Use Twitter To Keep Your Audience Engaged!

I believe that the majority of people today underestimate the power of new media distribution channels, especially social media, and how they can be successful tools in marketing products and services. These media channels allow businesses to target their audience in a fun, easy going and casual but engaging type of atmosphere. More businesses should take advantage of this innovative opportunity in order to better market themselves and connect with their consumers on a more personal level.

Using Social Media to successfully market an event or organization can be tricky. Its imperative you understand that every “friend” “like” and “follow” are simply clicks of a mouse for most online users. Just because someone follows you, doesn’t mean they automatically became a fan or loyal consumer of your online presence/brand. If you want real attention you need to fight for it; ensure your audience that you want to be heard; there are many effective ways to use social media in order to do this successfully. I believe that Twitter is an extremely effective tool that’s perfect for keeping your audience continuously engaged on a platform that never sleeps, which is why I choose Twitter as my focus during this week’s discussion post.

Twitter can be used in many ways to promote an organization or some of its sponsors or partners. The following techniques will be used on Twitter to help the audience to develop a deeper emotional connection with the organization or sponsored event. Keeping an emotional tone that the audience can relate to will only further their interest in the objective.

Photos/Videos - Having photographs/video enables you to add a visual element that opens up many more emotions then just words themselves. In this age of multimedia and mass communication it’s obvious that visual communication efforts can be more powerful then verbal communication. Showing success, excited fans and local communities can make a strong emotional impact. Visual elements, like photos, aren’t restricted by language barriers and other things that could be results of misunderstands and miscommunications. You are able to communicate with different cultures to deliver the same message without the use of words. Photographs are able to communicate by evoking emotions, you want to evoke curiosity with these visual elements… make people want to see the events, be there to witness the outcome, to be part of something bigger. These types of photos are authentic, these photos are honest, the delivery is clear the audience knows what to expect.

Contests - Online contests could be posted on websites or accessible though the appropriate Twitter account. (i.e. Sharing a photo, updating your status, liking a fan page, following a twitter account, attending a particular game and/or event)

Events/Promotions - Any events; press conference, media day, community event, promotion, contest or giveaway associated with the organization or event will be announced via Twitter. Encouragement to share the information will also help to reach a larger audience.

Message Points – Key message points associated with an organizations event or sponsorship can easily be delivered to an audience via Twitter. These can be “selling points” for sponsored events. These persuasive messages should drive media and consumers to action.

Communication – Interacting with and developing organic communication with an organizations key audience.

Live Results – Post final results and outcomes of games and particular events to keep the online audience well informed.    

Growing Your Brand

It’s no surprise that sports play a vital role in today’s society. For most people, attending a sporting event is a mere form of entertainment but the die-hard, avid fans are much more connected to the event. Sports organizations have to put projects or “events” in place that cater to the needs of both avid fans and casual observers without overwhelming or underwhelming each party equally. Catering to as many demographics is essential in growing your brand image, recognition and loyalty. Building brand equity and presence within key demographics is a strong and bold move to make, but it’s also a necessary one. There are many different on-site and on-line factors that make fans remember brands and their experiences. The following 5 initiatives will help to grow, maintain and extend an organization’s relevance within the sports industry.

1) Incentives & Loyalty Programs – Who doesn’t like to win exclusive merchandise? Fan participation is essential in keeping your brand relevant. Incentives grant fans the opportunity to stay engaged with the brand while at the same time participating in an exciting opportunity to win exclusive prizes from their favorite teams. These types of incentives are important because they motivate and engage all fans in the stands, whether avid or casual. These initiatives motivate the organizations target audience to support their brand while attending or watching the sporting event. Today’s consumers are more empowered and savvier then ever with the fast growing improvements in technology, keeping your audience engaged and entertained during each game throughout the season can be a challenge, but with proper project management, can be done. A fan needs to feel that they are properly entertained in order to feel 100% satisfaction. A great example of a “staple” incentive program is the 50/50 raffle. Another fun and engaging way of utilizing incentives in order to boost interaction and brand equity is allowing fans to participate via SMS by predicting outcomes to questions posted by broadcasters and other social media accounts during pre-game festivities. Those who predict correctly will be entered to win a random prize drawing. This encourages the fans that would otherwise not participate in pre/post game programming/events to take action and submerse themselves in a new and enticing part of an organizations brand. Fan loyalty projects are important because sports fans have a direct influence on sporting events through emotional ties to the organization and dedicated financial support. Sports fans are consistently looking for satisfaction and recognition for supporting their local sports organization. Without fans, sports organizations wouldn’t survive. Loyalty programs give fans a sense of power, enlightenment and accomplishment that further enhances their loyalty to the team.

2) Second Screen and Social Strategy – Capitalizing on this swift shift towards a second-screen and more social experience is an essential part of staying relevant in this new age online world. It’s important that an organization capitalizes on key conversations happening throughout social platforms in order to keep their overall brand image consistent while providing meaningful content for their fans. This is especially true in the sports industry. Transparency between teams and their respective fans is fading more and more each and every day. Fans want and need to be included in the latest headline grabbing topics related to injuries, signings, extensions, winning/losing streaks, rivalries and unexpected wins/loses. Fans feel like they have earned the right to voice their opinion and gain access to exclusive news stories and announcements from their favorite sports teams. Accomplishing transparency that these fans crave can be done through social media strategies like “hashtag” branded conversations on Twitter and special announcements/forums via personalized applications. These social outlets allow for a more personalized experience for fans; exactly what they are looking for.

Extending second screen options and unique social media experiences is a great way to stay on top of consistent branding. These social platforms give fans a centralized location to access and discuss the topics they care about; ultimately creating a community feel. By “owning” this community it becomes extremely easy to understand and evaluate the topics and mediums fans are most willing to engage on; this allows the organization to identify and develop targeted content that they know will resonate with fans. By continuing this strategy over and over again, you’re able to gain higher volumes of engagement over longer periods of time.

3) Youth Programs – The involvement and creation of youth programs within an organization shows that you are dedicated to nourishing the minds and bodies of children that will eventually become supporters of your organization in the future. Its so important to create memorable events for these children because when they become parents they will remember the great times they had while at youth programs, resulting in them wanting their children to have the same childhood experience they did. This type of chain reaction could form a type of family bond and tradition within generations of families to come.

4) Community Outreach - Community Projects are important because volunteerism plays a huge part in communities on every level. By giving back to your community, you are not only helping the surrounding area to grow stronger but the organization itself becomes stronger. Volunteering and bettering your community can cause positive reactions that make the world a better place for everyone. Showing your community that you embrace your “corporate” social responsibility demonstrates high ethical standards and a decrease in community transparency. By helping to clean up local schools, parks and recreation areas your showing a balanced and understood mutual respect for your fans and their “home” aka community and what they do in order to support your organization. Communities keep sports teams alive, its important that a sports organization shows their appreciation for their success within the community.

5) Foundations – The benefits of associating your organizations brand with foundations that hold a special place in the hearts of Americans across the nation are virtually endless and will help to form a special distinction between you and your competitors. Sports fans are emotional beings; there’s no doubt about that, so evoking a special emotional relationship between two powerful brands could prove to be a successful strategy. By aligning your organization with a powerful movement, you’re creating a whole new level of involvement not only within your immediate community, but also within the entire nation as a whole. Forming a strong relationship with these types of foundations will boost the organizations brand image and recognition almost instantaneously. Forming partnerships with foundations such as Jimmy V, The Special Olympics and Suzan G Komen can help to form and promote further key partnerships within the global sports community. This type of project initiative will help to initiate and spread compassion and acceptance in a way that can truly unite individual communities around the globe. These partnerships could also help to attract individuals that currently are not part of an organizations current target audience. Lets say that your organization partnered up with Suzan G Komen. Through a specially sponsored “Women’s Day” event or game, you can draw a different demographic then the organization might usually otherwise draw – the female demographic. An organization should never stop focusing on creating new sponsorships and events that will introduce a broader audience to all of their already established events. 

Key Components of Striking “That” Deal and Maintaining A Business Relationship

As a marketer, we like to tell stories – stories of brands, products, needs and wants etc. Marketing is all about how to tell the right story to the right audience. There are many components that go into telling the “perfect story” and each and everyone of them should be equally important. Follow these tips in order to secure the deal that marks the beginning of a strong long lasting business relationship.

INTEGRITY: The key to have a successful business relationship is integrity. Without integrity the relationship is likely to fail. There are many attributes that go along with presenting yourself with integrity. You must possess and portray the following traits:

-       Honesty

-       Truthfulness

-       Honor

-       Reliability

-       Communication

Beyond integrity, is how we present ourselves in entirety. The tone of our voices, facial expressions and body movements can all often tell a different story then the words flowing from our mouths. How you present yourself can make all the difference in how others respond to what you have to say. By simply changing the tone of your voice or increasing facial expressions along with body movements, you can relay to the opposing party your position and how you feel about the topic on hand. Using a raised, high-pitched tone along with a smile and raised eye-brows shows genuine excitement in a proposed marketing plan or mutual product or service. 

Before going into a business meeting or proposal there are many things you should do in order to prepare yourself. First, you should show respect for the opposing business, become aware of the company you want to work with. Research who they are, what they do, where they stand in the business world, previous marketing campaigns, the culture they come from etc. Knowing whom you are working with gives you the advantage in finding a common ground. Finding a common ground is important because it’s a legit basis for the beginning of a potential relationship. In order to achieve this, find similarities in your business models, the fact that you both do business using the same principals eludes to a smooth business relationship in the future. If you are doing business with someone from another country, his or her culture is sure to be different. Research their culture – know what displays respect and stay away from what displays disrespect, no matter where the business meeting takes place.

First impressions are everything. In the business world it’s not all about who you can impress, who you can entertain and who you can immediately relate to using personal antidotes. Social relationships hinder the ability to grow and foster professional business relationships inside and outside the workplace. There is a major difference between a social relationship with a business partner and a business relationship with a business partner. You want to make a quality first impression and introduction. Always be genuine and deliver value without expecting an immediate payoff. Your business is their number one priority and that should be known immediately. You should be true to yourself and remain sincere; be authentic to yourself. People want to do business with who you ARE, how who you think they want you to BE.

Once you have shown your self in a true light, be sure to communicate your added value and long-term approaches. Adding value gives people a reason to associate with you, always offer to give more than you expect to receive. Think long term, not just about the task at hand. Make it known that you are aware of their upcoming or new projects and how you can use the same strengths for this project to launch and propel their upcoming initiatives into success. By doing this your showing a commitment and personal investment in their brand.

Start with understanding where you and the other person sit today (show facts, charts, numbers, graphs etc.) as well as like goals and objectives that will lead to a better tomorrow. Showing them how you can achieve greatness for their products shows initiative. When both parties trust each other and are working toward common goals, you diminish the vendor-client relationship and merge to a partnership where both parties are seen as trusted advisors, working together to achieve the same goals.

Let them know that you’ve thought ahead. Explain that you’ve thought through every aspect of your business/marketing plan and development by identifying unlikely potential issues with the plan. Be sure to rectify that with a well thought out crisis management plan specific to their initiative. Show them that you will know what to do in order to handle and work through potential problems.

Once you’ve nailed down that first business deal, its time to work on building a strong business partnership for the long haul.  Get to know one another personally and professionally. Keep things friendly and “safe” – stay away from controversial topics like religion and politics. Spark neutral conversations about family, vacation spots, children and sports. To be successful, you have to carefully balance the perfect work-life professional business relationship… it can be done!

Be prepared to answer any and all questions they throw at you with grace and confidence. Showing confidence in yourself and in your past work/decisions and other will believe that you have confidence in their brand.

Here are a few more tips on how to maintain a strong relationship:

* During the relationship, you must be competent, reliable and trustworthy.

* Delivering on promises is essential to developing and maintaining credibility.

* You much also continually help one another, stay active in their business and social network

* Follow-up and follow through. Communication is key! Maintain communication with daily phone calls, emails, scheduled follow-up meetings and/or business lunches. Once you have initiated a relationship, you much nurture it and make it flourish.

* Understand what they are NOT saying and understand what they ARE saying. The customer is always right, especially when it comes to developing and supporting brand management. Just because you don’t agree with the implementation or marketing goals/messages doesn’t mean your way is the right way. Its all about supporting individually and bringing someone else’s vision to life, no matter what your personal thoughts are. Brands are individual and unique; keep it that way.

* Empower them

Using Fan Engagement To Increase Season Ticket Sales

For this weeks assignment/post I was asked to come up with a high-level marketing strategy concept using a new mobility system aimed at selling next years season ticket holders for an NHL organization. “The Owner” of this team would like for me to develop a marketing plan that will utilize a new wireless network that was recently deployed in his arena. Throughout this course I have learned a lot and become pretty familiar with Cisco’s Connected Stadium; so I will be basing my marketing concept off of Cisco’s capabilities.

Now more then ever, everyone is focused on increasing fan engagement no matter what the industry or sport. The question here is, how can sports organizations and clubs better engage their organizations supporters (aka season ticket holders and fans) to drive better attendance and revenues all around.

My marketing strategy is simple; there are two major components:

    1. Show season ticket holders how much the organization appreciates their business.

    2. Expose non-season ticket holders to the added value in becoming a season ticket holder

Cisco’s StadiumVision will allow the integration and automated delivery of customized and dynamic content from multiple sources to different areas of the stadium.

It’s no secret that an organizations lifeblood are their season ticket holders; they spend the most amount of money and they are more likely to refer business to the club then any individual ticket purchaser. Organizations should take every opportunity they can in order to show their appreciation to season ticket holders throughout the season. My marketing plan involves rewarding these dedicated individuals using targeted advertising and the following promotions and events:

• Give them access (video, audio, photos, text) to former organization stars during commercial breaks, intermissions and time-outs. This gives dedicated fans the opportunity to connect with the clubs history of “greatness”, furthering their drive to support the team they love.
• Have short video snippets of players personally thanking season ticket holders (at random) for supporting the organization, their teammates and their careers. These messages would include encouragement and excitement in seeing them throughout the season and future seasons to come.
• Give these individuals “insider access” to exclusive news, insights, announcements, Press Releases, player tidbits etc. These exclusive features will not only be accessed while in the arena (in dedicated season-ticket holder areas) but can also be accessed via their smartphones, tablets and computers at home via mobile application and downloads.
• Display special codes during intermissions or other dedicated times throughout the game for season ticket holders to enter a drawing via their phones to win two extra tickets during the teams playoff series. During each home game a new season ticket holder will be given the opportunity to win these tickets. The idea is, that season ticket holders can bring their friends and family to an exciting playoff game, showering them with a fun, high-energy atmosphere that they would potentially want to be a part of for the upcoming season.

Targeting your average home game “single ticket” purchaser at the venue is fairly easy, there are a lot of them… but, its properly engaging them with visual content in order to evoke emotions that lead them to WANT to be season ticket holders themselves that’s challenging. If it were easy, every NHL organization would have a wait list pages long… and I’m afraid that’s not the case. I would suggest implementing the following promotions and events in order to raise awareness about the value in becoming a season ticket holder:

• Deploy a personalized video campaign to play on player’s personalities, the mascot and coaching staff via short viral videos displayed throughout the stadium on all digital platforms. This will allow fans to feel a deeper connection to the organization.
• Show short video feed of clips and still photos captured during exclusive season ticket holder events. These visuals will show both children and adults smiling, having fun, interacting with players and enjoying a great experience as a family or with friends. This will help to spark that need or want to also be a part of the exclusivity that comes along with being a season ticket holder.
• Hold contests or giveaways that include prizes from the organization’s top local and national sponsors in order to reward fans who sign up to become season ticket holders or renew their season tickets with the organization. The team would announce winners during home games via all digital platforms (billboards, concessions, TV’s, display screens, etc.) If these individuals happen to miss the announcement at the game or aren’t attending the game, the winners will be announced via all other platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Website, mobile application and Pinterest)
• Most of the time money can be the biggest factor when it comes to making a decision about becoming a season ticket holder. I would like to encourage the organization to come up with a new, fresh and inviting variable ticket and dynamic pricing options/packages in order to push ticket revenue via specific digital boards and screens throughout the arena. Show fans that you understand their situation and continue in inviting them to be a part of your organization at a more affordable cost/rate.
• Customer service can be another issue that might deter fans from becoming season ticket holders. When you come across an issue, the last thing someone wants to do is talk to an automated machine or be kept on hold for an extended amount of time. The club should display customer service contact information on digital display boards at all times. Tell your fans that customer service is your number one priority and that there will always be someone waiting and willing to give you the attention and necessary information your looking for when it comes to anything season ticket related.
• Encourage fans to upload pictures or videos of themselves or check in at the game via all social media platforms directed with specific hashtags. Winners will be chosen and displayed during commercial breaks or timeouts.
• Display messages like “Order your season tickets today for exclusive team access” and “Renew your season tickets today in order to stay a step above the rest!”
• Thank fans during the last period of the game and invite them to check out the teams website or call customer service in order to check out special sales or promotions on upcoming season tickets.

My goal here is simple, I want to engage fans early, get them thinking about the season ahead, so this marketing campaign should start almost immediately. I think that it’s also important to deepen their engagement with fans during emotionally crucial points in the season, like playoff placements, playoff finals and big games against rivals. Added entertainment values mean a lot to fans and by implementing a marketing strategy like the follow could have the potential to greatly increase season ticket sales for future or upcoming seasons. Its not ALL about being aggressive but being approachable, spark emotion and show fans the value THEY add to the organization, without them there would be no organization. With this marketing strategy, every fan is a potential prospect and they should be aware of that.

Cisco Connected Stadium

After going over, reviewing and learning about the various types of wireless designs introduced to us this week, I found it quite easy to pin point one that I would use for a large stadium. Cisco, hands down, seems to the best there is in the business.

Implementing a Cisco Connected Stadium improves business functions and creates new, fun and exciting in-stadium experiences for fans. Sports venues across America all face the same problem; how can they enhance the in-stadium experience so that its just as good or surpasses the comfortable personalized experience each fan gets at home. Year after year, sports teams are seeing a major decline in in-game or in-stadium attendance because the at home experience is virtually unbeatable.

What I like about Cisco’s Network is that it seems to seamlessly connect all forms of access, communications, entertainment and video feed, sponsorships and stadium operations onto one innovative platform. Cisco provides stadiums with the important flexibility it needs to go hand in hand with delivering enhanced experiences for fans while in-stadium at a live event. This system even supports and generates new revenue streams and offers cost-effective and efficient ways to manage daily operations. Imagine being able to order food right from your seat using a network that Cisco would be able to provide fans while sitting in their seats. Tools and features like this deliver endless possibilities and could open up doors to all sorts of additional revenue streams.

Cisco also goes the extra mile to make sure its stadiums are 100% connected in every sense. They provide the Wi-Fi strength and signals fans need in order to easily upload and share live game content and data with their friends online virtually glitch free.  They are aware and familiar with a sports stadiums infrastructure and they know the do’s and don’ts of placing and integrating access points in the appropriate spaces/places. For example, they keep important access points away from elevator shafts and steel beams that are scattered throughout a traditional sports stadium. The elements related to these steel objects interfere with an access points signal…knowing this is imperative when building a network that should support thousands of people all at the same time.

Here are just a few of Cisco’s Wi-Fi Specifications that assist them in providing fans with an innovative and elaborative in-stadium experience:

- Support for 802.11 a/b/g/n

- Wide variety of 2.4- and 5-GHz access points and antennas

- Specialized hardware like stadium grade antennas

- Cisco BandSelect technology for encouraging device to use the less crowded 5-GHz band

- Cisco VLAN Select feature for grouping VLANS to accommodate very large pools of Wi-Fi devices

- Cisco ClientLink technology to improve the uplink and downlink performance of 802.11a/g clients

Information Found Here: http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/sports/c78-675063_dSheet.pdf