The Sports Marketing

The sports marketing literature suggests that consumers of sport have unique relationships with their favourite teams. The high level of support from fans, team identification and emotional attachment towards sport clubs have often been associated with the term 'Engagement'.

Highly engaged fans are likely to develop behaviours such as positive word of mouth, displays of supporting the sport, consumer to consumer interactions and reading information about the team online, or in newspapers and books. Football fans today are often not satisfied with just watching games, the fans want to be fully involved in the content. For football marketing, this ends up taking the fans that extra mile, this may include behind-the-scene experience or helping fans get to know the players.

The aim for this report is to give the football community a better understanding on how football clubs can better engage with their fans. This will include different engagement techniques such as Giving your fans a voice, getting fans involved while they are young, knowing your target and recognizing loyalty and how to engage year-round.

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Give your fans a voice:

Every club should give their fans a voice, this isn't only helping the club engage with their fans better, but it is allowing the club to get a direct insight into what the fans want, pay attention to their thoughts, trending ideas, questions and reactions. This is not only important for the club, but it is important for the fans as well as they want to feel part of the club and want their thoughts to be heard or applied within the club. Fan councils have helped a number of clubs connect with their fans. Teams are now able to use insights directly from fans to drive season ticket sales, sponsorships, marketing investments and brand engagement.

In 2013 Media post conducted a survey with 1000 randomly selected adults. The results found were that fans do not feel that their opinions are being heard by their club. In fact, only 45% of fans agreed that their club was actually interested in hearing their opinions. Even worse, only 33% of fans said that they actually listen to their feedback. These findings show what major gap in how fans are currently being engaged with. However a stat that was very surprising was 30% of the fans switched their favourite team in the past year and 22% of fans reported that they would consider switching teams next year as they feel they have no say in their club and they don't feel apart of the club they are supporting.

According to Media Post, the 7 key reasons a club should give their fans a voice are:

1. Fans are cheering for more than a team's performance
2. Fans want to be engaged throughout the year
3. Fans are willing to switch favourite teams, and there are still "floaters" to attract
4. Teams can optimize marketing investments
5. There is an opportunity to provide added value and deepen relationships with sponsors and advertisers
6. Listening to fans enables teams to measure and increase brand value
7. Fan engagement drives the season ticket sales funnel

Get the fans involved while they are young:

To be a successful club and to have high quality fan engagement you would have to get the fans involved while they are young. This is important as no other experience can replicate the connection that a young boy or girl form with a club. This is a big thing because when you engage with a young fan they will remember the moment for most of their life. This is a big part in their life as when they share the moment they had with their friends or family, or even with their own children one day.

Engaging with a young child would be beneficial for the club as many young fans have a hunger for knowledge and experiences, they are still trying to figure out their course. Helping to piece together a roadmap that may even lead to a life in professional sports can go a long way. Teams can also offer fans more opportunities to gather together. These events stir up civil pride, build excitement and may also sell a few more tickets to the games.

The natural inclination to gather, can deliver a massive leap towards a relationship with young fans. Younger fans ask questions of players and executives at fan events, it doesn't take long before you hear a variation of, "How do I follow in your footsteps?" Creating a meaningful connection with young people isn't just about what's on their screen, its about the experiences and the knowledge they can get from the experiences.

Don Sabo, a youth-sports researcher and professor at D'Youville College in Buffalo, found that 61% of boys and 34% of girls across all grades say that sports are a large part of who they are. This statistic is very important as it shows how important sport is to children. This is useful as it shows how important sport is for them, this is useful for clubs as it would show them how they should start engaging while they are young, as this is when most of the children want to care and want to learn about sport.

Know your Audience and recognise loyalty:As a soccer club you've got to recognize each fan, and be able to tell them apart, you also need to reward them and record each of their fan interactions. This is a big part while engaging with your fans as they don't just want to be called fans and treated the same as everyone fan. They want to feel special and this is one way which you could make them feel that way.

By recognizing your fans and rewarding them, this would give them more motivation to come out and support the team, this would also help as you are engaging with your fans and it could get more fans to come along as they feel like the club is more of a family then a club. Some clubs have already taken this into account and thought of ways to better involve their fans.

The Seattle Sounders have implemented a loyalty program called Match pass, and they have said that this strengthens their relationship and create a lifelong brand champion. This allows the season ticket holder to get a lot back from their club. The match pass includes watching the last 20 minutes of the match from the side of the pitch, sitting in the broadcast booth and watching the game with the broadcasters and being a part of the starting XI team photo.

This is a simple way to get your fans involved with the club as it isn't costing the club any extra money and it rewards the fans with experiences money can't buy. To make this an effective engagement strategy the team would be required to put in some extra work and may be required to develop deeper understanding of the fans. Sites such as Dugout are dedicated to behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive content. Teams such as Arsenal, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, amongst others have got involved with Dugout. This includes player or team challenges and allows the users to access the content before it appears anywhere else.

Engage year round:

Football clubs should engage with their fans all year round, as engaging with your fans shouldn't start when the season starts. Clubs should engage all year round while the season is over the fans might feel like they aren't involved with the club and the club doesn't care about their supporters. By engaging all throughout the off season this will help the fan feel more apart of the club and may even call the club their second family.

The football club should always look for ways to improve the fans experience. If you go to a game, giant screens around the ground to give you a better glimpse of the on-field action. This also helps the fan miss none of the game as if they leave their seats to go to the cafeteria they could watch the giant screen and miss none of the action. Providing Wi-Fi access to the fans also helps as it gives fans a way to communicate and feel more part of the game.

Many fans follow their team throughout the entire annual cycle. From preseason through the trade deadline, and even during the offseason. There are still times in the season that marketing can target can target to get their fans involved with the team and the brand. Even though the team may not be playing. Realistically sports teams won't be able to keep fans engaged year-round, but by listening to your fans and hearing what the fans are looking for at certain time of the year, teams can enhance what they offer and how they can engage in different ways.

Conclusion:

Football clubs need to consider the fans and make more interesting and exciting ways to engage with their fans. This is important as football isn't just about watching the game, it is about the fans as well. If there weren't any fans purchasing merchandise, memberships or the clubs stadium isn't even getting filled if this continues to happen then more clubs would have to file for bankruptcy. Plenty of clubs have become bankrupt some of these include Parma, Chelsea, Leeds and Portsmouth.

To keep clubs going and the fans happy to invest their money into the club there needs to be better fan engagement strategies introduced such as getting direct insight into what the fans want, by getting the fans involved while they are young, recognizing each fan and rewarding them for their fan interactions.

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