#47 The Ballketing Letter
A "content marketing" framework, leveling up your "pricing game," avoiding the trap of attribution, the power of humility in leadership, the role of brand in business and more!
This week in the Ballketing Brief we bring you a framework to build your content marketing strategy using the example of Rogue Fitness. It is a summary of the main points of the blog post we published last week, so be sure to check that out if you want more details, videos and examples of the work they are doing as well as our suggestions for the future.
We also bring you a few resources with great value for your leadership and business skills.
Our “Resource Center" in Notion has been updated with this week´s content and we already have more than 300 resources uploaded!
Let´s get down to business!
This quote was truly inspiring and probably holds true to those working in sport. Each sport related situation is unique and unpredictable. The legends know they will never know what the game will bring but they do know that, when the time comes, they will deliver.
"Confidence is about understanding that you will figure it out rather than having the feeling of knowing it all"
Kat Cole
A content strategy territories framework through Rogue Fitness
For this week´s brief, we wanted to share a summary of the blog post we published a few days ago which aims to help you design your own content strategy through the lens of Rogue Fitness, official sponsor of the Games, and one of the other clear winners given how they leveraged the return of the competition to generate bulk amounts of content across different platforms and engage users worldwide.
We based the framework around 5 elements:
A content strategy starts with thorough user research
A high performing content framework is always user-based; it should not be about what a brand wants to talk about but rather focus on what the user, customer or fans wants to hear or needs.
Then, try to find a match between what your brand can talk about, what your potential customers look for and where they want to find it.
Identify the layers of your content territories
Defining content territories can be compared to an onion or a cake with different layers. In the center, you will place your brand / product. Then, in the next layer, you can talk about the functionalities of what you offer and as you move farther away from the center, you would touch upon more "emotional based" or "generic" territories.
A few thoughts to keep in mind:
The framework goes from more "brand specific" topics to "broader" ones, but that have some form of relationship with the business. However, brands should understand how to tie this to the marketing funnel. In general terms, potential customers are more on the "broader" spectrum and the key is to identify the topics that will drive initial interest to purchase.
Current customers tend to be more on the "specific" realm and ideally, we want them to remember and share our brand with others.
Then, after defining all the elements you could talk about, you need to pick and choose the most relevant topics as you will probably not have time or resources to pursue all of the possible topics out there. This is a key decision.
Getting to "Territory vs Channel" fit
Once you have defined all the potential territories and the ones you will pursue, a decision needs to be made around the channels where you will play the game.
This is defined as "territory vs channel" fit and, once again, this goes back to the idea that you will need to understand where your users are and perhaps more importantly, where are they willing to listen to you. Moreover, when making that choice, it is better to focus on less channels and aim to create outstanding content rather than creating more but of mediocre quality.
Rogue Fitness for instance takes their content strategy to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube but it would be cool to understand if it is in their plans to launch a Tik Tok channel or embrace other emerging platforms such as Snapchat, Discord or Pinterest.
One source of content can feed multiple distribution platforms
Keep in mind that you will need to adapt the content you wish to create to each platform you wish to use (which is why embracing too many channels is a difficult challenge). In the blog post we show you the current way Rogue Fitness currently does this but another approach could potentially break it down as follows:
Interview one of their sponsored athletes and put it on a podcast
Pick up highlights of that athlete and create a YouTube video with some excerpts of the interview being used as a supportive audio.
Chop that video into short form video for Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok (vs. posting the same video across platforms).
Create "quote based" images for Instagram and Pinterest.
Tweet that same sentence.
The magic is that you can later create paid advertising using the organic content that generated the most engagement afterwards.
Validating the strategy with analytics & business KPIs
This plan does not really make sense if you don´t tie these efforts to business KPIs. In other words, what is the path to revenue?
Each channel should have specific metrics that determine if the tactic was successful or not and you need to distinguish between "Top of funnel" metrics that would help understand "brand awareness" performance metrics such as CTR.
Do not get distracted though and fall into the trap of "vanity metrics." Sales is the KPI that matters. "No sales = no cash = no business."
A word of caution though: don´t be obsessed about attribution. Most of the times, completing a buying process is not a linear journey for customers (specially when dealing with expensive equipment both at a B2C & B2B level) and you should understand the role each channel plays in the customer journey. It´s a complex situation so, to a degree, you also need to use your intuition to see if what you do has an impact on the P&L or not...
Content strategy is something all sport & fitness businesses need to do
Rogue Fitness is a big business with enough resources to carry out such an extended content strategy, but this should not discourage you even if you currently are a smaller player. The essence is the same, but you will need to decide and choose fewer territories, fewer channels, and fewer tactics.
You will need to simplify things a bit, which does not mean it will be easier, but in any case, framing the content strategy this way will help you be more efficient in the path to brand building, creating affinity, driving conversion and sales.
The trap of attribution
Many marketers fall into the trap of trying to identify the source of each potential customer (attribution) with the goal of doubling down on those channels that "the data" shows are more efficient. In today´s day and age though, many of those sources cannot be tracked (podcast, word of mouth, etc.) which leaves untapped opportunities. Listen to this episode of State of the Demand Gen to figure out how to avoid the trap.
Level up your pricing strategy
This is an awesome episode if you want to take your pricing game to a whole new level. It goes into great detail on a process, possibilities and examples of how to nail it. Even if it is more oriented to SaaS type businesses, there are invaluable lessons for anybody in charge of pricing.
The power of humility in leadership
If you are in a leadership position or even manage relationships with franchises, this is a must listen episode of The Knowledge Project It shows the power of humility in leadership and, as we reflected in our quote of the week, "confidence is realising that you will figure it out."
A guide to location-based marketing
This is an awesome guide to anybody working in the fitness industry, sport apparel and even a small team with strong local roots. It explains the basic of "location-based" marketing using clear explanations and examples which will help you take your marketing game to another level.
The future of business is brand
The power of "brand" for a business is more important than ever in an environment with so much competition and "noise."
This Brandingmag article explains different ways in which brand will influence the state of business and how they could approach the way forward.
An outline for your sponsorship strategy
Even if this article on CXL's blog is not technically "sport related" , it does provide a fantastic outline on how to research, develop and close a sponsorship strategy. It may help looking at your partnerships from other angles to find hidden opportunities.
And that does it for #47! If you have any feedback, let us know so we can keep making this newsletter better.
And, if you believe somebody else can enjoy The Ballketing Letter, don´t hesitate to share it with them so we can grow the community together.
Keep safe.