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Question: How does content marketing apply to sports marketing?

Let’s start with the content marketing definition first.

“The process of developing and sharing relevant, valuable, and engaging content to target audience with the goal of acquiring new customers or increasing business from existing customers.”

In other words, content marketing is about creating and sharing content to help, challenge, educate, entertain your audience or facilitate their buying process.

Modern sports marketing is no longer confined to big stadiums or fun events.

Sports fans follow their teams and share their passion and frustrations digitally. With the always-on social media, sports teams and fans are not limited to interacting with their team only during the regular season. Teams need something to engage the audience during the off-season. Content is that “something,” a means to sustain that continuous momentum and emotional connection.

Speaking of the types of content. During the season, everything can be a piece of content:

  • team practice videos
  • pre-game locker-room rituals
  • in-game play-by-play updates
  • post-game analysis and interviews
  • even players sharing tips and tricks on how they improve their game

Fans have insatiable appetites and they want “in”. They want to be part of the inner circle. Content serves that purpose.

During the off-season, you can re-use and re-package some of the highlights from the past season. You can create contests, quizzes and other creative and fun activities that will engage your fans.

Sports marketing isn’t limited to professional and amateur sports.

Although GoPro is not a sports team, its products create a massive amount of user-generated sports marketing content. They build their websites and let users go nuts sharing their videos. It’s a great content marketing example. Use content to market the products. It works for GoPro.

After all, sports marketing is not really about content. It’s about relationships, your teams, and your fans. It’s about helping your fans get to know the team, the players and the game better. Sports marketing is about helping them be part of the game. Content is merely the means.

Please, send me your marketing questions and thoughts here or via Twitter @pamdidner.

What can Pam Didner do for you?

Being in the corporate world for 20+ years and having held various positions from accounting and supply chain management, and marketing to sales enablement, she knows how corporations work. She can make you and your team a rock star by identifying areas to shine and do better. She does that through private coaching, keynote speaking, workshop training, and hands-on consulting. Contact her or find her on LinkedIn and Twitter. A quick note: Check out her new 90-Day Revenue Reboot, if you are struggling with marketing.