#10 The Ballketing Letter
This week, be sure to check out the "tactical" content we bring you to improve your marketing strategy, a motivational interview and interesting updates from the overall industry.
It is very difficult to pick three pieces of content that standout this week. However, if you only have time for that, this would be our selection:
Listen to Jocko Willink on the James Altucher show, it may help you face your problems from a different angle. It could actually change your life…
Read CXL´s article on the evolution of marketing funnels and their framework for content generation.
Check out McKinsey´s content on tactics to recover revenue and managing during times of uncertainty.
Let´s get down to business.
Podcasts
Learn how to design your Instagram strategy
In this episode of the Social Media Marketing Podcast, Michael Stelzsner interviews Alex Tooby and they discuss how to develop Instagram strategies successfully. We are pretty sure that your sport or fitness business relies heavily on Instagram to create content
She gives awesome tips and tricks that we are sure you will start implementing immediately.
Revenue Recovery from McKinsey
Insightful episode of the McKinsey podcast where they discuss 5 courses of action to try and recover revenue figures after the impact of Covid-19 on businesses worldwide. These include:
Embrace the digital opportunity if you have not done so already
Go into as much detail as possible how to capture demand. This actually means looking to personalize and customize your offering as much as possible
Adopt virtual agility, up the level of being able to shift on a daily basis if needed
Imagine a new business model for the future while navigating through the short term turmoil
Look for "self-funded" growth
In the episodes, two McKinsey experts go on and share real examples of how companies across the globe are tackling these 5 revenue strategies. We hope they provide some ideas for your sport or fitness business.
Jocko Willink on not admitting excuses to reach your goals.
Perhaps this is a different type of episode vs what we normally share with you, but we found it was so awesome, we had to include it. It goes more into the “motivational” side of business and life rather than “strategies” or “tactics.”
James Altucher interviews Jocko Willink and they have an inspiring conversation about discipline and not letting excuses distract you from reaching your goals.
A majority of us are going through a hard time right now but at the end of the day, live goes one and we need to endure. We are sure this episode can bring you some motivation on how to face challenges life is bringing us at the moment.
Articles
Peloton results just keeps on soaring
Joe Pompliano brings us another awesome analysis on Peloton's financial situation. Some fiscal numbers for Q1.21 are simply mind blowing:
Revenue came in at $757 million, up 232% from $228M last year.
Connected Fitness Subscriptions grew 137% to over 1.33 million.
Digital Subscriptions grew 382% to over 510,000.
Connected Fitness Subscription Workouts grew 306% to 77.8 million.
Connected Fitness Subscribers averaged 20.7 Monthly Workouts, versus 11.7 in the year-ago period.
Average net monthly connected fitness churn rate was 0.65% vs. 0.90% a year ago.
There are two questions that come to mind when seeing this numbers and thinking about the future of the brand:
As Pompliano himself states at the end of the analysis: How will these numbers look like when (if) customers return to the traditional gym?
In that cases, will the brand consider opening physical locations to maximize LTV?
Buzzer going after Gen Z & Millenials with its sport content app
Buzzer, the mobile sports streaming platform founded by Bo Han, former director of live content at Twitter has secured a new round of investment to keep expanding the platform further.
In case you do not know about this platform, it basically enable you to watch fragments of live games for a very small amount ($0.99 USD). For instance, imagine you have not been able to watch the Champions League final and the game goes into the penalty shootout. Thanks to Buzzer, you will be able to watch it for a very small cost.
The app is actually looking to leverage on a trend of the market, in which younger audiences are no longer that interested in watching full live sport competitions but are still interested in catching the most important events. Buzzer can offer this thanks to its personalized notifications:
Connect your account with Twitter and get notifications based on who you follow
Explicitly mark the competitions or teams of your interest, including your fantasy sports
It can connect to your current paid OTT subscriptions for example and if you cannot watch the sport live, you can access specific moments of the game free of charge
A truly innovative business model but it still remains to be seen whether sport broadcasters and right holders embrace it or compete with it fiercely, given the high investments they pay for those rights.
Understanding SPACS and why it matter for your sport organization
One of our most trusted subscribers of this newsletter shares with us this Sportico article in which they provide a great explanation on what SPACS are and why they could be relevant for sport business. If you have not heard about this concept before, then you will be amazed at the list of companies working under this model specified in the article.
And, if you have further interest, let us know and we can put you in touch with our trusted specialist on the matter.
Managing during times of extreme uncertainty
During a time of extreme uncertainty, many executives and managers look to lessons learned in experience for answers on how to manage going forward. McKinsey argues that this is not a viable solution since we are not fully aware on how this pandemic is going to evolve. In fact, this great article provides some of the most common errors business leaders are making during this time:
Optimism Bias which basically means "they will be inclined to bring forward the date of an expected revenue rebound or minimize the duration of expected business closure."
Relying on current information that is unstable. Hypothesis and outlooks that change daily.
Paralysis by Analysis.
Not recognizing organizational exhaustion.
As part of the solution, the firm recommends adopting a decision-making model based on "discovering, designing and executing."
Check the details out. After all, sport and fitness are industries that have been greatly affected by the pandemic and we believe the article can provide ideas on how to manage your teams from now on.
Snapchat enhances its educational platform for Marketers
If you use Snapchat within your social media strategy, then you should check out this new feature, Snap Connect, that teaches marketers how to use the platform for advertising campaigns, with three certifications available:
Mobile
Gaming
eCommerce
And if you currently are it using Snapchat but are looking to engage with a younger audience, perhaps you should start testing the water over there...
Sport stocks react to Pfizer´s vaccine developing at "90% effectiveness"
Amazing how the stock market reacted to Pfizer´s announcement that it is developing a vaccines with 90% effectiveness. In essence, sport businesses that rely on live attendance experienced an amazing increase (LiveNaation, MSG, Manchester United, etc.) while companies depending on people staying at home (Activision or Peloton for example), saw their stock price decrease.
John Tinker, sport equities director a G.Research analyzed it this way:
What’s happened is the market turned in a nanosecond from rewarding COVID plays. The whole investing theme of ‘if you’re indoors, you win and if you’re live, you lose’ just got reversed.
Peloton however, was able to rebound just one day later thanks in part to the partnership it has announced with Beyoncé. What stood out for us, other than the "media impact" of the deal, was the agreement to provide free memberships for students and 10 colleges / universities as well as look to provide recruiting opportunities for students from those schools.
This is another example of "sponsorship with a purpose," which ties well with what we covered in this blog post.
The "Content Playground" as a way to adapt to the reality of the customer journey
Fantastic article on CXL to tackle the fact that a customer journey is rarely a linear process that travels through a linear marketing funnel. As described in the article, during the purchasing process:
You need to treat the buyer’s journey like a playground: People can enter and exit as they please, can go in any order, and can never use content the “wrong way.”
As a result, you need to create three types of content:
Conceptual
Strategic
Tactical
Be sure to check this one out as it even provides an example from the fitness industry which we are sure will give you some ideas to test out yourself!
That does it for this week! We hope you enjoyed this edition of the newsletter but please share any additional content we missed out on…
We hope to see you next week. Meanwhile, keep safe.