Your team might not be competing in the top leagues but simply because you’re not Real Madrid, the L.A. Lakers, New Zealand All Blacks or Boston Red Socks that doesn’t stop your team from getting the recognition and support it deserves.
Could anything be better than hearing the sound of cheering supporters at your gamesor having new players in line waiting for a place in the team roster or even more, have sponsors yearning for you to have the name of their brand on your team basketball jerseys?
Regrettably, all of this would not just happen magically, time and effort have to be put in place if you really want to stand out there. However, the good news is that many affordable and sometimes freeways exist by means of technology to promote your sports team.
In this article, we’ll look into a few marketing ideas you can implement in your sports team both on and off the web to attain the fame, support and fans you so desire.
1. Develop a Free Professional Website Using WordPress
What do you think anyone would do when they hear your team name at first instance and want to find out more about your team? More often than not, the first place anyone would want to hear your team name at first instance and want to find out more about your team? Your guess is as good as mine, they’ll Google it up.
At this stage of technological advancement where virtually everyone owns a smartphone and has access to the internet, they wouldn’t hesitate to search the web for information on any subject they desire.
It is therefore very important that you take advantage of the internet and market yourself.
Not to get any valid information about your team from is your team’s website. By having a professional team website, you can make a very good first impression to information seekers. The possibility also exists that potential sponsors would make a first stop at the team’s website. If for any reason your sports team doesn’t have a website yet, you can worry less as it has become even much easier for a layman to create a website without being a highly advanced web agency. By using WordPress, in just a few minutes anyone can create a professional website.
Being an open source platform and completely free to use remains one of the greatest reasons for the widespread success of WordPress. Additionally, there’s the availability of a wide range of free high-quality themes that can give a website a totally unique look in just a click.
Functionality can be further extended on WordPress platform by using plugins that can perform almost any imaginable task, consult professional website designers for pointers on how to get the most out of WordPress.
2. Build an Email Newsletter
Email is an important communication and marketing tool that has been around for a long time. You can easily set up and manage professional email newsletters by using providers such as MailChimp. This service is completely free to use up to 2000 subscribers. To keep players, fans, and volunteers well informed about upcoming events, games and other activities, email is a very handy tool.
It is also a very effective means to keep in touch with your most loyal fans and send them such items as thank you notes, exclusive content as well as bonus material just to let them know you appreciate them.
How can you tell who is your closest fans?
Just as in your everyday internet usage, you only give out your email address freely and without much thought to things you trust and have interest in, right?
Hopefully, your answer was ‘Yes’.
This applies to other people too. If they choose to sign up to your email list, it simply means they have trust and interest in you, and you should accord such people their well-deserved respect.
3. Have a Social Media Presence
As of today, almost everyone belongs to one social media platform or the other.
You can imagine that I and my mum are Facebook friends. That summarizes it all!
Other than their wide audience, another great feat of social networks is that almost all of them are free to use. Consequently, they can serve as a cheap means to promote a sports team.
Fans can connect directly with their favourite teams using the available social networks, interact with players and keep abreast with important news and happenings in the team. Build your presence and soon enough everyone will be able to recognise your teams’ basketball shirts from a distance.
Prior to applying social networks and website, why not leverage one of the oldest marketing means known to humanity? You have connections to a large extended network of families, acquaintances, and friends of your team members although this is determined by the size of your team. People known personally by you or others are often excited to show support. Why not try to indulge them? This can simply be done by asking players, club members and volunteers to spread the word about any upcoming events and games.
For this to work out, you must first of all actively keep everyone informed as your club members can only tell others of things they themselves are aware of.
You can leverage the already mentioned mailing list to keep your loyal fans informed at all times and kindly ask them to pass on the information to others.
This can also be applied to online marketing measures. For instance, you can ask family members to invite their own friends to Facebook events.
