Sports CDP Crash Course - Data Talks

Some time ago we at Data Talks wanted to truly understand what sports organizations’ biggest pain points were. Serving the sports industry in the best way possible is our biggest passion so of course we would go that extra mile to make sure we really are doing that. And continuing to understand sports organizations’ pain points is something we prioritize. So we wanted to find out what sports organizations’ very top priorities are. Would they like to sell more tickets? Do they want to get more personal with their fans? We were very eager to know what was at the very top of their priority list! So, we devoted a couple of months to market research to dive deeper into the depth of their problems. 

We spent long hours talking with decision-makers and leaders in the sports industry. We listened to every single one of them to deeply understand how we can support them in what they genuinely need. As a result, we were able to gather some interesting data (because we love data, right?) and would love to share it with you. We firmly believe that this will be a game-changer for many of the sports organizations out there.

So, what did you find out from our research after talking to over 100 decision-makers in sports? We found out that most sports organizations want to focus on; filling up their stadium, i.e selling more tickets to their games, selling more merchandise, and being able to negotiate sponsorship agreements of higher value. This just reaffirmed what we believed and understood in the first place, but of course, it is always better to get information directly from the source.

The subsequent question then became, how? How can you sell more tickets to your games, and more merchandise and negotiate sponsorship agreements of higher value? We’ve got the solution in hand. Just listen on!

You need to:

1. Grow your supporter base, continuously
2. Collect supporter data with contact information and merge it with your sales data
3. Find out which supporter segments you should target with your ticketing campaigns
4. Send out relevant ticket offerings to those segments in a way that your supporters will really appreciate

In today’s episode, we are focusing on the importance of making women’s sports a priority as part of our “10 components to include in your sports marketing today” series. This is the 10th and final component we are discussing so if you have missed the first 9, make sure to listen to those too. To quickly recap, these are the 10 components to include in your sports marketing today that we have already discussed:

1. Adopt a supporter-centric approach
2. Personalization as a driver of revenue and fan loyalty
3. Why you should work data-driven
4. Content is King
5. Why you should Prioritize OTT
6. The importance of Leveraging your social media platforms
7. Leveraging Influencer marketing to drive personal connections
8. Incorporate new sponsorship opportunities
9. Why you should make social justice a key component of your marketing strategy

And finally today, we are discussing the importance of making women’s sports a priority. Please note, that we are not saying make women’s sports a priority over men’s. But rather that, women’s sports deserve the same push and support that men’s sports have been getting for decades and decades.

This is an area that we are passionate about at Data Talks and over the course of the year, we have worked hard in this area. Our goal has always been and still remains, to create tangible value for women’s sports. We started off with our profiling program where we aimed to bring the tangible value of increasing the visibility of women in sports. The many women who have been on this podcast for our "In conversations with..." sessions were thanks to our initiative women in sports: beyond the hashtag.

Since then, we have also launched a women in sports community where everyone involved within the women’s sports space is welcome to join. There is power in coming together under the same mission and working together to accomplish that mission. If you would like to also join our initiative, find the link in the description below.

If you too would like to make women’s sports a priority, here are a few tips:

1. First and foremost, be authentic - doing things for the sake of marketing is never a good idea. It brings more harm than good so whatever you do, let it be authentic.
2. Start where you are. With the resources you have today, what difference can you make? For us, it was starting our profiling program. We had great storytellers and enough resources to get started so we focused on that.
3. Focus on value - don’t just do something for the sake of just doing it. Think about what value you want to create for others and what value they can create for you. The emphasis here is on tangible and shared value.
4. Grow and expand naturally - it is important to not try to force things to grow in a specific direction but to make sure that the growth you see is organic and natural. Once again, for us, the natural way to expand and grow was to create a platform, where all the fantastic people we had profiled can meet and collaborate, amongst other things.
5. Last but not least, stay collaborative - “alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”

In this day and age, sports organizations possess powerful platforms that can be leveraged for the greater good. And addressing issues related to injustice and inequality are two pivotal examples. Deloitte described this ever so eloquently in their US sports outlook 2021 report when they wrote: “Social justice has become so critical that future growth will likely be predicated upon how authentic organizations are in responding to this challenge. Players and fans increasingly expect leagues and teams to play a proactive role in the social justice movement. Deloitte’s Global Millennial Survey 2020 supports the notion that a proactive response to social injustice may be especially important to younger generations, many of whom tend to be more values-driven in how they engage with brands and businesses.”

That is why today’s episode is centered around making social justice a key component of your marketing strategy. Please note that we are not encouraging you to exploit social justice courses for the sake of marketing your sports organization. We are rather, encouraging you to find the course that your organization is passionate about and then make a concerted effort to make a difference within that area. This is such a crucial distinction because we as human beings are very good at spotting when someone is being disingenuous. So the key here, just like the Deloitte report so eloquently put it, is authenticity.

Creating sponsorship agreements of higher value for your organization is one of the top two priorities of many sports organizations. We know this because we talked to over 100 decision-makers in sports and found out this information. And you know as your preferred sports CDP partner we take what you say seriously.

That is why we are focusing on incorporating new sponsorship opportunities as part of our “10 components to include in your sports marketing today” series. This is the 8th component we are discussing so if you have missed the first 7, make sure to listen to those too.

“According to Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising Study, 81% of global respondents either completely or somewhat trust brand sponsorships at sporting events.” So there’s a great opportunity for sports organizations to tap into new and lucrative sponsorship opportunities. Some sponsorship opportunities that are either growing or are projected to grow faster than their traditional counterparts include:

1. Crypto/Blockchain/NFT
2. Automotive
3. Insurance
4. Retail
5. Unbundled sponsorship investment in women’s sports which have grown by about 146%, according to the Nielsen 2022 Global Sports Marketing Report.

So how can we help you create sponsorship agreements of higher value for your organization? I am glad you asked. Well, using our sports CDP takes the guesswork out of the process. This is because firstly, With the CDP you can develop a long-term sponsorship strategy that you can replicate. For example, sponsorship acquisition is one thing but delivery is another. So once you get the sponsorship, how do you plan on delivering the best results possible? Secondly, the CDP will help you keep on improving your sponsorship strategy so you can always get results. For example, when you know exactly what your supporters will appreciate, you can keep delivering exceptional results for your sponsor. You can also effectively monitor the performance of your sponsorship campaigns. And the CDP will also help you align with the right sponsors for your organization.

Did you also know that you can also leverage your supporter information to negotiate higher sponsorship deals? That’s right - data is one of the most valuable assets a sports organization could ever have. But unfortunately, not a lot of people who work in sports organizations understand this. So then sometimes they give away their data for discounts on software and the like. While the thought behind the practice is not wrong, it’s what you get in exchange for your data that we are questioning. So why not use your supporter information to create sponsorship agreements of higher value for your organization?

Okay, enough talking. How about you just see this in action instead? 

Today, an increasing number of sports athletes are driving personal connections on different platforms and channels – especially on social media.

Sports fans are looking to athletes and other sports influencers that champion societal issues that they believe in. They view these athletes as both meaningful and personalized connections. And this trend can be seen across industries beyond sports. On a global scale, 71% of consumers involved in a survey said that they either completely or somewhat trust opinions and ads from influencers about different brands and products.

But what is an influencer? An influencer by definition is anyone who inspires or guides the actions of others. That’s why athletes and players are the ultimate influencers when it comes to sports.

If you are a smaller club and doubting the effectiveness of your players or any other influencers, don’t worry. The increased interest and trust in influencers is particularly prevalent among micro-and nano influencers. These types of influencers are those who have less than 10 000 followers on social media. Influencers with fewer followers make more personal connections with followers and thus have a greater impact on driving supporter behaviors, such as trying a new product or attending a sporting event. So you see, anyone can leverage influencer marketing, from small clubs to big ones - there is a way for everyone to win.

So how can you leverage influencer marketing in a creative way?

To make this a bit more concrete for you, why don’t we take a real-life example? This example shows the power of clubs understanding their fans and using every single moment to really push the envelope when it comes to increasing revenue. This example is from our customer PAOK FC a top-tier club in Greece.

It’s February 10, 2022, PAOK is facing AEK Athens for the second leg of the Greek Cup Quarter Final. The score is 1-0 for AEK Athens and PAOK qualifies only with a draw. Only a few seconds before the referee blows the last whistle, Jasmin Kurtić, one of PAOK’s best players scores! Everyone goes crazy. What a game!

So what does the PAOK team decide to do? They decide to leverage their success on the field to gain more success off the field. How?

By creating a campaign that offers fans the opportunity to purchase t-shirts starring the legendary Kurtić.

1. Their e-store sales rocketed by 66% on the 15th of February 2022 compared to the best day of the year so far (11th of January)
2. They gave their fans and supporters something “extra” to be excited about which boosted engagement across their social media channels as well.

What can we learn from the PAOK FC case?

That:

1. Your intentions need action

We all want to win and have great success in everything we do but we have to put our money where our mouths are. And that starts with being aware of opportunities as they show up. PAOK seized a moment that some might have not realized was a great opportunity.

2. You have to understand your supporters

Do you understand your supporters? Do you know what keeps them coming back to your club for more?

A great solution that you can start using is the sports customer data platform (CDP). That’s because a CDP allows you to:

1.  store all your supporter data in one place

2. it helps you analyze that data so that you can uncover patterns in your supporters’ interaction with your organization

We are continuing with our “10 components you need to include in your sports marketing strategy today” series and today’s focus is on leveraging your social media platforms. This is the 6th component we are discussing so if you have missed the first 5, make sure to listen to those too.

According to Nielsen, 47% of people who watch sports on TV or via digital platforms simultaneously watch other live content. Among these different multi-screen viewing activities, social media engagement makes up 32% of this total number. And this number is even higher for Gen Z, where social media stands for 46% of their viewing activities. So it then goes without saying: making social media a part of your sports marketing strategy should be a given. By being present and playing an active role in your supporters’ favorite social media platforms, you are able to:

1. Open a window into the lives of your supporters and understand their specific needs, preferences, and behaviors.
2. Maximize fan engagement by interacting with them on social media, for instance via accounts that belong to your club or athletes.
3. Leverage the social media data you have collected about your supporters to find and create new monetization opportunities.

However, there is a huge mistake that most sports organizations make when it comes to social media. From small clubs to big ones such as FC Barcelona, this mistake is indeed a common one. Many sports organizations actually make the mistake of not converting their followers into contacts in their database. Let’s take FC Barcelona as an example. Out of more than 350 million social media followers, Barcelona only had less than 3 million contacts.

Not converting your social media followers to contacts in your database can limit your sponsorship value and the effectiveness of your communications. So you won’t be able to segment or target effectively, personalization becomes near impossible if you don’t understand your fans. And you can’t understand your fans if they are not even in your contact database.

So how can you make sure that you increase your social media followers while simultaneously growing your contact database? Remember we said that content is king? That’s what you need to leverage to grow your social media followers and contact database. However, it is crucial that you direct your social media followers to one of your own platforms. Here are a few examples of such content:

1. Giveaways where your supporters have to sign-up and leave their contact information
2. Another amazing way you can grow your contact database is to run competitions
3. Promote gated content on your social media. This will require fans to once again, sign-up in order to access the content
4. Subscriptions are another fantastic way of gaining more followers while growing your contact database. Do you have a newsletter or a blog? Are you maybe a bigger organization with a digital newsroom or do you offer regular public relations communications? Then why not create a subscription call to action? Something along the lines of, “subscribe to our newsletter and never miss a thing we do ever again”.
5. Give discounts and vouchers - Everyone loves discounts and vouchers, especially nowadays where “entertainment” is becoming more expensive and sports tickets are becoming more and more expensive. So why not offer your followers discount codes if they sign up for something on your website or any other platforms you own?

In summation, leveraging social media is crucial for every sports organization’s growth.

Today we are focusing on why you should prioritize Over the top streaming (OTT) platform as part of your sports marketing strategy. This is the 5th component out of the ten that we will be deep diving into as part of our “10 components you need to include in your sports marketing strategy today”. If you missed the first five, be sure to listen to those as well.

Unlike traditional TV, an OTT platform allows sports organizations to offer streaming content to their supporters via their preferred devices, such as mobile phones or tablets. According to Nielsen’s 2022 global sports marketing report, “as connected devices gain momentum as the great amplifier of content, access to content continues to expand, with 40.7% of global fans now opting to stream live sports events through digital platforms.” This simply means that the usage of OTT will only keep on growing.

OTT is a compelling component to include in your sports marketing strategy especially if you are:

1. A women’s sports organization - We have often spoken about the lack of visibility for women in sports here on this blog. Thanks to the advent of digital platforms such as social media and over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms, women's sports were estimated to gain a 96% increase in visibility. Here are a few examples: The UEFA, YouTube, and DAZN deal that aimed to "bring fans all over the world closer to the action than ever before". Eleven securing global rights for the Thai women's league and working with the Football Association of Thailand "to champion the competition to fans across the region and globally". Somyot Poompanmoung, president of the Football Association of Thailand was quoted saying:  “We’re excited to work with Eleven on a new chapter for Thai women’s football, and this agreement will give fans unprecedented access to the Thai Women’s League domestically, across South East Asia, and worldwide. Over the next three years, we have a great opportunity to increase the visibility of the women’s game, including the ability to engage new fans via a free-to-watch game every matchday.” OTT is a perfect example of how technology can become an important way of making innovation inclusive. It solves the real issue of the lack of visibility of women's sports.
2. A smaller sports organization with great ambition but not necessarily great resources such as high negotiating power with TV stations.

The benefits of using an OTT platform are many, but to name a few, using OTT can help sports organizations:

1. reach a younger and wealthier audience – generation Z
2. target your audience with hyper-personalized content and ads – and if you own the platform, you will also gain better data
3. Retarget your supporters – OTT is a great channel to use for retargeting your supporters with ads that are relevant to them.

So if you want to create a sports marketing strategy that is successful and sustainable, as well as leverage your marketing campaigns and deliver hyper-personalized supporter experiences, then you should make your OTT platform a priority.

An increasing number of supporters expect to receive some form of content during the off-season. Moreover, with the rapid increase in content creation and consumption across different platforms and channels, the demand for additional sports content has also grown. According to Nielsen’s 2022 global sports marketing report: “the demand for content related to a live event (match announcements, highlights, recap videos, etc.) is almost as high as it is for digitally delivered events themselves.” 

That’s why this episode of the podcast is dedicated to delving deeper into the fourth component of our “10 components you need to include in your sports marketing” series. And this component is - Content is King.

The interest in sports content (both related to and not related to live sports events) is becoming more important, especially among the younger generation. This is a crucial piece of information since the same generation, Generation Z, also is the biggest global consumer cohort – with a spending power of a whopping $140 million in the US alone.

Examples of content that sports organizations can leverage to get their highest fan engagement to date, include:

• Videos centered around pre-game events, post-game events, and some behind-the-scenes footage in practice, for example
• Video on Demand content that can be delivered specially to individual supporters upon request. You can do this through both traditional television broadcasting and over-the-top streaming platforms
• Another type of content that sports organizations can leverage is content generated by the supporters themselves. This content is usually created and shared via social media, with TikTok and Twitch having the highest usage rate gains in comparison to other platforms between April 2020 – August 2021.
• Fantasy sports games are another fantastic way in which sports organizations from leagues to clubs, can use content to engage fans. Fantasy sports allow a fan to act as the owner of a team and give them the power to cut (drop), sign (draft), and trade the players of their choosing. Where points and standings are given based on an athlete's true performance in games.

There are different types of content that you can really leverage to increase fan engagement to the highest it has ever been in your sports organization. Some other types include sports scores, statistics, game summaries, sports news, photographs, video and audio files and or podcasts, and other similar sports-related information and services, in text, multimedia, or any other format.

As you can see, there is a mountain of opportunities for content creation that sports organizations can leverage and monetize.

But how can you achieve this in a way that guarantees results beyond your expectations?

By collecting relevant data about your supporters, using a Sports Customer Data Platform so you can uncover the necessary insights about your supporters in order to understand the type of content your supporters want and the channels and/or platforms they would prefer to interact with your content. Once you have uncovered these insights, you will be able to deliver hyper-personalized content to your fans from the same platform, the sports CDP.

We are living in the fastest-changing communications technology landscape than ever before. New software and applications are sprouting up like mushrooms. Think about it, fifty years ago, the majority of people did not have email addresses. But nowadays it’s virtually impossible to conduct any kind of process in your sports organization without an email.

Less than twenty years ago Facebook didn’t exist. But now it has been downloaded by at least 5 billion people. That is more than 60% of the world's population. Humanity has become more technological. So, “if you can’t beat them, join them”, right?

This is where working data-driven comes into play. Whether you are a league, federation, or club, a men’s team or women’s team, no matter the region of the world you find yourself in, working data-driven is key to the success of your organization.

One of the biggest challenges to working data-driven that sports organizations face is having data stored in many different sources. For example, your merchandise stats would be on one platform while your ticketing data would be on another. This is a huge issue because:

1. It takes a lot of effort and time to make sense out of your data let alone derive any kind of useful insights from it
2. You can’t share this data easily with the rest of the team, especially those from other departments as you would have to individually access each source to do. Once again, quite consuming and laborious.
3. It’s had to make innovative and proactive decisions about the future of your organization if you can’t really get the full picture from all your data since it’s scattered all over many sources.

So the most important step towards working data-driven is ensuring that you get a reliable single source of truth that can show you actionable insights from your supporter behavior. And this reliable single source of truth is a sports CDP. If you have already done your research and know the impressive results you can get with a CDP, today we want to give you practical tips on how to ensure that your entire organization has a data-driven culture. If you are not quite at this stage yet, don’t worry, we have you covered. We have many resources on our website to help you catch up to speed, find link in the description below.

If you want to ensure that your entire sports organization has a data-driven approach to everything, here are some practical tips:

1. Start at the top - Top management needs to understand the importance of working data-driven and then embrace this fully. They need to lead by example and set that expectation of working data-driven.
2. Communicate why you’re going data-driven with the rest of your team - Making changes and adopting a “because management decided so” approach does not work. Instead, you have to communicate your vision with your team.
3. Improve data transparency - You simply cannot preach a culture that is unattainable. This is a strong CDP use case because a CDP keeps data organized, unified, updated, and stored in one place. Moreover, the CDP can be integrated with other systems such as your ticketing system, and Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). And this data can be shared easily with other departments and the rest of the team.
4. Measure the before and after - It’s one thing to tell people that something works and it’s entirely another to show them.
5. Applaud your team - Embracing change can be very difficult. So if your team has done incredibly well in implementing all the changes, you have to encourage them by celebrating them.

We are continuing our “10 components to include in your marketing strategy series”. Today we are looking at component number 2, personalization. We will briefly discuss what personalization is, and why it’s important that you include it in your marketing strategy. But first, a couple of statistics:

• 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them.
• 71% of consumers feel frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal - so for a sports organization such shopping experiences including buying tickets and merchandise for example. If that experience is impersonal, 71% of your supporters will be frustrated.

So then the question becomes since consumers are adamant about getting relevant and personal experiences, how can your sports organization ensure that they do this for their fans?

That’s where personalization comes in. Personalization is the process of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate the specific needs, wants and preferences of individual supporters and/or groups of supporters. This process is crucial because it helps deliver the right message to the right supporter at the right time and through the right channel. Therefore ensuring that all your communications with your supporters are relevant and indeed personal.

Just as the statistics we began with suggest, personalization is important because it increases supporter satisfaction which is more likely to lead to an increase in their loyalty and engagement with your organization. Which ultimately leads to higher revenue. Happy fans happy days.

We have helped one of our customers, AIK, generate 6 figures with one campaign within 2 weeks targeting only 2% of their supporter base. Do you know what the secret was? Personalization. Because our customer’s communications with their supporters were relevant and personal, their supporters engaged overwhelmingly with the campaign.

In order for you to do this right, that is, continually create and deliver world-class supporter experiences that are personalized, you need a sports customer data platform. That’s what our customer built their campaign with. With the sports CDP, you can cover all your bases from beginning to end. How, well, let’s break down personalization - getting the right message to the right supporter at the right time and through the right channel.

• To get the message you are sending to your supporters right, you need to first understand them. A CDP provides you with a 360-degree supporter view that helps you understand your supporters in and out. This 360-degree supporter is only fully possible with the CDP and no other software.
• Secondly, just because you have a message does not mean that message is appropriate for everyone. A CDP will help you understand which message to send to which supporters.
• Thirdly, timing is everything. Could you imagine sending your supporter an email asking them to buy a season ticket when they have just purchased one? Your organization would come across as pushy. A CDP will help you know when to send your communications so you can always get the timing right.
• And finally, some supporters prefer buying tickets online while others prefer buying offline. A CDP will help you figure out the right channel to reach your supporters through.

The question we are answering is, should you invest in a sports CDP if you have a limited budget? The answer straight away is a resounding yes. Although this might sound counterintuitive, it’s those with limited budgets that especially need a sports CDP. Why?

In this episode, we will give you a concise guide on how you can win over Gen Z fans.

1. Focus on World-class fan experience in and outside the stadium -this is something that we touched open in our previous episode with Julia Roca Valverde. Instead of just the game, as was previously the norm, focus on the entertainment value as well. A sport that is doing this well over in the United States is boxing. Which is now one of the top three fastest-growing sports in the US. Boxing uses influencers as a marketing tool to generate buzz and excitement about the sport. This buzz is often felt both online and offline, both in stadium and outside of the stadium.
2. Prioritize your OTT platform - stop just relying on traditional broadcasting. OTT is where the magic happens too. Did you know that the Spanish football league LaLiga has streamed a whole match on TikTok? This generated 733,000 total viewers while the conventional broadcast on TV channel yielded an average audience of 678,000.
3. Take advantage of technology - we have come such a long way with technology it would be a shame if you did not use this to your advantage. Technologies such as NFTs, VR broadcasting, and virtual fan clubs increase entertainment and engagement value for fans, thus increasing loyalty.
4. Engage through social media and influencers - we mentioned TikTok earlier. Use social media to your advantage. Use it to listen in on what your fans want, what they are talking about, and so forth.

The two most commonly used marketing technologies today are a Customer Data Platform (CDP) and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Across countries, regions, and industries – most people understand the power of using these marketing tools. However, if we had a penny for every time someone mistook a CDP functionality for that of a CRM, we would have a billion dollars in the bank by now.

Main takeaway:

The difference between an organization powering all their marketing strategies with a CDP versus just using a CRM is way too vast. You cannot develop good relationships or manage your relationship with your supporters well (the primary purpose of a CRM) without first knowing who they are. Nor can you sustainability power your organization with only manual data collection. Well, not if you want to grow anyway.

"... when I identified all of those cases, I began my quest for a solution that could deliver this. And so today, here we are with Data Talks CDP, a CDP that has delivered beyond our expectations" Kevin - Business to Consumer Manager Västerås IK. 

There are many CDP vendors out there today. That’s because, across many different industries, everyone who is interested in future-proofing their organization while simultaneously maximizing revenue has realized that the solution to this is the CDP. Now just because someone knows how important a CDP is to any organization, does not mean that 1) if they claim to be a CDP vendor, they are legit. Additionally, even if a CDP vendor is legit, it does not necessarily mean that they know how to support you in using the CDP to optimize all results including fan engagement, ticket and merchandise sales, and sponsorship value, among other things. This is especially true if you are in the sports industry and want to implement a CDP. Word of advice, you should not just pick any odd CDP vendor.

Main takeaway: 

Due to unique insights gained from the experience of working extensively with sports organizations across different markets and countries the sports CDP vendor is able to give you best practices and use cases of the CDP in a way that produces results.

Our next guest, MARIA CAICEDO CABRERA is the director of America de Cali official sports training school in Bogota. At just 25 years old, she has many qualifications under her belt including a bachelor's in psychology, a Master's degree in executive coaching, sports, and high-performance psychology, and an MBA! Having just recently relocated back to Colombia from Spain, Maria is ready to make an impact in her country, to use her own words.

Excerpt: 

...is copying another organization’s strategy as good of an idea as some people often think?

Well, In the words of Aristotle, the human being is “the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation”. And this is crucial because “it allows us to learn new things quickly and efficiently by watching those around us” (May Institute). So naturally, even in sports, we look to those who have years of success under their belts and try to replicate their recipe for success.

There is nothing inherently wrong with taking inspiration from someone else, this includes when you are trying to come up with a strategy. In fact, this is one of the most natural processes ever. However, I would like to draw your attention to the, “at first” part of Aristotle’s quote on imitation - we learn at first by imitation.

This part implies that imitation is only a short-term solution that can be used in the early stages of strategy development. The problem, however, arises when organizations try to copy each other and do exactly what the other is doing, simply because they see that it has worked for them. Not only that but using this as a long-term strategy as well. The main problem associated with this is:

Unpredictable and limited effectiveness: Copying is always unpredictable and limited because,

1. You do not have the full information on what led the organization you are taking inspiration from to decide to pursue that strategy in the first place,
2. One size does not fit all, meaning, what works for another club might not necessarily work for yours
3. No two organizations are the same so in essence, every sports organization needs to have a custom strategy that addresses its specific needs.
4. Fans have different reasons for supporting different clubs, so copying someone else’s strategy might negatively affect your fan engagement if your two clubs’ fans have different motivations.

So, in a nutshell, what we are saying is that smaller clubs should not just copy the strategies of bigger clubs. Nor should younger and less established sports organizations try to copy the strategies of older more established organizations. Women’s clubs should most definitely not just copy and paste men’s clubs' strategies.

But what should all these sports organizations do instead of merely copying each other’s marketing strategies?

All sports organizations should use data to power their marketing strategies. This might sound like a cumbersome process, but you too can get started today. You can start on your data collection journey.

There are many fantastic opportunities available for women's sports today so listen to today's episode to discover a few that you should be taking advantage of today.

Excerpt: "Women’s organizations are notoriously understaffed, underutilized, and underfunded. The marketing push and funding that they get is no different either. So of course whatever marketing solutions they choose to invest in should maximize their budgeting spend by helping them:

1. Build for long term sustainable growth
2. Increase ticket and merchandise sales
3. Fill the stadium at every given opportunity
4. Negotiate better sponsorship and partnership deals
5. Grow a following and increase fan engagement
6. Turn supporters into advocates"

Excerpt: "Sports sponsorship is one of the most effective marketing methods out there today! So naturally, every sports organization wants to get the best sponsorship deal with the highest value.

But how can you increase your sponsorship value? Well, you already have half of the answer and we actually have the rest of it."

Are you curious about what the answer to boosting your sponsorship value is? Then listen to today's episode as we discuss the two ingredients that are needed to do just that. 

Found this interesting? 

Happy International Women's Day to all women!

We see you, we hear you and we celebrate you.

This year's women's day theme is #breakthebias

"This episode does not aim to oversimply the complexity of the issues faced by women in sports and women’s sports organizations but rather aims to discuss the most pressing issues that we have identified. These issues are readily solvable, that’s why we chose to focus on them."

We focus on:

Number 1: Lack of funding and support

Number 2: Limited media coverage