainly quite the way to earn a new fan, and keep your existing ones.

You definitely do not need to be a Professional sport team to learn from this simple gesture. When a client, potential client, or anyone for that matter, takes the time to contact you, return the favor. Think about how you feel when a manager responds to your inquiries and do likewise.  Acknowledging those that reach out to you is a great way to build trust, rapport and loyalty in your business. Instead of viewing the task as tedious reframe it as an opportunity.

Whenever someone contacts you, it is a chance to share how great your business is and how much you look forward to sharing it with others. To make the task easier you can develop templates for common inquiries and add a personal touch to ensure that it does not have the feel of a form letter.

When you look at your schedule and amount of tasks that you have to do, remember that taking time every day to respond to emails and letters is a great marketing and engagement tool.

 

U of M and Adidas Partnership

The competition for lucrative Collegiate partnerships continues with shoe and clothing manufacturers.

The University of Miami is expected to sign a sponsorship deal with Adidas worth $33 million over 8 years. Miami will get all of its uniforms branded with the Adidas name and logo, and in return Adidas will hopefully sell branded merchandise to loyal fans.

The long range goal for the manufacturing companies is that the fans and younger athletes become loyal to the brand. If a fan wears branded merchandise and likes it, the company hopes they will make more purchases of the brand. In this way, they generate a lot of long term revenue from their team affiliations through merchandise, shoes, and other recreational wear that the fans purchase from them.

An interesting development is the fact that these affiliations are wide spread and include High School Club teams. When these elite travel and club teams are sponsored by the manufacturers the athletes get comfortable with their brand and style of clothing and footwear. The question posed is whether this comfort actually has the ability to dictate school choice to a University that is sponsored by the same company.

Sporting companies have become very savvy with their sponsorships and who they choose to affiliate with. It appears that these affiliations are paying off in a big way.

 http://www.athleticbusiness.com/more-news/recruiting-impact-of-u-miami-s-adidas-deal.html?topic=1,300&eid=277204494&bid=987492

Marketing

Between my graduate coursework and my taking on more marketing responsibilities at work, I have come to realize how vitally important marketing is to an organization. Before learning more about it I did not fully grasp this importance and was ineffective in my ability to market the programs that I was in charge of. While I thought the programs themselves were good, they were not advertised properly where the potential customers would see and become excited about them, which led to lower sales.

This leads me the first thing I learned; marketing is customer focused. Advertising is sales focused with the result being to buy the product. But, marketing is placing the product in front of the desired customer and having them see at it and realize this is what they were looking for. It is geared toward the wants, needs and desires of the customer.

The typical marketing plan consists of understanding the P's, product, price, placement and promotion. While these are very important in helping to understand what the product is and what the value is to the organization, it is not necessarily meeting objective number one. The P's are indeed important, but need to revolve around the needs of the customer and therefor meet the needs of the organization.

Understanding your customer involves a lot of work. There are a lot of people available to see your product on any given day, but how many of them are potential customers? You need to know where they live, what the competition is and how you are different. It is important to engage with your customers to learn what they want, need or desire and then deliver it to them. Trying to dictate to them what they need is advertising, and not successful in the long term. Communicating with them about they actually want creates a deeper bond and establishes brand loyalty.

Be wary with how you utilize social media. Social media has made it easier than ever to engage in dialogue with your customers and learn more about them. It can also be very tempting to place a lot of advertising and promotions on social media for your customers to see. If your posts are routinely advertisements, your customers will start to tune you out. Instead, use social media to develop a greater overall picture of your organization. Incorporate educational material into your posts so that your customer can learn more information that is valuable to them. This leads them to see you as the expert. Incorporate some personal information and fun into your posts. Social media is personal and it allows your to showcase your personality. This helps your customers see the real people behind the organization. If some of the posts are fun, the customers feel that they are missing something if they are not engaging with you. Once they start to see that your posts are fun, education and personal they will respond better when you do place that product advertisement  or promotion in front of them. First, develop a relationship to learn about their problem, then place your product (or solution to their problem) in front of them.

Value of Marketing

I just read Theodore Levitt's Harvard Business Review article "Marketing Myopia" where he argues that every industry used to be a growth industry at some point in its history. He explains that companies go through similar life events; growth, maturity and decay and that without adapting to the world around them, companies die.

He believes that there are no growth companies, rather, companies take advantage of growth opportunities, and the better a company is able to identify those opportunities, and exploit them, leads to its growth and survival.

Companies need to spend more time looking outward and not be as focused on what is happening inward. This allows them to understand their customers; their wants, needs, and desires and then place their product in front of them in a manner that meets those needs. Companies that focus inward only work on trying to create the next big thing or to develop their product that they then try and get customers to like and buy. But, if they never understand what it is that they want, they leave themselves open to stagnation and competitors who deliver superior products.

In order to understand the customer, companies need to develop a relationship with them and engage in meaningful dialogue. This has never been easier than in the era of social media where customers expect companies to be available. A company is now able to reach their customers (or at least the percentage of their customers that use social media) and perform their own market research. They get instant feedback on their products, what is liked, what is not liked, what they wish it did, and in turn bring that information to their product developers and challenge them to make it better. This new, and customer inspired, product is then brought out for consumption and the process can begin again.

In order to avoid the declining stage of a company's life, it needs to be aware of what is happening in its environment and adapt accordingly. The old adage 'adapt of die' is very true in business. In order to stay relevant and maintain their customer base, business have to create products that customers want, improve the product over time and adapt to what the market shows.

Event observations

I worked a Track and Field event yesterday and have made some observations on the organization of it thanks to my Graduate work.

The timeliness, preparation and ability of the staff was very good. Everyone knew what their job was and kept the meet moving to prevent backups and lost time.

 

The organizers were not as easy to find. I was there for 7 hours in the training room and did not see a single event manager. 

There was also a problem with the spectators. Due to the venue their was limited space around the track and that is where a lot of the spectators gathered. This made it very difficult to navigate through the facility and in the event of an emergency it would be catastrophic. A better option would be to close the perimeter off to spectators and have a loading area for coaches and teams on the infield or another side location once they entered the facility. Fans should be moved to the above seating or had another area set up that did not interfere with flow. 

From my perspective, there was not enough supplies for the event and that is something that I should have noticed beforehand. I also did not have a way to track the athletes that I saw and in the future need to have a way to document who was seen, for what, and what recommendations were given. 

Overall, it is a very successful event and the number of teams make it hard to stay on time and anticipate everything. Making notes on an ongoing basis will consistently help make it even better.