Sport writing for marketing and promotions has taught me a lot about the marketing world and has helped me understand promotions. I have not taken a marketing class in about 2 years; but I have learned that marketing your product is a big part of the sport industry. In order to market your product you have to evaluate, describe, and develop information about your product and know your goals of where you want this product to be in the future. Get to know your target market and understand what they want instead of what you want.
I think I learned the most about the promotional side of sport. Being able to promote your product to your target market is the key to getting fans or customers attracted to your product. Sports promotions have to be short and sweet and something that will catch the customer’s eye. Writing about all of the different sports organizations and ways they have promoted their company or product has been very interesting to learn about. Being creative and innovative with promotions will set you apart from other companies or organizations.
 My sport sector that I chose was fitness centers. Now more than ever, fitness has become a main focus for the current generation and the future generation. More and more fitness centers are popping up all around communities. I have thought about some ideas to market these fitness centers to draw in more customers. - Don’t make visitors pay for the first time they “visit.” Sometimes people just want a trial run of the gym to see if they like the equipment, environment, and atmosphere of your fitness center. Give the customer a trial week of your fitness center or if you can’t afford to have free weeks, charge a small fee of $1.
- Have a loyalty program. Some fitness centers get wrapped up about getting new customers. Why not look at the customers you already have? Set up a loyalty program for your current gym goers that visit you 4 or more times a week. Give out free t-shirts for the first month, free bags, water bottles, etc. for the first 6 -8 months. Bump up the incentives with free gym programs, protein shakes weekly, etc. Once you show that you appreciate your current gym rats, word of mouth will kick in and help you gain more and more customers that want to stay loyal to you.
- Promote events. Have different activities set up that are led by your trainers such as; boot camps, bicycling/spinning classes, kick boxing, Zumba, etc. Find exciting things that people will be interested in. Recently the new kick is P90X or Intensity.
- Have an easy to use website. With technology today it is easier to reach out to people. Make sure your website has what your fitness center has (equipment, smoothie bar, trainers…), prices, availability. Websites can be very useful to your gym rats, especially if you put up helpful services like, diet trackers, workout trackers, and biggest loser competitions. This will help the customers be more involved in your center. Make sure there are a lot of pictures, be clear on prices, and be sure to advertise any promotions.
- Create a blog. Creating a blog about the fitness center will keep customers up to date on what’s going on. You can put up daily exercise tips, diet and nutrition tips, wellness, weight-lifting workouts, new sports updates, ANYTHING! This is also another way to communicate with your community.
- Create a Facebook page. Technology is taking over whether we like it or not. People are always online looking for new and interesting things. Creating a Facebook page for the your fitness center can help you communicate with your gym members or interested gym members. You can also put up promotions on this page. For example; 30% off protein shakes if you say the word “I love my fitness center” for today only! Simple promotions that will attract your members to your page every day to see if there are any new promotions they can take advantage of.
Kellogg The Kellogg Company’s stock took an immediate dive following its decision to drop Michael Phelps after the news of the swimmers bong hit photo came out to the public. Come to find out, drug reform organizations make up a big amount of the Kellogg stock. What began as a coordinated boycott, quickly escalated into full-blown media frenzy as major news outlets picked up the story. Digg.com (a pot friendly website) began directing massive traffic to news coverage that was critical of Kellogg’s anti-marijuana posturing; which increased the campaigns visibility among likely supporters.The negative publicity has impacted the company. Before Kellogg got rid of Phelps, it was ranked ninth out of the 5,600 Vanno Reputation Index monitors; now it’s ranked 83. Dropping Phelps has hurt their company a lot more than Kellogg had expected, and I believe it was a decision on a business side; but for the reputation and the “good name” of Kellogg, I think the decision was good. If Kellogg would have kept Phelps with their company it would have sent a bad image to children about drug use.
Speedo Speedo decided against dropping Phelps after his marijuana incident. I think this was a good decision for the Speedo Company because it is a big force in the swimming world, and Michael Phelps is the best swimmer in the world. To drop one of the biggest swimmers would have been drastic drop for the Speedo name. Speedo understands that Phelps is at an age where he is going to experiment. Phelps is more in the spot light than the average college student; but he is still a human being who is going to want to go out and party and have a good time. Mistakes will be made and it would be difficult to look at Phelps any different during the off season.
Moral Clauses Olympic athlete’s sports contracts do have moral clauses which attempt to keep athletes in line while under contract. This gives the endorser of marketer the right to break a contract if an athlete acts up in some way. How contracts work when an athlete messes up is that they with-hold payments to the athlete. Armstrong was with-held $5 million after winning his sixth Tour following allegations of doping. US Anti-Doping Agency has stripped Armstrong of his titles. The implications that are put on Olympians are made so that those athletes can be looked at as idols and models for the younger generation and place good morals to young athletes around the world.
 Free hats and autograph days have been known to attract more fans for games that teams know won’t sell well for the stadium. Considering you will always have your die-hard MLB fans that are season ticket holders, how else do you draw more fans to games?
Some ways to attract more college and older fans to games would be cheap draft beer days. $2 draft beer will attract a lot of college students looking for good entertainment and cheap drinks.
For a more family filled crowd, a stadium could promote $2 hotdog sales. This will draw in families with more than 2 kids because it will be cheaper to accommodate the children’s needs of food and drinks at the game, while also entertaining the parents with the baseball game.
A good way that will get people’s attention to go to the stadium is having events set up outside of the stadium. Having sponsors set up events like a pre-game barbeque in the parking lot or fun games like corn hole tournaments will give fans another incentive to come to the game.
Technology can also help bring in fans. Having promotions or free giveaways on the teams Facebook page will entice them to join in on game day activities. Post contests of giveaway tickets, 50% off tickets, free t-shirts, behind the plate seats, first pitch specials, signed jerseys, etc.
All of these promotions are means to sell out seats. Fans are looking for more than just the game to go to; most want to make a day out of the event. By giving fans opportunities and choices to be involved in or if possible, make it cheaper, then they will gain more fans.
Getting the fans there is one thing, but I thing another big part of filling the seats is keeping the fans happy while they are at the game and making sure they enjoy their time so they want to come back again and again. I think creating a loyalty program will entice fans to want to come to more games during the regular season if they have incentives to keep coming such as; free food and beverage, free autographed t-shirts or meeting players.
- Social networking is becoming a popular topic for marketing. Players and teams are using different ways to attract fans to their social media accounts in multiple ways. The teams and players understand that their fans and followers have a short attention span and have many other things going on while they are also looking at their social media networks. The key that players and teams are trying to do is be at the top of their important list; this is an importance list that audiences have:
1. Un-miss-able. Everything you create must be given attention.
2. Important. Relevant and important, but can be set aside to be looked at later (and potentially forgotten).
3. Relevant. The content is useful, and relevant, but it’s not important enough to take priority.
4. Mildly interesting. Seems interesting, but there’s too much incoming to pay any attention.
5. Noise. Considered spam or is completely irrelevant. Might as well be invisible.
Players want to create true fans (life-long fans) and want to give their fans something to be a part of. Players are showing that they care about their fans by creating memorable experiences for their fans. Some ways they can do this is:
1. Create a short, personalized thank-you video for repeat customers.
2. Spend time at an event personally shaking each person’s hand.
3. Create an unexpected bonus entertainment clips.
4. Answer as many tweets or comments as possible.
5. Reward the fans with personal fan gear, make it personalized and special.
The Super Bowl is known, of course, to be the big game for the NFL. It's what every team wants to play in. According to Huff Post Media, the Super Bowl was watched by 108.7 million people and is one of the most watched television event in 2013. In the past, Super Bowl viewers averaged about 111 million showing that this years Super Bowl fell a little short. The big difference of the lower amount of viewers has to do a lot with the black out that happened just after half-time. It was reported that, still, 106.6 million people watched the power outage; which was just highlights of the first half and watching the players stretch. I think that most people stopped watching the game because of how badly the game was going. The Ravens were taking control and beating the 49ers 21-6. The other big reason viewers dropped the show was because of the black out. I think that a good amount stuck around and watched the blackout process were people who wanted to finish watching the game and because they wanted to see more commercials.
One of peoples favorite things about the Super Bowl isn't just the game, but is about the commercials. People who aren't that big of football fans will want to watch the game just to see what unique and funny commercials that will come on. Commercials are one way to advertise at the Super Bowl but there are also many other companies that advertise in the Superdome. One of the big advertisement signs that I saw was the Mercedes symbol that was located as a cover when the players came out to the field in the beginning of the game and they had another big logo sign that was in the very center on top of the Superdome that they showed during the blackout. Another advertisement that people don't notice that often because they are use to seeing the name on every players helmet in any other game is Riddell. Riddell is the company that makes the helmets for the players and there name can be seen some chin straps and always on the back of the helmet. Another place that advertisements fill up is the electronic banner that goes around the whole stadium. Some of the advertisements that I could see were: Verizon, Mitsubishi, All-State, Ochsner, Bud Light, Crown Royal, People's Health, and Coca Cola. I'm sure there were many more but those where the ones that I could quickly read. And lastly, Gatorade. Gatorade was on both side lines and had big water containers with bright orange and their label written across so everyone could notice it when the camera's showed the players on the side lines.
The two big sponsors of the night were Jeep and Pepsi because they were the companies that put on the half time show. Jeep was the bigger one of the two but Pepsi was also apart of it as well.
All of these companies had advertisements that were different from commercials. This just shows that there are other ways to advertise to get people to notice you.
People are always looking for other people's opinions on everything and anything. When blogging your thoughts and opinions, you don't know if people will hate what you have to say or if they will love it and agree with you. People are attracted to things they can relate to, once people see your opinions and agree with some things that you say, you can develop a fan base. This fan base will give you people who are interested in what you have to say and are asking for your opinion which will alter their thinking of a product or a team or a recipe or anything.
A lot of people are just out looking for someone who is honest and willing to share their thoughts and help them answer questions. Blogging also gives people the chance to interact with you. People like to get answers now and the internet is one of the places they look for quick and easy answers that are easily answered and straight to the point.
Another benefit of blogging is that it opens your mind up to other opinions and other ways people think about the same issues. It makes you start critically thinking about issues and how to address your opinions in a way that everyone will understand and be able to relate to.
Blogging is selling both yourself and your event. Even though I will be blogging about the Los Angeles Lakers and that's what people will be reading about but I'm also sharing my thoughts with people; by sharing my thoughts its promoting the Lakers team and Lakers program.
By blogging, you'll have a better understanding about what your readers like and don't like. Understanding and gathering information from your readers you can help answer their questions and make them want your opinions.
If I were hired by a team to maintain a fan blog spot I would constantly be writing and keeping fans updated on what is going on. Always having new content for readers to look at will keep them interested and always looking forward to whats coming up. I would also always be marketing the blog and create links throughout the blog so readers will be able to find the blog through simple search engines. I would also stay connected to other blog sites and comment on other blogs, creating a connection and network with other bloggers; this way my blog will get noticed by other readers and grow a larger
My relationship with sports has been throughout my entire life. My parents both played sports growing up and passed their competitiveness and passion for sports on to me. I started playing soccer when I was around 5 and wanted to be just like Mia Hamm and thought I was going to become a professional soccer player until I stepped onto the basketball court when I was 8 years old. I realized how much more talented I was from the other kids and wanted to be better than everyone I came up against. My older brother was my biggest rival and he never went easy on me. I put basketball into my life and it started to become one of my top priorities. I played all year round and never stopped. I decided to further my education while taking on the challenge of being a collegiate student and Tiffin University was able to give me the opportunity to follow my dreams. Now that my basketball career is almost over I know that I want to keep sport I love in my life as much as possible. I intend to stay in the sports and recreation field of work and potentially become a women's basketball coach. I know I will be a passionate consumer of all sports. I am interested in any and all sports that is available.
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