#77 - The Ballketing Letter
A "purpose-driven" sponsorship framework, organizing events in the metaverse, the country with most "sport tech" startups, more "sport & climate change" efforts & more!
Hey there Ballketers,
Welcome to post #77! After a week of rest, we are back with more content to help you level up your sports or fitness business.
The highlights of this week:
A framework for your “purpose-driven” sponsorship program.
A few episodes on climate change initiatives within sports.
A special callout to opportunities for event organizers in the metaverse or even how one major event can fuel months’ worth of content.
And, of course, the resource center is updated with the latest business content, you can find the link below.
Let´s get down to business!
"Behaviors create attitudes”
David Sandstrom (CMO at Klarna)
The quote of the week comes from a marketing masterclass from Klarna´s CMO in The CMO Podcast. In particular, he was making reference to how everything in marketing starts with a great product and that a teams´ goal should be to get people to try that product and build a recurring business from there.
It is only after actually trying the product or service that customers will become more attached to it and thus, more loyal. Klarna by the way is making strong moves within the sport industry, as you can see below:
A “Purpose-Driven” sponsorship framework for your sports business
For this week´s brief, we go back to a “purpose-driven sponsorship framework” we helped a basketball team implement in their organization for a pioneering sponsorship program. While this club has been competing at the highest pro-level for years and is considered one of the “classics” of its league, it’s even better known for its positive impact on society through its youth, women, and parasports programs. The goals behind the project were the following:
Obtain funding from top-tier organizations to support the social mission of the club.
Provide networking opportunities for corporate leaders involved in the program.
In the long term, drive innovation in sport through partnerships with the sponsors.
The Purpose-Driven Sponsorship Framework
To identify potential partners, we developed the following framework whose mission is to help sports or fitness businesses answer the question: “Why are we here?”
At the base of the framework, is “brand purpose,” supported by the mission, values, and impact that the business looks to create.
Then, there are 8 pillars that help frame the scope of a potential partnership:
Relevance of the promise: What are your organization´s aspirations?
Perceived performance: Are you living up to your follower´s expectations?
Loyalty: The more positive memories your brand can generate, the more loyalty it will drive.
Value for money: Are your stakeholders satisfied with the time, money, and effort they are investing in your brand?
Uniqueness: Why does your brand stand out?
Awareness: What is the degree of exposure of your brand in media channels (digital, traditional, etc.)?
Brand associations: What does your target market think about when your brand comes to mind?
Other owned brand assets: These include trademarks, facilities, etc.
The sales & marketing funnel of a B2B partnership program in sports
Once the objectives and scope of the program were defined, we built the sales & marketing strategy behind it. While the funnel below is a simplified version; it helps understand the approach:
With that in place, we set out to implement the plan and optimize the different phases of the funnel.
At the end of the day, there were three metrics this organization looked to optimize for:
Revenues: The metric that matters for any B2B partnership deal.
Pipeline: We highly recommend you look at Refine Lab´s Pipeline Velocity metric, as it covers pretty much everything that businesses should optimize for.
Referrals: This was the best tactic to drive organic growth, getting business leaders to talk to other executives about the project.
This was the strategic framework we followed and in upcoming posts, we will share some of the lessons we learned; hopefully, this will help you frame partnership agreements in the future for your sport or fitness business.
The race against climate change is a team sport
This episode of The Sustainability Report Podcast shows why any sport organization, regardless of size or location, can pitch in the efforts towards fighting climate change.
Three clubs from Europe share the strategies, tactics and vision of their environmental efforts.
Also, this other episode discusses how Real Betis & İstanbul Başakşehir are working together on a climate change initiative and are even looking to bring other clubs along for the ride; football is a team sport and so should be the race against climate change.
On a similar note, this episode of Climate for Sport provides a good review of how the Planet Super League involves fans in the fight against Climate Change, which is a much-needed step if we are to comply with the sustainable goals.
And, if you need resources, frameworks, or, questions to ask your own business in order to start your own “Net Zero” journey, check out this episode from McKinsey´s podcast, as it shares a brief outline on how to do so.
Take your marketing game to another level
Creating months of content from one live event
This episode of Demand U could be very valuable to those of you in the sports events space. The hosts share a 5 step framework for you to generate months’ worth of content out of one major event that includes:
Planning ahead (Understand who is your audience)
Pick your distribution channels
Work your email database
Pre-recording of the sessions and then making speaker available for QA in the chat
Focus on all the small details (branding, music, etc.).
A 4-question framework to launch new products into the market
Another awesome episode of “How to Win w / Peep Ladja,” in which what we liked most is the 4 question framework that will help you create / deliver new products:
How confident are you that you know the 3 main problems the target market has?
Can you name the gains you want to have?
Are you sure you are delivering what the market needs vs what you want?
Validate message-market fit prior to product-market fit
Learning from the best in the game
The potential of gaming behind web3
Two main lessons from this insightful episode of Goldman Sach´s podcast on the gaming industry:
The potential for gaming to become recurring revenue generators vs in the past being a “one-off” purchase.
Gaming is the entrance to web3, which is why companies like Microsoft are betting on the space so strongly.
Behind the scenes with Microsoft´s sports partnership strategy
On that note, the Stream Time podcast shares in full detail how Microsoft is helping sports properties change the game and the fan experience through their technology. What is interesting to note, is that Microsoft does not need “awareness;” their goals evolve around creating new business cases for their services.
They also cover the metrics and frameworks they use to evaluate potential partnerships, which could be useful to those of you looking to attract big corporations to your sports business.
The latest from the “Sport Tech” scene
A basic guide to the metaverse and the opportunities for marketers
Hubspot publishes an article that explains the basics of the metaverse, the three predominant players in the space, and even examples for brands looking to enter it , including events in the metaverse, networking or sponsorship opportunities.
Why Israeli startups are changing the sports-tech scene
If you are looking for a “tech” partner for your sports business, perhaps you should check out this article on Sport Techie, which talks about several Israeli startups that are changing the industry through technology.
Not only does the article share a handful of businesses you can check out, but also the common origin many of them have, and for some of them, even their current investment valuations.
One of such examples is Pixellot, which is disrupting the sports streaming market through AI:
“Pixellot broadcasts 150,000 hours of live video content per month which is maybe what ESPN is generating in five years...”
Who are the players changing the game?
How Overtime wants to become the ESPN for the younger fans
Marketing Brew shares a detailed profile of Overtime, the organizers of a basketball league that pays teenagers who want to skip college up to $100K and become semi pro players. This is one of the sport brands that is embracing and adapting to new fan behaviors and the facts seem to prove their success:
33 million followers across Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat etc. most of which are aged 18 to 34.
Support from investors such as Jeff Bezos, Pau Gasol or Devin Booker.
Partnerships with brands like Gatorade or Meta.
For those in the industry trying to engage with the younger audiences, Overtime is a great example to learn from…
How Zwift is planning to dominate the overall competitive cycling landscape
Morning Brew shares this interesting piece on Zwift´s journey to become a relevant player in competitive cycling through virtual races. Make no mistake, this could be a game-changer as many former champions from several disciplines are taking part and even the UCI is partnering with them to organize official races.
Raise the bar on your strategy game
A “Product Launch” Masterclass
CXL publishes a great article that details extremely well the “how” to launch a new product across the relevant phases. From pre-selling to the marketing and selling strategies to carrying out post mortems...it covers it all!
The Hospitality Mindset
Seth Godin shares a “must-read” for those in marketing and sales. Ultimately, making the choice to deliver a remarkable customer experience may lower short term profits but in the long run, the “brand” wins.
The Global State of Small & Medium Businesses Report
Meta shares insightful research on the state of SMBs around the world which covers topics such as closure rates, sales performance, employment, spending in digital tools and opportunities vs future concerns.
And that does it for The Ballketing Letter #77! Thank you if you made it to the end of the post and, if you have any feedback, please reach out.
In case you want to keep learning, be sure to check out our resource center!
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Keep safe.