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:

1. EARNEST’S CUNNING...
10 WAYS TO MAKE
SPORTS MARKETING
WORK HARDER

2. 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.

3. 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’.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.