Do you run a tournament, camp or league? Learn how to grow your program for $0.

1. Free Advertising: Using the Web to
Promote Your Sports Programs for $0
A free E Book brought to you by StadiumRoar.com

2. Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………....3
Getting More Website Visitors…………....9
Email Newsletters……………...10
Social Media…………………….14
Google…………………………...21
Getting Visitors to Sign Up……………….29
Free Tools from StadiumRoar to Help…..33

3. Do you run a tournament,
camp or league?

4. Then you must know that there
are tons of other programs
people can choose from

5. Why should they choose
yours?

6. This E Book will teach you two things…
How to get a lot of How to get them
participants without spending
any money

7. The strategy in a nutshell
Step 2: Once these new “leads” are
on your website, use our tips to
assure they sign up for your program
Step 1: Use our tips to
attract more visitors to
your website *
* Don’t have a website
yet? It’s OK!

8. Don’t have a program website
yet?
No sweat! We’ll teach
you how to quickly get a
free one at the end of
the E Book.

9. Attracting more visitors
to your website

10. Tip #1 – Email Newsletters
You should build up an email list of all the people who have ever participated in your
program. If you do not have any email addresses yet, it’s OK. You can start during
your next program session. Once every few months, you should send out a
newsletter to everyone.
The newsletter should not be a blatant advertisement for your program. Instead, it
should contain relevant content that can help out the people on your mailing list. For
instance, if you run a soccer tournament, you can send out some links to good
soccer instructional videos.
An email newsletter will accomplish two things: keep your program fresh on people’s
minds and give people an opportunity to forward your newsletter to their friends,
which acts as free advertising for your program.

11. Email Newsletters - How to do it
1.) In the body of the email, include useful
content for the types of people on your list
2.) At the bottom of the email, include
some brief information about your
program and a link to your program
website
3.) Also include instructions for
unsubscribing; if people want to stop
receiving the letter, be sure you have in
process in place to remove them from the
list

12. Email Newsletters – Sending
If your email list is under 300 people, you should be able to send the
emails directly from your email provider (gmail, etc).
However, if you have a larger list, then you should use a newsletter
service to send the emails. We recommend a service called
“MailChimp”; you can send up to 12,000 emails a month for free.
www.MailChimp.com

13. Email Newsletters – Viral Effect
• You send out the email to Your Program Website
subscribers
• A percentage of
subscribers will forward
your email to their friends
• A percentage of these
people will click your
program-website link at the
bottom of the email and
learn more about your
program; these people Friends of
become new “leads” for Subscribers subscribers
your program! You

14. Tip #2 – Social Media
Social media marketing essentially means the use of Facebook, Twitter
and YouTube to advertise your program. These networks already have
hundreds of millions of users. A percentage of those users are potential
participants in your program. The key is finding them, and getting them
to click through to your site.
The course of action is a bit different for each of the three sites, so we’ll
talk about each one individually.

15. YouTube – How to do it
1.) Create a YouTube channel for your program by
signing up at www.YouTube.com; you will use this
channel page as a place to upload videos
2.) Before you upload the videos, make sure you edit
them to include a “closing” screen; this is a still
screen with some information about your program,
such as “This video was filmed at the 3rd annual XYZ
Tournament – Learn more at our website at
www.example.com”
3.) Upload the edited videos to your channel and then
share them on Facebook and Twitter (more about
using Facebook and Twitter later)

16. YouTube – Viral Effect
• You upload videos to YouTube
and share those videos with your Your Program Website
Facebook fans and Twitter
followers
• Those people will likely share
the videos with their fans and
followers too
• These people will see your
“closing” screen at the end of the
videos, where they will see your
web address; a percentage of
these people will visit your link to
learn more; these people
Fans and
become new “leads” for your Fans and Followers of
program! You Fans and
Followers Followers

17. Facebook – How to do it
1.) Create a Facebook page for your program at
www.facebook.com
2.) Attract fans to the page by emailing out the
link to your page to program participants, in
addition to friends and colleagues who are
interested in sports
3.) Load up your page with interesting articles,
links, photos and videos about your program
and about sports in general; be sure to
include a link to your program’s website and
its contact information on the page as well

18. Facebook – Viral Effect
• You email out a link to your
page to people you know
Your Program Website
• As you post content like
photos and videos, a
percentage of fans will “like” or
“share” your content on
Facebook, which means it will
appear to be seen by all of
their friends
• A percentage of these
“friends of fans” will click
through to your Facebook
page and eventually to your
program-website link, which Friends of
should be posted on your
Fans fans
page; these people become You
new “leads” for your
program!

19. Twitter – How to do it
1.) Create an account at
www.twitter.com
2.) Attract followers to your account by
following people that are potential
participants in your program (hopefully
a percentage of them will follow you
back); you can use the “search”
feature to search for accounts to follow
3.) Periodically post, or “tweet”
articles, photos, videos and links that
are relevant to your followers

20. Twitter – Viral Effect
• You follow potential program
participants on Twitter Your Program Website
• A percentage of them will follow
you back, which means they will
have access to your posts, or
“tweets”
• As you make interesting posts,
people will click back to your
profile to learn more about you,
where they can click the link to
your program website; these
people become new “leads” for
your program!
Followers of
Followers followers
You

21. Tip #3 – Google
Getting found in the Google search results is the easiest way to attract
new visitors to your website. Every day, thousands of people visit
Google to find sports programs in their area. Right now, there are
people searching for things like “youth soccer tournaments in State X”.
These people are looking to find you! Make it easy for them!

22. Free vs. Paid Results
Showing up on the left of the page Showing up on the right of
costs you nothing the page costs money

23. Use Free!
We’re going to teach you how
to show up on the left of the
page, in the free results.
Why? Because that’s where
people look first for search
results. And it doesn’t cost
anything!

24. Step 1: The right text on your
website
When people use Google to search for a certain phrase, Google scans all
the websites on the internet to see if they contain that phrase. So, when you
include a description of your program on the homepage of your website,
keep the Google searcher in mind. Be sure to clearly type out what your
program does and where it is located.
For instance, “The Surf Classic is a U 12 boys youth soccer tournament held
in Santa Monica, CA” is a much better description than “The Surf Classic is
a local soccer tournament”.

25. Step 2: Get links
Showing up in the search results is good, however, showing up toward the top is great.
There are a lot of sites on the web that contain similar terms. For instance, if someone
searches for the term “basketball sneakers”, which is contained on a ton of sites, which
sites show up at the top of the results? How does Google decide?
In short, the main deciding factor is links. Google likes sites that have a lot of links.
When we say links we mean inbound links, not outbound links. What’s the difference?
An outbound link is a link you put on your site, which links to another site. An inbound link
is the opposite; this is a link someone else puts on their site, that links to your site. You
want as many inbound links as possible. Please note that having a lot of outbound links
on your site does not hurt you in the search results; it just does not directly help.
Also, you want as many of these inbound links as possible to be coming from established,
high-traffic sites. For example, a link from nytimes.com is much more powerful than a link
from the website of your local coffee shop.

26. So, how do you get good
links?
The easiest way is to contact the larger
organizations your program is part of.
Is your program part of a high school?
Have your link added on the high school
website. Is it part of a college? Have it
added on your college’s website. Is it a
local recreation program? Have it added
on your town’s website. Is it part of a
major sports association like US Youth
Soccer? Have it added on the regional
website. Etc, etc, etc.

27. Step 3: Get in online
directories
A highly effective way to get found in Google is to do it through free online
directories. Whatever type of program you’re in charge of, chances are there’s one
or more online directories that list programs like yours. There are countless sports
directories available on the web for leagues, camps and tournaments, and most of
them offer free listings.
First, you need to get your program listed in these directories. The more, the
better. These directories typically have sub-pages that are broken down by region.
For instance, a California page, or a New York page, etc. These pages typically
rank very high in the search results. When people click these links in the Google
search results, they are then taken to the directory sub-page, where they can
browse all the relevant listings, and potentially click on yours.

28. So, how do you get into
directories?
Coincidentally, the best place to start is
with Google. In the search bar, enter
the term “free directory” followed by
your type of program. For instance,
“free directory youth basketball
tournaments”.
You’ll see a bunch of directories in the
results. Click through to them, and
have a look. If a directory seems like a
good fit, search around on it for
information on submitting a listing.
Typically, you just need to fill out a
simple online form containing your
program’s information.

29. Getting website visitors
to sign up for your
program

30. Tip #1: Have a quality, dedicated website
Your program should have its own website. It should not just be a sub-page of a
larger site. For instance, your baseball tournament’s website should not just be the
“Tournaments” tab on your baseball club’s main site. Your tournament should have
its own site, dedicated just to it. You can then put a link to this site on the main site.
In addition, make sure your site is good. A 10-year old slow site that was
grandfathered down to you from the previous program director is not going to cut it.
You need a fast site that people can get to, easily navigate and find information on.
This is a must.
You can craft a brilliant strategy to get people to visit your site, however, once they
come to your site, if it is slow, old or confusing, they’re probably going to leave
quickly, and not sign up, which makes all your other efforts worthless.

31. Tip #2 – Be informative
Your site’s main function should be to convey
information. People are clicking through to your site to
learn more about your program. So, teach them.
Clearly display your contact information, in addition to
a program overview, important dates and photos.

32. Tip #3 – Let people sign up online!!!
This is the most important tip. Once you get someone to find your site, then click
through to it, then learn more on it, you only have one more thing to do…get
them to sign up for your program! Don’t lose them at the last step!
The modern internet user does not like printing things out and mailing things in.
The modern user likes things to be a mouse-click away from everything. Make
sure you have online registration in place, and make sure it is visible directly on
your website.
Online registration increases the likelihood website visitors will be converted into
actual program participants. Adding extra steps to the process such as printing
out forms, mailing in checks, calling an 800 number, etc decreases the likelihood
of them turning into participants. This is an easy choice for you.

33. Getting a free program
website and free online
registration software

34. How can our free E Book about free advertising be
complete if we don’t offer you something for free at
the end?
We at StadiumRoar offer free
program websites and free
online registration software.
www.StadiumRoar.com

35. Questions, Comments?
If you have any questions or comments about our program
marketing advice, or about our free websites or registration
software, get in touch
908 591 5448
contact@stadiumroar.com