#48 The Ballketing Letter
Ideas for activating local sponsorship programs, masterclasses on creativity & leadership, the state of sport NFTs, ideation frameworks for founders, the metaverse & much more!
Hey there Ballketers,
After a week of rest, we are back in full speed with #48! Many things coming your way in this issue:
In the Ballketing Brief we share some ideas to activate sponsorship agreements at the local / amateur level, through the lens of Deportivo de La Coruña, a classic football (soccer) team from the north of Spain.
We have a few podcasts on leadership, marketing strategy and a couple of articles on “Sport NFTs” that stand out.
As always, we have updated our “Resource Center" in Notion; we are quickly approaching 400 of pieces of content you can learn a lot from!
Let´s get down to business!
We went back to the vault and listened to this fantastic episode of Finding Mastery, where Dr. Michael Gervais interviews Robert Greene (author of The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, etc.) and Dr. Gervais had this awesome quote during the conversation, although he does not attribute it to himself:
"To pursue your potential you have to override your DNA"
Mr. Greene himself also had a fantastic line worth pondering: “You have too many voices in your head (parents, family, friends, coworkers) and you are not listening to yourself.”
Activating a “local-based” sport sponsorship agreement
Deportivo de La Coruña is a historic football (soccer) club from the north of Spain who, during the late 90s and early 2000s, was protagonist of some of the major feats in the sport at the national and European level.
Over recent years though, poor management practices in the business side and mediocre results on the pitch have have lead the club to compete in the modest 2nd "B" division (which is effectively the third division of the Spanish football league). And while they are making efforts across several fronts to improve the economic situation, what stood out to us was their recent adoption of a new kit sponsorship strategy.
In essence, their current kit sponsorship structure is:
Their main partner is Estrella Galicia, which is a local beer brand that has become one of the leaders of its industry in the Spanish market.
Abanca, a local banking institution who also is present across the entire country, owns 78% of the club has its logo stamped on the bag of the official jersey.
And then, as you can see in this article, the club will admit a different sponsor for each player of the roster. While this is little by little becoming a more common practice, in sum, a local brand will be able to put its logo on a given player´s kit, effectively creating "tiers" of players since the starters should create more impact than the non-starters.
After analyzing their annual report, Deportivo´s commercial revenue fell 4,4% vs the previous season and it currently represents 17,3% of their total "ordinary" revenue figures, so it makes sense that they are exploring new avenues of growth, although their situation is quite challenging. Once the deal has been closed, it is now time to activate each partnership so in this brief, we wanted to share a few ideas with ways in which a club and the sponsor could activate those individual agreements assuming a limited budget (It seems fair to assume that it will be more modest organizations interested in this type scheme):
The sponsoring brand could develop a show showing the daily life of the player. This could be a show on Twitch, YouTube, Podcast, whichever and the beauty is that this content can be repurposed in many different ways and distributed across platforms. Or, depending on the skills of the player, he/she could be the host of a show consisting of interviews to different team stakeholders. If the partnership is done correctly, there could be potential opportunities for product placement within the show (vs advertising that interrupts).
Recurring events with the most loyal customers. For instance, couldn´t a local gym organize a series of monthly workouts with the player for its members? Or if the sponsor has any ties to the food & beverage industry, perhaps a few cooking sessions with the athlete where you show what you need to be a pro athlete. The key point is to develop a recurring action (vs a "one-off") to maintain "top of mind" momentum.
Create a series of organic content, play around with geo-targeting techniques and based on the one that drives more engagement, set up a paid media campaign. So imagine a series of videos distributed across Tik Tok, Instagram and Facebook with different approaches and tailored to different audiences and from there, expand to similar audiences using paid social media. Moreover, Deportivo is a historical club so it could make sense to use "nostalgia" in this campaign; for example, the sponsor of the player wearing #7 could create a video that links all players that have worn that number for the club throughout history and touch upon the legacy of the number (Bebeto, Makaay, etc.) and what the future beholds.
Considering there will be several sponsors tied to different players, the space opens up for partnerships between brands, develop marketing actions together and therefore creating opportunities to access a new set of potential customers.
Getting "futuristic" about this agreement, and tying nicely to a whitepaper we share with you later in the "articles section," an option for these brands could be to create a series of merchandising items or a special product line, mint them as an NFT and then create special "offline events" for the different token holders. So for instance, the fan or customer who gets NFT 1 will be able to play a game with the player each season, the member with NFT 2 can go out to lunch with him, etc.
The success of a sponsoring program relies on creating brand associations between the club and the sponsor and this is usually achieved thanks to an activation strategy that is in place over the long term.
The risk of these "individual based" programs is that the long term is compromised (since it is hard to predict how many years a given player will remain with the club). What is important though, is that the sponsor maintains its commitment to supporting the players of that given club to create positive associations among the fans although another angle is for brands to "follow" the player around during his / her career which could drive opportunities to open up new markets based on where the athlete is playing at a given time.
And this would be some of the ideas we have; any other that we missed or come to mind?
The 50 most marketable athletes
This episode of the Sports Pro Podcast summarizes the list of the most marketable athletes. What stands out from this list is that #1 & #2 athletes are not necessarily the ones with most audience or the “obvious” ones. As it is discussed in the episode, those athletes that represent "something greater" than themselves, that are identified with a clear cause, etc. are the ones with most potential.
A Masterclass on creativity
The "Lochhead on Marketing" podcast shares 3 great ideas to foster creativity. These 3 ideas are:
Dare to suck
Do carry creative jam sessions
Don't interrupt creativity sessions
The episode shares examples for you to understand better what each of these mean.
Leadership masterclass: Leading with Integrity
Another brilliant episode of The Knowledge Project with a masterclass on leading with integrity. The conversation goes deep into Doug Conant´s career (Former President at Nabisco & Campbell´s Soup) and how he became a better leader with each move.
The main lesson we took from it? As a leader you have to be prepared to be "tough on performance but kind on people." They are not opposite concepts at all so it is critical to be able to adopt both attitudes simultaneously
Scaling a business with inbound marketing & referral programs
The Inbound Success podcast shares this interesting lesson on how to scale up a business based on repurposing organic content that all the organization can use. This is actually something we deeply believe in; we have published a few articles on the topic in our blog so check it out if you want more examples.
And, those of us working in sports or fitness understand the importance of a good referral programs. The show also publishes this episode that digs deep into when to offer a referral program, to which customers and the mistakes to avoid.
The "and"/"but"/ "therefore" storytelling framework
The Social Media Examiner podcast shares this awesome framework to built a direct & effective storytelling strategy. It is based on an acknowledgement of the customer's problem (and), the obstacle towards implementing a solution (but) and how your brand can be the solution (therefore). This can be applied to any story across any channel you wish!
What we need to learn about AI in marketing
This insightful episode of Harvard Ideacast brings a masterclass of the application of AI to your marketing strategy. While it is true it can help you with customer related decisions or even dynamic pricing strategies, the truth is that there is still much to learn about the potential of the technology applied to business. In essence, AI should be used as a tool to help solve specific problems identified by the management team rather than being the generator of that solution.
And, in case you want more details on the uses of AI in sports, feel free to check out our blog post on the matter.
How Electronic Arts perceives gaming & the metaverse
Now that the term "metaverse" is all over the place, it is fantastic to see how the biggest brands perceive how it will evolve over time. This is one of the topics covered in this episode of Rapid Response, with Electronic Arts´ CEO. His opinion about gaming actually being an enabler of "social connection" are also worth listening to!
The state of "sport NFTs"
While the "hype" behind sport NFTs has dipped a little bit since February of this year, McKinsey believes that the market is still on its early stages and that there certainly is room for growth in the near future.
In this article, they share a very detailed guide on the state of the market, the different customer segments participating in the market and what they are interested in.
Understanding how NFTs can be applied to sports
And, in case you are wondering how NFTs can be applied to the world of sport, then you cannot miss this awesome whitepaper by Visa, which introduces the concept of NFTs, the different ways your sport business can use it and the process you need to follow to actually create them. This is a great place to start!
9 ideation frameworks for startup founders
NFX shares 9 great ways to understand how a few startup founders got their ideas and executed on them. First, they begin from a 4 step framework to understand if you are "on to something:"
Obsession: The difference between good & great
You notice something is broken
Potential users understand your solution
You are an industry outsider
This is a must read for any entrepreneur!
Email marketing personalization through Golf Town
Are you looking to take your email marketing to a new level? This eMarketer article shares a great example of how a golf retailer is segmenting its customer data base through behaviors rather than targeting their entire database or doing so based on demographics.
Check it out to get a few good ideas for your business!
A step by step guide for SEO & Keyword research
Keyword research is absolutely critical to develop a successful SEO strategy. It will ensure relevance, authority and ultimately, traffic to your website. Orbit Media shares a very detailed guide that explains why SEO is important, the 3 criteria to decide on keywords and a step by step guide to arrive at those keywords.
And that does it for The Ballketing Letter #48! Than you once again for reading and “beeing on the other side.” If you have any feedback, let us know so we can keep making this newsletter more useful and help you take your sport or fitness business to another level.
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.
We hope to be back next week with more amazing content but meanwhile, keep safe.