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BASIC MARKETING
FOR SPORT CLUBS
• CHIARA LOMBARDO •
BAIA MARE
2020
BASIC MARKETING
FOR SPORT CLUBS
CHIARA LOMBARDO
BAIA MARE
2020
AUTHOR Chiara LOMBARDO
ISBN 978-973-0-32843-1
PHOTOS Andreea CĂPLESCU, Ana Luisa D'ORAZIO
Alexandra RODRIGUES
DESIGN Chiara LOMBARDO, Andreea CĂPLESCU
PARTNERS YELLOW SHIRTS – ROMANIA
C.S. ȘTIINȚA BAIA MARE – ROMANIA
MARKETING GATE – NORTH MACEDONIA
UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA SAN ANTONIO DE MURCIA – SPAIN
GIOVANI SENZA FRONTIERE – ITALY
CONTACTS
WEBSITE WWW.VOLLEYBALLSCIENCE.COM
FACEBOOK EUVOLLEYBALLSCIENCE
INSTAGRAM VOLLEYBALL.SCIENCE
SLIDESHARE VOLLEYBALLSCIENCE
LINKEDIN VOLLEYBALL-SCIENCE
EMAIL VOLLEYBALL.SCIENCE.EU@GMAIL.COM
PUBLISHING DATE OCTOBER 2020
DISCLAIMER
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.
This manual has been elaborated during the project “Volleyball is not rocket
science. We are!” (603393-EPP-1-2018-1-RO-SPO-SSCP), funded by the
European Union through the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive
Agency, in the context of the Erasmus+ Sport Programme, “Small
Collaborative Partnerships” action.
01
INTRODUCTION 6
Welcome
What sport marketing is?
Guideline for the marketing
strategy
Why use social media?
What social media sites
should I be using?
7
8
9
19
21
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
The best times to post
Social media image sizes
Tips for athletes
Tips for coaches
ONLINE VISIBILITY 26
ON SOCIAL MEDIA
02
Gain more followers
Build your network
Recruit athletes, coaches,
officials and volunteers
Engage sponsors and
partners
Engage the mass-media
Improve the performance of
your newsletter
HOW TO ATTRACT 45
MORE PEOPLE
03
Boost your creativity
Create “shareable”
social media content
Create a sport highlight
video
Maximize your time
Features for sport
websites
How to write an
engaging sport article
Tips to improve your
SEO
WEBSITE 57
04
CREATING CONTENT 69
05
ANNEXES 75
***
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SOURCES 78
5
Free tools for creating
social media content
INTRODUCTION
01
Welcome
What sport marketing is?
Guideline for the marketing strategy
Why use social media?
What social media sites should I be using?
6
Volleyball is one of the most popular sports around the world. It
can be played from very early ages and it doesn’t require a lot of
investment to play for leisure.
Unlike many team sports, there is no direct contact with the
opponent and your response is most often based on how you and
your team react. It has speed and reaction-based movement that
engages you both as spectator and player.
Volleyball needs fast reactions, great attention, quick reflexes,
coordination of the own movements correlated with your team’s,
high communication and leadership skills and last, but not least, a
good physical condition.
The initiative of this manual started from the desire to promote
more volleyball at the grassroots level in order to attract people of
different ages to practice it in the free time and why not, to be the
path opener to children and youth to an athletic career.
In your support we created this marketing guide for the clubs to
attract more people to them, and a volleyball guide accompanied
by video materials for a visual sustainability for coaches, teachers
and self-learners.
 The Yellow Shirts team
WELCOME
7
8
Sport marketing has been defined by
many authors in various forms over
the years. Beech and Chadwick (2007)
defined it as “A continuous process
where events with an uncertain
outcome are exploited for the direct or
indirect satisfaction of the needs of
sport customers, sport-related
businesses and other individuals or
organizations related to this.”
For many years worldwide experts
have been searching for a common
definition of the term by discussing all
over the possible answer to the
question: what sport marketing is?
Having a good marketing strategy is essential
in today’s rapidly evolving society, such as
ours. Those who do not have a good online
working system risk remaining on the outside
of the social and economic dynamics.
Sport marketing comes in various ways and
involves every single department of an
organization. It is utterly important to
understand the key role the audience has,
which gets itself into becoming a co-creator
of your content, by using it.
This is why a good marketing strategy shall
include different techniques of emotional
approaches and use as many methods and
tools as possible for communicating in the
sport field.
It is therefore essential to put a finger on the
three macro areas in which sport marketing
must develop: analytical, strategic and
operational.
WHAT SPORT
MARKETING IS?
“Marketing is really
just about sharing your
passion.”
GUIDELINE FOR THE
MARKETING STRATEGY
9
"Failing to plan is planning to fail” and “A goal is a dream with a deadline” are 2 phrases
we should keep in mind when planning a strategy in general.
Before going deeper into the details of the practical communication instruments
mentioned in the following pages, it is needed to clarify the importance of having a clear
and defined strategic line. This means knowing the specificities of the attractive and
relevant subjects, namely those of the identified followers’ interest as they are the main
protagonists of your sport’s promotion.
It is important to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of market demand through tools
such as the S.W.O.T. analysis, market research, opinion polls, or creation of a database to
be constantly updated over time.
10
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
TEST
YOUR ASSETS
The first thing to do is to analyse and
evaluate all the resources you have in
your club in terms of suitability and
usefulness for your further promotion.
Often the small sport organisations do
not have enough financial strength to
support on its own a communication;
however it is important to realize that
nowadays there are plenty of
solutions for each case to fill in these
gaps.
A modern website, mobile friendly and
captivating in terms of design and content;
All the social channels should be consistent
in terms of design and brand identity,
constantly taken care of and with a multi-
channel content perspective;
A set of software programmes for the
creation of the graphics and videos;
Human resources to manage the
communication.
Ideally, a sport organization should have a
communication structure containing:
11
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
CHECKLIST OF
COMMUNICATION ASSETS
Web designer
Website
Social media manager
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
Photographer
Videographer
Basic graphics programmes
Basic video editing programmes
Communication manager
Press officer
The S.W.O.T. analysis (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and
Threats) is an instrument used to
support taking strategic choices
based on the internal and external
factors map of an organisation, be
them positive or negative. It also
supports the further communication
by putting into practice an effective
marketing strategy.
This type of analysis can underline the
strengths and weaknesses of the club,
can help identify in due time the
opportunities and threats, and
support the establishment of a
strategy that takes all these aspects
into account.
12
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
CREATE A BUDGET
The communication budget, usually
determined on an annual base, is the
document in which are presented the
activities related to the communication
plan and the anticipated costs to
implement it. It is part of the economic
and management process, and is called
upon to ensure consistency between
the general objectives set by the club
and those specific to the communication
strategy.
The communication budget is not the
same with the advertising one, as it
includes all communication activities.
However the communication budget mainly
consists indeed of external costs (not
provided directly by the club). It is possible
though, with the help of various
collaborations, to find someone among your
members or your followers who has the
suitable skills to diminish or internalize
these costs.
The budget can be shared according to the
actual availability and needs of the club and
can be scaled as time goes by to make
continuous improvements that can bring
monetary conversions.
USE A S.W.O.T. ANALYSIS
POSITIVE NEGATIVE
EXTERNALINTERNAL
S
strengths
W
weaknesses
O
opportunities
T
threats
Factor's character
Factor'sorigin
13
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
DEFINE YOUR PROGRAMME
A good communication plan is based
on measurable goals.
Before starting any practical activity,
we need to create a strategy that
defines a direction and sets a mood for
the communication with our audience.
It needs to clarify at the same time the
objectives we want to achieve.
The communication plan has as main
aim to guide all the communication
activities needed to achieve the
previously set objectives. The plan
presents by what means, through what
budget and within which timeframe the
message will be conveyed externally.
This plan is useful also for knowing and
profiling the target group, going far beyond
the targeting of marketing, and getting to a
more in-depth analysis that is qualitatively
and quantitatively able to lead the
audience to an eased identification of your
trademark.
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
DRAFT YOUR
COMMUNICATION PLAN
The drafting phase or what you want to do and why;
The management phase or implementing what has been written in the plan;
The evaluation phase or checking the achieved level of the objectives of the set plan.
To create a useful and coherent communication plan, you should follow these 3 phases:
It is therefore a full cycle process that starts with the analysis of the context, goes on
with drafting the plan and putting it into practice while having constant monitoring,
including the evaluation of the contents at the end.
Once a cycle is finished you can introduce the changes done or observed as needed in the
drafting phase.
Analysing the scenario
Identifying the objectives
Identifying target audiences
Choosing a strategy
Choosing contents
Actions and tools
Measuring results
Budget and timing
14
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
ASK YOUR COMMUNITY
CHECK YOUR CALENDAR
An impactful marketing strategy
allows you to build a real and solid
relationship with your target group,
who leave to be just passive listeners
as in the traditional marketing, but
become the directing force of your
communication.
Constructing trust relationships
means not only that the users will
keep following and being loyal to
your club. It is more than that as they
will become your source of useful
information to support the
improvement of your brand that
responds to the audience’s needs.
The information of social media lets
us know what is basic: people share
what they are looking for, the reasons why they
need it and eventually why they choose it.
Studies show that users are very appreciative
when a page representative responds to their
comments or posts and even to the negative
feedback. This makes them feel valued,
essential and taken into consideration.
This is a fundamental factor to build on a
relationship of commitment from the persons
who choose to follow your online activity. This
is why we should frequently ask the users for
an opinion about our style of communication,
the instruments used are been perceived as
useful, to see if the social media contents are
appreciated or go beyond that and ask what
could be done to improve your way to advertise
the events outside your club.
Many sport communicators have an
important amount of working time
for promoting programmes,
tournaments, competitions and other
sport events. Set a calendar that
underlines when these events are to
happen. If you don’t know the exact
date, offer the general context of at
least the month in which the event
will occur.
The calendar is an indispensable
instrument for planning the activities of each
month. It allows you to keep yourself up to date
on the events to be exploited for your
communication plan and reminds you the most
important dates in due time.
It is understandable that, among the many of
the daily activities, it is not possible to set aside
time specifically for communication, but having
a calendar to follow will ease the work of the
entire team, making everything organized and
easier to implement.
15
16
Creating a marketing plan that follows S.M.A.R.T. objectives means having a direct
reference to the strategic planning, which is implemented with the purpose of achieving
specific and effective goals for the club.
The term S.M.A.R.T. is in fact the acronym that stands for having Specific, Measurable,
Achievable, Relevant, Timed objectives.
Specific: must be specific and precise; only in this way it is possible to determine a
marketing plan capable of bringing the club to the achievement of the desired result.
Measurable: must be written guaranteeing the possibility of measurement, so that it can
be stated with certainty whether it has been achieved or not, if you are on the right path
or if you need to reconsider the methods used.
Achievable: must be within the competences of your club which you can reach it, even if
in an extended period of time or with extra efforts in terms of work or people.
Relevant: must be in line with your general objectives of your club and it should support
your club’s general strategy.
Timely: must be enclosed in a determined time frame; setting the time of achievement is
essential to provide you with an additional analytical tool to evaluate the way in which
the work achieved the established goal.
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
THINK S.M.A.R.T.
Clarifying the objectives to be followed is the way to start the path that leads to the
success of the planned actions. Before getting to the final version of a S.M.A.R.T.
objective, this must be made explicit and it is important to implement the rule that states
what you want to achieve.
Here is a practical example:
S: I want to have more spectators at the home matches.
M: I want to increase the percentage of spectators with 15%, which numerically
corresponds to about 50 new spectators per game.
A: The number indicated is feasible if a suitable and structured marketing plan is chosen.
R: More spectators at the home matches means I promote to more people my club and
my activity, which can increase my income from selling tickets.
T: I want this to happen in 6 months.
17
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
TURN YOUR OBJECTIVES
INTO SUCCESS
M A R K E T I N G
S T R A T E G Y
TURN YOUR OBJECTIVES
INTO TACTICS
Allocate a part of your budget to a professional graphic designer;
Create with their help an original, desirable and representative design for your brand;
Personalize different promotional materials with this graphic: clothing, sport
accessories, notebooks, volleyballs;
Spread the materials among the spectators at your matches; feel free to condition
them a social media promotion from their side in return of the object (ex. they have to
share a photo from the stands using the hashtags indicated).
Tactics are the concrete steps you need to take to achieve your goals.
Starting from the objectives set as explained above, you could then decide to:
EVALUATE YOUR PLAN
Being able to precisely evaluate the results of your marketing activity is important
because it allows you to immediately identify the problems you may be facing. Under no
circumstance this should go underestimated. Discovering the points that don’t go
according to the plan in the shortest possible time allows you to change the direction as
soon as discovered, and will allow you to test other terrains, which could bring you
greater satisfaction.
Each marketing campaign represents an investment for your club, even if the results are
not always guaranteed. This is why your ultimate goal must be to obtain a positive return
on the investment (ROI), that is, to fully cover the invested initial costs, and, of course, to
go further and achieve results beyond that. Measure the amounts spent for each
campaign and compare them to the brought results: which campaign did not cover the
investment and, consequently, is ineffective for your club?
The value or profit, in some cases, brought by your audience during their time spent
within your club (customer lifetime value) should be higher than the money invested to
bring that user to you (cost acquisition customer).
Having this comparison in mind it would be easy to identify the various channels that
bring us benefits and to understand at the same time how much money to invest in which
type of campaign.
18
19
The boom type of development happening in the digital technologies has substantially
changed our ways of life in terms of communication, sharing information, learning,
buying or having fun. When we get to sport clubs, the digital era has offered to marketing
specialists new fascinating ways to get to know and follow the fans, and to create
personalized products and services based on the needs of the individuals.
The way in which people meet their needs and consequently the instruments through
which clubs must deliver their value propositions have undergone a radical change. The
digital world has led to new ways of communication, advertising and relationship
building tools, from online ads, video sharing tools, online social networks (Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, etc.) to smartphone apps. The most revolutionary changes resulted
from the expansion of the internet, reaching in fact today over 2 billion users online.
Web 2.0 as defined by Tim O’Reilly is "the network as platform, spanning all connected
devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of
that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the
more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including
individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows
remixing by others, creating network effects through an <<architecture of
participation>>, and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user
experiences".
WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA?
20
By analysing the digital marketing in comparison to the traditional one, we can underline
the favourable points such as: a more spread user base, the opportunity to obtain a wider
audience, international accessibility at a low cost or even for free; universal usability,
anyone being able to manage the means of its production; communication in real time,
without the need to wait for larger production times; changeable content posted on
social media almost instantly through comments and edits.
The most used communication instruments in these times are the social networks,
including the most famous Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube, which we are all
familiar with to a certain extent. The growth and therefore the expansion these
platforms have, represent a huge opportunity for clubs. These media platforms are
increasingly establishing themselves as the future of communication and social
interaction. In fact, with the evolution of the social networks, the way of communicating
has irreversibly changed for what concerns relationships among people, and between
people and clubs. Keeping yourself out of this "new world" means self-excluding and
basically isolating oneself. This cannot happen in the case of a sports club since it has the
real need and therefore the obligation to communicate with the outside world.
WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA?
WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA SITES
SHOULD I BE USING?
Having a good social media marketing strategy in the sport sector is essential for the
communication from the club’s side to pass above all through social media.
Since sport clubs have become real trademarks, they need all the precautions entities in
other sectors have, including specific attention to the sphere of the web and social media.
These are essential to be able to communicate with fans using an adequate tone for the
brand.
WHAT ARE THE MOST USEFUL SOCIAL NETWORKS FOR A SPORT
CLUB?
This social media hosts over 1 billion
accounts now. A major proportion of your
members is likely to be already online.
It’s no surprise the majority of sport
organisations report they reach the
highest success on Facebook.
Remember to follow Facebook’s rules
and you will get benefits of all the
platform has to offer to entities. Better
open directly a Facebook page and not a
personal account in your club’s name.
Instagram is one of the most important
social networks on the global market,
especially for the users in mobile mode.
Its identity is essentially based on images
and videos which represent a unique and
irreplaceable lever to get attention and to
establish a strong and lasting bond with
users.
The goal of using Instagram is therefore to
give a renewed and complement the
visibility of the sport clubs.
21
Twitter is a “micro blogging” platform
allowing maximum 280 characters in a
“tweet.”
While Facebook needs two accounts to
be in contact with each other (“friends”)
before they can interact, Twitter ones are
the majority all public so you can follow
and interact with anyone, even if they
don't “follow” you back.
You can search for tweets on whichever
subject you want, by using hashtags (#).
If you have video content to share, YouTube
is a place to be. The platform lets you
publish videos which then you can share on
your other social media networks. It also
makes it easy to embed videos within your
own website using the codes provided by
this platform.
YouTube also allows you to basic edit the
videos, tag them so others could easily find
them, create playlists of your content or
receive comments on your material. If your
videos get very viral, you can even make
money from them.
Pinterest boasts 200 million users per
month and is an increasingly popular
platform for interesting demographics.
Half of American millennials, in fact, use
this social media. Its users turn to it for
inspiration, as well as for ideas for
buying new products. If you have not yet
implemented a plan that includes the use
of Pinterest in your marketing strategy,
you might be missing out on interesting
opportunities to expand your audience
and reach new potential one.
LinkedIn is the “professional” social
network, closely linked to the world of work,
where you can talk about business and
develop relationships. It rather supports the
creation of the professional networks and
aims at the professional approach the
business sector has. Both corporate and
personal profiles represent a digital identity
card with great connection potential with
sponsors, local authorities, other clubs and
players, and the community itself.
22
For TikTok, Business Insider reported
that on November 18, the app had
reached 1.5 billion downloads across
both the App Store and Google Play. It’s
seen over 614 million downloads in 2019
alone – a 6% increase year-over-year.
It’s also the third-most downloaded app
this year – and the only app in the top
five not owned by Facebook, which
includes itself, Instagram, Messenger,
and WhatsApp. When it is to talk about
social media, professional sport, leagues
and teams are often attracted to the
following trend.
In 2004 Vimeo was born as a video
streaming platform allowing users to
upload and promote videos with the
assistance of advanced customization
options not found on other competing sites.
Vimeo has rapidly grown by over 170 million
monthly active viewers, including those
using the site to watch videos and
professionals who loved the multiple
possibilities Vimeo offered to promote their
content in a unique way.
In communication the challenge is being
able to share concepts and emotions as
we would like the recipients to
understand and experience them. It is the
way in which the marketing and
communication aspect is defined that
will determine how it will be solved. Once
it is defined, we are ready to dig as deep
as possible and begin determining the
causes that generate the communication
or marketing problem.
The first step is to define what you
consider to be the aspect to be solved,
such as where you currently are and
where do you want to reach in terms of
brand awareness or profits, for example.
PROBLEM SOLVING TIPS
23
The causes are represented by the obstacles
that prevent you from getting where you
want.
After defining the problem and seeing its
causes, the next step is getting creative in
terms of generating potential solutions to
solve the blockage. Two excellent solution-
generator methods in this process are the
brainstorming and mind mapping within a
focus group.
Once identified various ideas that could
solve the problem, the next step is deciding
on which solution suits the best your
problem. This can be done through the
generative negotiation analysis as the final
step of a focus group.
24
SOLUTION
Look for a resource right next to you. Many young
people who have just graduated, or who are taking
their first steps in the labour world, might be happy
to help your club in exchange for issuing an
internship certificate. Check with your members or
even with the entire community. They can also be a
good source of new members through their own
circle of acquaintances. Collaborate with local
faculties or profiled high schools, or even get in
touch with organisations that collaborate with
volunteers. Externalise as much as possible the
easy work to people eager to do it for you in
exchange of an experience of working within your
club.
SOLUTION
Call a meeting to explain the fundamental
importance of the good communication and
visibility for the club. Explain to them what each
platform does and decide together which one they
would approve the usage of. Prepare a visibility plan
for each platform and ask their approval or show
them your work before posting anything. You will
thus create a trust relationship with them and later
they might allow a free hand for your work. Explain
them the importance of their images for the club’s
image itself as it is easier to the community to
engage to “human faces” as they can identify with
the people more (images) rather than information
(text). A practical idea could be to assign different
tasks to different athletes and share among all the
responsibility, specifying that the success of the
team always depends on the common effort.
It allows you to perform the
analysis and negotiation of it,
giving up on the least solving
ideas in the favour of the “ideal
plan” that answers concisely
the problem we have.
PROBLEM
All of our members are
engaged in collateral
activities and we have no
one else who has the
skills to draft and carry
out a marketing strategy.
Having already the solution determined, it is now
the time to act upon it. Considering the number of
steps required for the intervention, an action plan
has to be prepared and treated in fact as a project
on its own.
PROBLEM
My athletes and coaches
are not used to social media,
they don’t want to share
their image, they are not
collaborative in the creation
of content and they also do
not understand its
usefulness.
25
PROBLEM
Although the online
communication has
improved and we are
generating excellent
numbers in terms of
views, the stands during
matches continue to be
empty.
SOLUTION
Invent engaging and desirable merchandising
strategies to turn online users into spectators,
offering them rewards and recognition for every
presence in the stands.
Organise photo/video competitions and offer prizes
as rewards for their efforts to help you promote the
club.
Spread posters and flyers around the city making
sure they are posted in all your community.
Launch online promotions such as events, post
distribution, videos or photos with text inviting to
the match.
Ask the athletes to spread the message and invite
their friends and families to the matches.
Get a good connection with the local sport news
reporters and invite them to the games, preparing in
advance or upon the end of the match information
that can be used for articles (statistics, names,
declarations from coaches or athletes, etc.).
ONLINE VISIBILITY ON
SOCIAL MEDIA
02
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
The best times to post
Social media image sizes
Tips for athletes
Tips for coaches
26
CREATE YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE
CHOOSE THE SUITABLE CATEGORY
CREATE THE PERSONALIZED USERNAME
PROVIDE A DESCRIPTION
LET PEOPLE KNOW WHERE TO FIND YOU
PROVIDE YOUR CONTACT DETAILS
As we already said, Facebook is at the moment the main and most powerful social
network in the world. Today it is not enough to be present on Facebook to be satisfied
with your work. It is in fact necessary the page of the sport clubs to respect all the
canons to be functional, useful and potentially a source of conversions.
Here's how to create a complete Facebook page:
Go to www.facebook.com/pages to create the page. Select one of the two macro-
categories present: Company or brand / Community or public figure.
Write the name of the page and select the most suitable category from those that appear
suggested. In the case of a sport clubs, the right category could be “sport and leisure”.
Create a “Username” for the page, in order to personalize the web address making it more
recognizable as well as effective SEO.
For example: www.facebook.com/EUvolleyballScience
Offer details regarding the general information and a brief description.
Provide a physical address and information on parking and price range.
Make visible your contact details (telephone, email address and website).
FACEBOOK BASICS
TO GET STARTED
27
All this information will get your page to be more easily searchable by the internal
Facebook search engine (Graph Search) and on Google.
It is important to learn how to optimize images and the page design. At the end of this
chapter there is a summary of all the dimensions that graphics should have to adapt to
different types of social networks.
Each Facebook page has the ability to assign roles to manage certain functions of the
page. To access the administration roles, simply go to the page settings and click on
“Page roles”. From here it will be possible to manage existing roles, add new
administrators and assign their specific role.
Facebook also has a call-to-action button available for all pages customizable to various
functions. The button must be chosen according to the main objective of your Facebook
page.
FACEBOOK BASICS
TO GET STARTED
28
When we think about the different types of materials we can post on Facebook status
updates, photos and videos come to mind, but there are at least 15 types of posts to
date, and new features are added frequently.
STATUS: The classic and historical content on Facebook is the status that is a text up to
63,200 characters. It can include symbols, emojis, moods or activities, place, stickers,
and recently, it can also have a background colour. When a new status is published, we
speak of an “update" saying what we are doing or thinking.
PHOTOS: Another classic type of content allowing you to publish one or more photos at
once. All photos not included in a personalized album end up in the “Timeline photos”.
LIVE VIDEO: By now everyone should know about Facebook's live videos, which can now
be published from computers as well, without the use of external software. Live video
is a video post that notifies users who follow the page and allows for live user
interactions. It is very useful for live streaming matches.
LINK: Link posts are status updates that contain a hyperlink to a web page. As soon as
you enter the URL, the system automatically loads information such as title, description
and thumbnail of the link.
EVENT: When an event is created, it is published in the diary (of the profile or page) with
a post of this type. Same thing happens when you sponsor an event.
ALBUM: An album groups several photos and videos together. It can be created directly
from the publication box, or from the timeline photo area of the profiles.
SLIDESHOW: Slideshow is a video that can be created from Facebook pages using 3 to
10 photos. You can choose the duration for each photo, the type of transition and the
background music. This is a great idea to introduce the team players rooster.
CAROUSEL: The carousel allows you to have up to 10 images or videos, with links. Each
image can have a different title and description and point to a different web page.
CANVAS: Canvas are content for mobile devices, which create an immersive experience
with images, videos and links, allowing companies to tell their stories and showcase
products (such as merchandising) and services.
COLLECTION: Collection is a brand new advertising format that allows you to sponsor
an entire catalogue in a mobile ad.
NOTES: Notes are similar to a blog. Each note can contain text with different styles,
images and links. It can be published on both profiles and pages. It is the best tool for
disseminating post-match press releases.
TYPES OF CONTENT YOUR
FOLLOWERS WILL ENJOY
29
SPREADING THE MESSAGE TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE
TARGETED CONTENT
CHECK YOUR COMPETITORS
USE VIDEO MATERIALS
AD MONITORING
Concentrating the efforts on achieving the quantity rather than the quality of contacts is
a serious error of assessment. To really spread our message to the right people, we need
to define a specific target of users to speak to a predetermined number of people
selected on a well defined profile (the basis of age, location, interests, etc.).
It is essential to create content that is not self-conclusive. Users prefer to get to know a
new service through the experience of other users who have already tried it. For this
reason, even when we create a post we shall always try to give maximum importance to
the dialogue with users (real or potential) by asking them for their opinion. Dialogue
stimulates dialogue.
It is necessary to monitor the communication activities of competitors, both to observe
what they are doing or not doing, and what they do to differentiate themselves from all
the actors who operate in our same sector. To do this, it is essential to offer quality
content, in line with our brand identity, consistent with our content strategy and
interesting for our audience.
Videos are confirmed to be one of the most captivating formats to exploit the users’
engagement. It is the simplest and having the most immediate impact that allows you to
maximize the engagement with your audience.
Facebook offers a series of Analytics that represent an important index for measuring
the success and effectiveness of communication campaigns. It is essential to monitor this
data to confirm that our advertisements perform at their best and that our
communication really has an impact on the identified target.
TIPS TO MAXIMIZE
YOUR EFFORTS
30
DIFFERENT TYPES OF ADS
Facebook also gives you the opportunity to have a real-time view of the actual
performance of a particular ad and, if the results are far from the expected indicators at
the beginning of the campaign, it is possible to stop it (to avoid wasting further budget)
or to modify some parameters.
Another valuable tip is to create various ads, with different formats - for example a video
format and a page post link - and evaluate which of the two works the best. It is
advisable to test different solutions before defining which is the best for maximize the
effectiveness of our communication campaign. Once the results are out you can choose
directly the type of format that worked for each particular audience.
31
LOGIN TO TWITTER
PERSONALIZE THE PROFILE DETAILS
PROFILE OR HEADER PHOTO
PERSONALIZE THE DESIGN
UPLOADING PHOTOS
PINNING TWEETS
Even on Twitter it is easy to customize the profile. Just select an original profile image
and header, add the name, bio, position, date of foundation and the website. It is also
possible to choose the colour theme and to pin a Tweet "at the top" for others to see
immediately by accessing your profile.
Here's how to create a complete Twitter page:
Log in to twitter.com or open the Twitter app (iOS or Android).
Log into your profile and click or tap the Edit Profile button to change the header photo
also called "banner" (the recommended size is 1500x500 pixels), your profile photo (the
recommended size is 400x400 pixels), the name, the bio (maximum 160 characters), the
geographical position, the web site, the entity.
To change your profile or header photo, click or tap the camera icon and select Upload
Photo or Remove.
Choose the colour of the feature via twitter.com. From the sidebar menu, click More, then
Feature. At this point, choose the font size, colour and background theme you prefer.
Photos can be in the following formats: JPG, GIF or PNG. Twitter does not support
animated GIFs for header or profile images.
You can pin a Tweet on your profile to be the first Tweet to be shown when others visit
your profile. From your profile, find the Tweet you want to pin. Click or tap the icon at the
top of the Tweet. Select Pin on Profile. Click or tap Set to confirm.
TWITTER BASICS
TO GET STARTED
32
TWEETS FONTS
You may notice that the fonts of some of your Tweets are larger than those of other
Tweets. Tweets that got the most engagement appear slightly larger so you can easily
find your best content.
TWITTER BASICS
TO GET STARTED
33
TEXT: Type your Tweet (maximum 280 characters) in the text box at the top of your main
timeline or click the Tweet button in the top navigation bar. You can add up to 4 photos, a
GIF image or even a video within. Press the “Tweet” button to post it on your profile. To
save a draft of your Tweet, click the X-shaped icon in the upper left corner of the edit box,
then click Save. To schedule the sending of your Tweet at a later date / time, click on the
calendar icon at the bottom of the write box and set the schedule parameters, then click
on Confirm. To access drafts and scheduled Tweets, click Unsent Tweets in the Tweet
edit box.
IMAGES: On Twitter you can share photos taken in real time or uploaded from a device.
You can modify them with filters and you can create galleries with more photos (max 4).
Adding an image allows you to express your personality even more and leads to higher
tweet interaction rates. In fact, users are three times more likely to interact with tweets
that contain videos and photos (source twitter.com).
VIDEO: With videos on Twitter you can capture and share the most important moments,
from your point of view. Directly from the official app you can shoot, cut and share short
videos in a simple and effective way. In line with all the other social platforms that in the
last year have focused heavily on visual and video communication, Twitter has also
integrated videos as native content where previously it was necessary to upload them to
external platforms, YouTube in the first place.
PERISCOPE: Periscope is a live streaming application launched in April 2015 by Twitter.
Currently available for iOS and Android platforms, the application allows both direct
video from smartphones and access to live streams made by other users registered on
the platform. This means that, depending on the users you follow and your preferences,
you will be able to follow the live footage from the quiet and sandy beaches of Hawaii
and then, within a few seconds, switch to images from a street protest in Egypt. During
the shoot, the audience will be able to express their thoughts in two ways: by writing a
comment that can be viewed by all the other spectators or by sending a heart of approval
by tapping on any part of the tablet or smartphone screen. Once the shooting is complete,
you can save the video and make it available for 24 hours: in case you have missed the
live streaming of the match of your favourite team, you will have a whole day to review it
on a deferred basis.
GIF: If you don't have time to make videos or are looking for an immediate and fun form of
expression, GIFs are the right content to add to your tweets. With over 100 million GIFs
shared and an internal search engine, you have tons of available choices.
TYPES OF CONTENT
SUITABLE FOR TWITTER
34
ENTER A RECOGNIZABLE AND SEARCHABLE USERNAME
EASILY SEARCHABLE BUSINESS NAME
BRANDED PROFILE PHOTO
Your Instagram profile will be public automatically, meaning anyone can see it and your
posts on Instagram. If you're creating an Instagram profile for your sport club, then that's
what you want - you want anyone to be able to view your posts and follow your brand if
they want to. Otherwise, if you keep your profile private, anyone who visits your profile
will not be able to view your photos, which therefore, may dissuade them from following
you.
Here's how to create a complete Instagram page:
To change your @username go to your profile page and click the “Edit profile” button to
the right of your profile photo. Then, click on the text or open the space to the right of the
person's icon and enter the desired username.
Make sure you add the full company name to the “name” section of your profile. To
change your business name, go to your profile page and click “Edit Profile”. Then, click on
the text or open the space next to the clipboard icon at the top and enter the desired
business name.
Your profile picture is one of the first information anyone sees when opening your
Instagram profile, as it is visibly highlighted in the top right corner. To add or edit a profile
photo, go to your profile page and click “Edit Profile” then, tap “Edit” at the top right. Here
is where you can import a photo from other platforms like Facebook or Twitter or even
choose from your library or computer.
INSTAGRAM BASICS
TO GET STARTED
35
36
SET AN ACTIONABLE AND INFORMATIVE BIO
TRACKABLE LINK IN YOUR BIO
Like your profile photo, your “bio” (the description at the top of your profile) is one of the
first things your profile visitors will see. You have a maximum of 150 characters; use
them to let people know what you are doing and also to give them a reason to follow you.
Include who you are and what you do, and make sure you add a touch of personality. You
can also use this space to encourage certain actions, such as using a certain hashtag or
clicking a link in your bio.
One of the biggest frustrations people have with Instagram, especially businesses, is that
clickable URLs are only allowed in the single “website” box in your bio. That's why it's
essential to add a link to the “website” box in your association's Instagram bio.
INSTAGRAM BASICS
TO GET STARTED
Instagram is not a social network for everyone. Based on a refined visual sensitivity,
content marketing in these cases becomes a direct operation towards narration and
digital storytelling. It is not easy to move in these fields, so it is right to focus your
attention on the best content for Instagram.
AUTHENTIC CONTENT: Quality photos can make all the difference in a
professional Instagram profile but you must never forget authenticity. Take and
post photos of people participating in sporting events, show what happens in
your locker room, show the world that your club is human and that there are real
people behind your brand. The technical perfection and the good photographic
execution give way, from time to time, to spontaneity and amateur shooting
because, as always happens, people trust people.
TESTIMONIAL AND REVIEW: In your editorial plan on Instagram you can foresee
this item: content capable of testifying in your favour. It could be a photo of a
coach satisfied with a win, or maybe a video interview posted on the account.
HASHTAG: Working with hashtags is one of the ways to get good results, for
example, to increase followers and interactions on your content such as
comments. This is because hashtags give you the ability to add whatever you like
in lists of images and videos dedicated to a single topic. This allows you to
present shots and footage to a new audience. Think that now it is even possible
to follow the new hashtags, your choice in this case can become significant.
Optimizing these labels is one of the best tips to follow carefullyfor Instagram.
CONTEST: You don't have to organize a contest on Instagram with big prizes to be
successful and to get interesting results. Public engagement and involvement
develop with a simple invitation to interaction and active participation.
Gamification in this case becomes decisive: you have to make sure that people
find pleasure in participating in your initiatives. And that they obtain advantages
that are not necessarily material, think of the awards linked to a shot taken and
published.
STORIES: Instagram Stories, the future of visual storytelling. Today you can get a
lot from the stories you post on this platform because through the combination
of images and videos implemented by your creativity you can engage the
audience through an effective perspective.
PHOTO ALBUM: Instagram stories are not always enough to give value to what
you have created. That's why you can and should use another decisive function of
albums, that is to say a sequence of images that follow a very specific order, to
browse, that is, from left to right. This way you can bring together content related
to a single theme or define a chronological order.
TYPES OF CONTENT
SUITABLE FOR INSTAGRAM
37
CREATE A YOUTUBE COMPANY CHANNEL
UPLOAD YOUR FIRST VIDEO
ENGAGE WITH THE COMMUNITY
Even if with a Google account you have the possibility to watch videos, subscribe to
channels and click on Like, in the absence of a channel you cannot be publicly present on
YouTube. In fact, if you want to upload videos, create playlists and add comments you
must have a YouTube channel, even if you already have a Google account.
Here's how to create a complete YouTube channel:
Log in to your account and go to the user icon. Click on the gear icon to access your
account's YouTube settings. Click on Create a new channel. Select Use a business name.
Add your logo and click create. Fill in the “about” section. Fill out your profile and channel
description: this is the first option you see after creating a channel. Here, you should
describe your club and what viewers can expect to see on your channel. This is also a
great place to add links to your website and other social media networks you use. This
description will appear in more than one place on your channel, so be sure to put a
description that is as effective as possible.
Once you finished filming your first video, edit it at your convenience and upload it. Log
into YouTube and select the Videos tab on your user page. Click on the "Upload a Video"
button, then on "Select file to upload" or alternatively you can drag and drop files into the
window. At this point YouTube will start converting and uploading your video. If you want
to know who is watching the video, click on the Privacy drop-down menu and select
Private. Remember if you want to upload videos longer than 15 minutes, you need to have
a verified Google account.
Gathering a community on your channel and engaging your followers is a very important
step. Reply to comments, ask and respond to questions, and more than anything, listen to
them! Your viewers want to see what you create, so remember to offer them what they
want. It is important that immediately after you upload a new video you spend some time
responding to the first comments from viewers. Users who comment right away are the
ones most interested in your videos and therefore it is important that you take them into
consideration.
YOUTUBE BASICS
TO GET STARTED
38
GENERAL ASPECTS TO TAKE
INTO CONSIDERATION
WHEN PREPARING UP YOUR
YOUTUBE CHANNEL
To create a successful YouTube channel, however, it is not enough to set the
baselines and publish videos that, although interesting, would lose value if not
placed in the right context.
Here are some tips for optimizing channel performance:
CHANNEL COVER IMAGE: When you go to a YouTube channel, you will be
immediately greeted by a large banner showing the channel name. This is your
cover photo and it's essential for presenting your brand. You can make your cover
photo as minimal as you wish, but just make sure your brand is the focal point, as
it will be the first impression someone gets upon entering. YouTube recommends
uploading your cover photo at 2560 x 1440 pixels with a maximum size of 4MB.
CHANNEL TRAILER: Channel trailers are generally short and soft, and make a
good introduction for the new visitors. With these you can let your audience know
more about you, what your activities are and what type of content they could see
on your channel in the future. Creating your channel trailer will also be a good
practice for your first video.
KEYWORDS: While uploading a video, you will be asked to enter a title,
description and tag. These are essential components to make your video easily
found in YouTube search. Just like SEO for your website, YouTube has its own set
of parameters for optimizing your video for search. Fill these sections to the best
of your ability using keywords to describe the video and your business. A rich
keyword based title (yet not fully) and description can bring you many viewers so
you'll be able to see what is suitable for your videos as you continue to upload. If
your video is optimized for YouTube itself, this can extend to search engines too.
Since it is Google-owned instrument, YouTube is highly integrated within the
search engine. If you play your cards right, you'll find your videos high up on
YouTube and Google.
39
PUBLISH REGULARLY: Building a successful YouTube channel takes time and
effort, and viewers expect consistency from the channels they subscribe to. After
your first video, be sure to plan your next videos in advance. Not sure if you will
have time to shoot a video every week or every two weeks? It's not a problem!
Take a day of free time to shoot more than one video and post them on your
schedule. Go for a new video every two weeks, if not even weekly. When you need
to be away for a longer time, notify your viewers. It is important to organize
constant publication, this helps to build your following. Think in terms of a TV
show; everyone eagerly awaits a new episode of their TV shows and always
knows when the episode will be available.
40
BEST TIMES
SOCIAL MEDIA
TO POST ON
THE
Click-through rates are higher during weekdays
and working hours.
Monday-Friday
12:00-6:00 PM
Thursday & Friday
1:00-3:00 PM
The closer the weekend the more chances you
have people to go on Facebook and check posts
FACEBOOK
The companies use this time to post and engage
interaction.
Monday
3:00-4:00 PM
INSTAGRAM
People have more time to sit back and relax.
Saturday
8:00-11:00 PM
YOUTUBE
TWITTER
41
42
SOCIAL MEDIA
IMAGE SIZE
Make the most of the tool to avoid making blunders like thinking that your profile is a
private space to do everything.
Growing awareness of the potential of social media languages and technicalities in
order to act as influencers with respect to contracts with sponsors and companies
interested in investing in sport and using athletes as images and amplifiers of their
brand.
Digitalization has involved every person who needs or is obliged to have a media
exposure. Sport and athletes are not an exception and while sport clubs can now count at
all levels, on an internal structure dedicated to communication and digital marketing; the
athletes on the other hand may still be too immature on the rules of the correct use of
social media as it uses them as an individual.
Today, in structuring a team and in choosing whether or not to aggregate an athlete to a
team, the media exposure of the individual player is evaluated: if they use social media in
a consistent matter with the sporting spirit of the discipline and above all if their digital
life can also be a driving force for the club's marketing and merchandising activities.
There are two important factors according to which the athlete is pushing for a conscious
use of the network and social networks:
TIPS FOR ATHLETES
FIND YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS:
SEPARATE YOUR PERSONAL LIFE
FROM THE PUBLIC ONE
POST ABOUT YOUR ACTIVITY IN AND
OUT OF THE FIELD
ENGAGE WITH THE LARGER SPORTS
COMMUNITY
BE APPROPRIATE AND REMAIN
POSITIVE
01
02
03
04
43
TIPS FOR COACHES
FIND YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS:
SHARE DETAILS OF YOUR LIFE AS A
COACH BEFORE AND AFTER
MATCHES
JOIN GROUPS TO GET IN TOUCH WITH
OTHER COACHES FROM THE WORLD
QUESTION THE COMMUNITY ABOUT
YOUR GAME SCHEMES AND ASK FOR
PRACTICAL ADVICE
SHARE MOMENTS FROM THE BENCH
TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE BUILT-
IN SPIRIT OF CURIOSITY OF THE
PUBLIC
01
02
03
04
Since the beginnings of social networking platforms there have been various
modifications from the internal logic and grammars structure’s point of view, as well as
understanding and foreseeing in communication strategy and marketing.
To offer an example, it can be a good practice to live broadcast coaches' conferences or
post-match interviews on Facebook or Instagram. This offers the possibility to fans-
users to interact at the exact moment when the event happens.
These details are precious, since emotion and involvement are certainly triggers not to be
missed when thinking about social media marketing in sport. The fan is driven by passion
and a sense of belongingness to a team, which they leverage well-rooted impulses and
feelings that often have little to do with rationality.
In fact, “we cheer for tradition, we cheer for belonging, we cheer for the colours, we cheer
for the accomplished feat or to be accomplished. Cheering must not be convinced:
cheering must be nurtured” (Ortenzi 2017: 38), something that can be done precisely by
exploiting the countless possibilities given by social media platforms.
44
HOW TO ATTRACT
MORE PEOPLE
03
Gain more followers
Build your network
Recruit athletes, coaches, officials and
volunteers
Engage sponsors and partners
Engage the mass-media
Improve the performance of your newsletter
45
GAIN MORE FOLLOWERS
Having a good social structure is definitely
essential, but even more is to let the public know
that you are present there. Print large QR CODEs
and hang them in the gym, insert social buttons on
brochures and print them on athletes' uniforms.
Make sure everybody knows where you are.
TAP INTO YOUR COMMUNICATION
NETWORK
Take advantage of your fans' spirit by making your social
platforms a useful instrument full of unique content. If
the primary way to find out the results, photo albums or
match features is by checking your social media
channels, your followers will be glad to do so.
GIVE YOUR MEMBERS A REASON
TO FOLLOW YOU
Go for engaging articles and connect with your
subscribers through questions about your posts.
Use a positive approach. Reply to people who
comment on your page. Create unique features for
the most passionate audience.
CREATE A COMMUNITY
The content in the online environment is the leading
king. Don't get scared to take risks or becoming creative
as long as you foresee every potential result before. Use
humour and induce the good mood but pay attention not
to offend anyone. If you lack time to shape up content on
your own, call upon the support of your followers. Play
with viral stories, become a source of inspiration.
CREATE GREAT CONTENT
46
BUILD YOUR NETWORK
Social media is an exceptional marketing tool allowing you to reach millions of potential
fans, but it plays as well an important role for networking.
To build professional relationships around you it is no longer needed to have worked in
the corporate world for years and years; what you do need to know is how to make the
most of the tools available online.
PRODUCE VALUE
People will start following and connecting with you if they can identify
the value in you. Make sure you revise what you already have and only
share relevant material in your area of expertise or interest. Giving
value means offering information without expecting in returns likes,
reactions or compliments on the short term. You are building something
bigger and play an important role in their education so you need
patience.
UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION
The Unique Selling Proposition or your trademark is in fact the message
you want to transmit. This must differ from that of your competition.
There is plenty of content out there but very often having a lack of
originality. Knowing how to innovate becomes a fundamental skill to
carry out a catchy project. Among the endless created contents on the
same topics, yours will have to be special to stand out and engage the
public.
EACH PLATFORM MUST BE ACTIVE
Having some platforms that you occasionally use, but not constantly,
will make your organization appear inactive.
If you lack time to invest in maintaining a platform for the purpose it
has, better not have it.
47
48
THE STRENGTH OF THE NETWORK IS REINFORCED BY
OFFLINE ACTIONS
The key to having success on the social media doesn't always have to
involve the internet in its promotion. Make sure you offer information
about your social media accounts in your promotional materials you can
offer as gifts.
A sport club that has well-cared social media and
which is rich in authentic content will be more likely to
attract not only fans but also athletes and coaches
looking for a new adventure. Having an aspect on the
web that is up to the current situation, in step with the
times, gives an inestimable value to the club. It could
also be the decisive factor that makes a professional
to choose your club over another.
The future of sport entertainment is increasingly
switching to social networks, with formats adapted to
each application.
The tweet of the champion. A photo posted on
Instagram after a victory, with the teammates or
during the holidays. A status on Facebook, perhaps
accompanied by a snapshot or a classic selfie.
RECRUIT ATHLETES,
COACHES, OFFICIALS AND
VOLUNTEERS VIA
SOCIAL MEDIA
49
With the help of the social media you can
stay closer to the fans and, at the same
time, to create an image for yourself, to
convey who you are. The stakes are
relevant this is why behind every social
move of sportmen there can be no
improvisation. Avoid the risk of gaffes as
athletes increasingly rely on consultants
who have the task of suggesting and
guiding. Never replacing them of course.
“Behind a social account is the player
with his story. It is he who speaks. It is he
who posts. Always. Professionals like me
just advise and follow him”, says Max
Sardella, one of the social media
manager of Alessandro Florenzi, Roma
midfielder.
As does Andrea Saule, a communication
consultant for Massimiliano Allegri says:
“I talk with the sportman before and after
the match. We call or write to each other.
We exchange views. He tells me what he
wants to do. I listen and advise him, if
necessary, on how it is best to act”.
50
The activation of sponsors is the best way in which
sport clubs have to make their sponsorship pay off.
This is why sponsors really like it when it comes to
“Activation”.
The best sponsorships are those that allow the
sponsor to be seen. Being present with the logo is no
longer enough for a deep impact. The clubs should
know this and be open to work with the sponsors to
create something new, different and unexpected
that allows you to get noticed by your audience. The
best ideas are those that commit to activating the
sponsor or the public towards the sponsor.
ACTIVATION OF THE PLACE
Actions that allow your public to be able to
interact with the sponsor and its product.
The most common solution is that of having
an information desk. You can though let your
imagination fly to find other alternatives that
make sure your audience can get close and
get in touch with the sponsor company and
its product. Competitions, contests, draws or
tests are just some of the activities you could
foresee. The public will be happy and the
sponsor will be able to experience the
effectiveness of its sponsorship first hand.
ENGAGE SPONSORS AND
PARTNERS THROUGH
SOCIAL MEDIA
51
ACTIVATION WITH CONTENT
Activating your sponsor can create
personalised content specifically to what
suits you to enrich its web and social
presence.
Each sponsorship is a potential source of
content such as photos, videos, text posts,
stories and direct messages are there to
give both parts the opportunity to tell their
stories.
Talking about being a partner of an initiative
is as well a great way to relate to the public.
Don't allow your sponsor to underestimate
this aspect.
ENGAGE SPONSORS AND
PARTNERS THROUGH
SOCIAL MEDIA
52
INTRODUCE YOURSELF
Briefly describe who you are and a sentence
or two about your club. Less is more!
TELL THEM WHY YOU GOT IN TOUCH
Tell them why you got in touch with them!
The key word being "them". Why did you
choose their company and why did you
choose them in particular? Show them that
you've done your homework.
TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE
Do you have your prospect's target
customer? Here is where you prove it.
Describe who your audience is, why they
are involved with your club, the types of
purchases they plan to make and data
related specifically to your prospect.
TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR ACTIVATION
OPPORTUNITIES
Give them three examples of activation
ideas that your sponsors and your audience
love. Be specific and be clear about the way
you work with sponsors and how sponsors
can add value to your audience who is also
their target customer.
THE SPONSORSHIP LETTER TEMPLATE
HOW TO WRITE A
SPONSORSHIP PROPOSAL
The goal of the letter is to get the attention of your prospect and
to get them to take your call or agree to a meeting.
How do you get their attention? Like This!
TELL THEM WHEN YOU WILL
FOLLOW UP
Let your prospect know that you are
going to call them on a specific date
and time or tell them that you plan to
stop by their office on a certain date to
learn more about their goals and how
you can help them achieve their goals.
53
Specific financial
requests
Focusing on
need
Leaflets, pamphlets,
samples or proposals
Words like "to whom it may
concern" (Be sure to address
the letter to a specific person)
Pictures of your stakeholders
or program users
Assumption about their
target audience or key
demographic
Stay focused on the core goal of the sponsorship letter,
to present your opportunity in a respectful way and ask for a meeting.
If you sent your letter to a cold prospect then get ready
to follow up. A lot.
WHAT NOT TO INCLUDE
THE FOLLOW UP TIME!
THE SPONSORSHIP THANK YOU LETTER
The thank you letter that you send your sponsors is actually called
a fulfilment report. Outline all of the things you promised your
sponsors and then report on how well you delivered those assets.
Make sure to thank your sponsors within one week of the end your
event or campaign (or quarterly if you have a yearlong relationship
with your sponsors).
54
BE THEIR MAIN SOURCE OF
INFORMATION
While watching the TV we realize that today all
the presented sport information is somehow
taken from the social media of the sport clubs or
athletes.
Even the articles of the printed press are
increasingly based on distributing content that
clubs have produced and shared through their
social channels.
OFFER HIGHLIGHTS OF YOUR
MATCHES AND ACTIVITIES
Making available the highlights of a match or an
interview with your player will facilitate the
work of the journalist, who will be more inclined
to tell stories about your sport club.
BRING THE HUMAN FACTORS OUT
The traditional media started to surrender to the
exponential reach of social communication.
Their interest in telling personal stories of clubs
and players to make their services appear more
“human” is rising.
ENGAGE THE MASS-MEDIA
USING SOCIAL MEDIA
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BUILD A NETWORK WITH THE
LOCAL MEDIA REPRESENTATIVES
Having a good connection within the local
editorial offices is certainly a great advantage
to evaluate. Looking for a press officer among
the members of your team reduces the time
and costs of such communication even more.
OFFER THE MATERIALS YOU WANT
THEM TO USE AS INSPIRATION
Prepare a press release at the end of each
meeting and send it to the main media. This will
make the effort bilateral and will assure the
communication is clear, constant and always in
line with the vision of the club.
USE HASHTAGS AND DISTRIBUTE
YOUR POSTS AROUND FOR AN
EASED IDENTIFICATION OF YOUR
MATERIALS AND BRAND
Use the hashtags with your club's and your
opponent's names, your sponsors and sport's
name. Share the materials from your website
to various members of the local press directly
or on the social media.
ENGAGE THE MASS-MEDIA
USING SOCIAL MEDIA
The communication with your members or
with your supporters (perhaps for
fundraising campaigns) becomes very
simple with a newsletter.
All clubs should send informative or
promotional emails quickly and effectively
as each one of them has a core reference in
its database: the contacts of its members.
When registering with the club, the
member leaves various data. Surely this is
the most suitable time to collect a
fundamental contact point such as the
email address.
It is obviously binding at that time to
communicate the privacy policy to them. If
we then intend - and we should! - to use
the email to contact the member not only
for information strictly related to their
associative role, but also for newsletters
of communication and promotion of
activities; it is good to specify a series of
possibilities in the registration form.
Make sure you take into consideration the
opinion of your subscribers and address
their needs in the topics you prepare for
your newsletter.
Leave it to the members to tell you their
interests or how often they wish to
receive information. Pay a deeper
attention in the processing of personal
data, such as email, in the case of
underage members, as it often happens
within a sport club. In this case, the
consent must be provided by one of the
parents.
A small point about the maintenance of
your member lists: in the case of the
members list, it may be tempting to re-
register those who have unsubscribed
from the newsletter.
The advice is always to respect the will of
the individual who has decided to
unsubscribe; rather, in the unsubscribe
message we point out that from that
moment on they will no longer receive
club’s communications and that in any
case their membership status remains
unaltered. In this case it is also useful to
reiterate the associative contacts.
A well constructed and maintained
contact list is a fundamental treasure for
the club and an excellent means of
promotion and communication.
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IMPROVE THE
PERFORMANCE OF
YOUR NEWSLETTER
WEBSITE
04
Features for sport websites
How to write an engaging sport article
Tips to improve your SEO
57
58
ALL SPORT WEBSITES SHOULD
MAKE A BIG IMPACT
THE LOGO
Your team logo must be positioned correctly on your
website. It's what makes your team recognizable.
If what's useful depends on the contents, what's
pleasurable depends on its design.
Choose a layout suitable for your website that you like
and that has colours subjecting to very specific rules.
Try to follow the web design trends by visiting the
trendiest pages and take a cue from them. Do what's
needed for clarity, an eased navigation and reading,
consistency between pages and between the site and
any other campaigns of your club (flyers, brochures,
logos and colours).
Highlight your club's winning points and the most
important information otherwise everything will look
the same.
Pay attention to the language and do not take anything
for granted if you are addressing a large audience.
Instead try to be very precise if you are addressing
trained users.
Creating a sport website is now easier than ever thanks to WordPress. A sport website
can help the team communicate with fans. Thanks to the site fans can stay up to date on
upcoming events to stay in touch and keep up to date with the latest news.
More important, it can help sport teams to promote themselves better with an online
presence, to seek out new athletes, sponsors and media partners.
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The news section of the sport blog is essential both for keeping fans informed about
team news and for SEO. It is undoubtedly the best way to share your victories with your
followers than to blog on your sport team's website.
It may be more difficult to read online and we know that the user only stays on a page for
a few seconds. Thinking of putting back texts created for paper or other media on the
web is a mistake. Online works differently so generally a little is said in a very short time.
Short well planned texts and titles can attract the user. Summaries or brief introductions
come in handy. Insights and external links can be much more useful if grouped at the end
of the text. Use the graphic styles well by putting the most important terms in bold.
Try to create a text full of meaning that is grasped at first glance. Do not underline texts
though as usually this is for links. Leave plenty of blank spaces and don't clump texts.
Don't put too many things (texts, links, images) on the same page. All of these things
together turn your texts into suitable ones for the web.
NEWS AND BLOGS
PHOTOS AND VIDEOS
A beautiful photo is worth a thousand words even on the internet. But let's not
exaggerate; there are rules to follow the optimization of an image on the web. Let's not
forget that images weigh in kilobytes, so they take longer time to download.
If you want to use an image it is better to optimize it first or reduce it to a size suitable for
the page where you will load it. Convert it into a compressed format such as GIF or JPEG
to weigh much less. Like this they are more useful for navigation and for understanding
the site.
Finally, a note on copyright: even if technically it is easy, we cannot legally take
possession of every image we find on the net. Every published work, except for specific
indications on the contrary, is in fact protected by copyright. For using it you will need to
ask for permission.
Many photos that could be useful to you are collected in the so-called Stock Photo
archives, which are collections of images sold or transferred under specific copyright
rules, but often freely usable for non-commercial purposes.
Tip: Use high quality visual materials. The pixeled or deformed images are not likely to
be appealing for the viewer!
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61
CURRENT TEAM ROSTER
A sport team is rarely static as there may be changes happening from different reasons
such as a new player coming, a retirement of another or in case of the least desired
injuries. It is important to have a team components section to keep your followers aware
of the latest player line-up!
SCHEDULE YOUR EVENTS
Schedules are an important tool that eases the way to keep your followers updated
about the upcoming events and activities you may have.
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LEADER BOARDS, TOP SCORERS
AND STATISTICS
All fans want to keep updated about their favourite teams and players and how they
clash with other teams and clubs. Keep track of scoring, statistics, results and a detailed
leaderboard so your athletes always know where they are in the top and which aspects
to focus on to improve their performance.
SOCIAL PROFILES
Besides being actively present on the social platforms, don’t forget to connect your all
channels to the website by using social icons and so to facilitate your visitors the access
to your various platforms’ contents.
Adding WordPress plugins to your website like Ultimate Social Media or SumoMe can
help you connect your social platforms with the page.
PLAYER PROFILES
Offer a mixture of player statistics with unique player profiles for every team member so
fans and managers are always aware of the key performance metrics of their favourite
players.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Every follower and sport club would want to keep in touch with the team. Make sure you
are having it easy for the community to connect with your club on the platforms. This
data can easily be used within connections with the sponsors or even with the press.
We would recommend a separated page on your site only for getting in touch with your
club. More than that, you can put a contact form so people directly contacting you
through a message, without having to get to their email to contact you. Contact Form 7
and BestWebSoft are two great plugins to get this job done for you!
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HOW TO WRITE AN ENGAGING
SPORT ARTICLE
Before the match. You could write a short article presenting the event.
At the end of the sporting event. You could give an update of the results and briefly
describe how it took place (if there is a ranking you can update it).
When you organize something specific. Dedicate a full article to it or publish its
poster; don't forget to create the event on your Facebook page for a better promotion.
Go beyond the match. Any other posts may be associated with contents that are
relevant to you (promotions, interviews, photos, etc.).
Metatags. When creating news item, take into consideration the importance of
Metatags, which is an excellent instrument providing search engines with
information about your site.
Title Tag: it is essential as it is the title of your post, so it is important that it is
captivating, short and concise; try not to exceed 55 characters and to cover the main
concept of the whole article;
Tag Description: it should not be let aside because it is often reported by search
engines; must be a short and clear description of the page as it is used by Google for
positioning and helping users understand if your page is what they are looking for or
not;
Keywords Tag: is a list of keywords which you should choose based on the topics
covered in your article. Don't forget to fill in these fields when you create an article
directly from the dedicated panel, without the use of code.
SEO is fundamental in order to get you visible within search engines. Another equally
important aspect is enhanced by Google and the similarities gotten by the articles you
upload on your sport site. Search engines go for the quality content so when you publish
news it is better to be placed in a relevant way for your followers.
If you are just starting with this and do not know what content to post on your site, check
these ideas and suggestions which may help you to post your content in the best possible
way:
When you are creating news in the control panel, besides the ability to add images and
attachments, you will find also the SEO tab, which you can fill in keeping these tips in
mind:
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the “I want to know” moments, when doing informative searches;
the “I want to go” moments, when looking for places nearby;
the "I want to do" moments, when wanting to know how to do a certain action or even
try something completely new;
the "I want to buy" moments, when wanting to buy something and needs support to
see which, when and where to purchase it.
SEO and copywriting make writing an indispensable tool for any digital marketing
strategy. We can say the blog post is the most complete and complex expression of SEO
writing. The highest difficulty in writing a blog post is in creating valuable content that is
engaging and respects the parameters of SEO.
As anticipated, before starting to actual write, it is important to work on the keyword
research. This gets us to understand which words are most likely looked for by our target
audience and to identify topics to be included in our content strategy.
Tools such as Semrush or Google Keywords are just two of the many supports for
keyword research, which must be done frequently to keep up with the search trends.
However, just searching for keywords is not sufficient as it is an exercise that could prove
to be minimal and not very helpful.
Writing blog posts by researching topics related to yours allows you to get relevance and
authority, and have a better chance of appearing in search results.
The suggestion is to start from a main topic (topic cluster) and divide it into sub-topics
(content cluster) that will be treated in separate blog posts in order to create a
relationship between all the contents.
Another aspect to take into consideration in SEO writing is the user intent, or the needs
that hide behind user research. What are our personas looking for? What keywords do
they use for their searches?
Analyzing user intent means putting yourself in their shoes so to offer them the content
they need, thus also suiting everything to the user experience. In this direction, Google
has analyzed the user intent, defining the micro moments or those moments in which a
person relies on internet searches to satisfy an immediate need such as:
This analysis allows us to understand how important it is to be present on the Web and
to offer quality content in line with the different needs and micro-moments of users. SEO
writing needs to focus not only on optimization rules, but people as well, which is why it
needs to be engaging, clear and direct.
65
TIPS TO IMPROVE
YOUR SEO
A website despite being graphically attractive will not
be able to become an effective tool for your club if it is
not visible on search engines. This is why it is needed to
apply specific techniques to ensure that your site is
considered as "quality" by the SEO and obtains a high
ranking.
Do you want to get the maximum visibility on Google
and increase the traffic on your site? Do you want to
surpass your competition online?
First of all, it is good to be clear about the steps that a
search engine takes on your site to understand if it can
be considered of quality or not and, therefore, what
positioning to offer it. The robots - spiders - of the
search engine perform an analysis of the site, called
“crawling”; the material obtained is indexed, meaning it
is made present on the search engine; there is the
positioning phase, which is precisely called “ranking”,
for a specific keyword.
Once you have clarified, in a very general way, how
search engine spiders work and how the latter decides
in which position to place you, it will be time to check
that the technical requirements are fully satisfied.
Below you will find the main elements to be taken into
consideration in this first phase of work for the
optimization of the site:
ROBOTS.TXT
The most important thing to do when you are just
starting is to make the pages of your site viewable by
the “spiders” of search engines. If, in fact, Google fails to
carry out the analysis and therefore to index your pages,
66
It is not enough to simply comply with the technical
requirements imposed by search engines to be able to
allow you to relax. SEO is much more than that and it
also concerns the level of satisfaction of the user who
visits the site. In fact, in order to achieve a high ranking
or maintain it over time, you must make sure that
whoever clicks on your result does not disappear the
next second. The so-called "User Experience", that is,
the experience that the user has when accessing your
site, is of considerable importance for search engines.
To please your visitors you will therefore have to
respect further technical aspects such as:
LOAD SPEED
Nobody likes waiting for a site's page to load. In the
today’s technological era it is unreasonable to offer a
good browsing experience to the user without paying
attention to the site's loading speed.
MOBILE-FIRST
A growing number of users surf online through mobile
devices like tablets or smartphones. This is a recent
habit, which has led to a disruption even within search
you will have no chance of appearing on the search engine, let alone of positioning
yourself well and accessing the benefits of SEO on websites. This is possible by creating
a robots.txt, a very common text file that will be placed in the root folder of your site. It
works as a guide for the spiders who visit your site, as from there they can understand
which pages they can view and which not.
SITE MAP
The robotx.txt control represents the first step for SEO optimization. This is usually
followed by the creation of a site map. The site map works in exactly the same way as a
book index, showing spiders what pages and what kind of menus your site is made up of.
In this case, it is a page of the site, which may still be invisible to the user's eyes.
67
TIPS TO IMPROVE
YOUR SEO
engines. While those who owned once a site had to pay the ultimate attention to the
desktop display, together with this, today the mobile one came to further expand
everything. Search engines supporting the new devices’ usage by users have decided to
penalize those who have not yet design an adapted format and to reward, instead, those
who have paid more attention to these aspects, thus also improving the User Experience.
INTUITIVE SITE ARCHITECTURE
Another aspect to concentrate on for the optimization of your site is regarding the
creation of an intuitive architectural structure for the user. Think of your webpage as the
best way to respond to your potential followers and create a path that allows the easy
navigation. This element is so critical (even if it is still often left in the background today)
that, normally, SEO specialists initiate the strategy by analyzing the site organization
chart, that is, the hierarchy of the navigation menu. Thus they are able to channel the
keywords relevant to the core domain into the bearing pages and, in the same way, make
the user experience more fluid within it.
68
CREATING CONTENT
05
Boost your creativity
Create “shareable” social media content
Create a sport highlight video
Maximize your time
69
BOOST YOUR
CREATIVITY
Asking questions is what drives us to a continuous learning. Children are very good at this
game when they start to be curious and ask the why of everything; it is their way of
discovering the real world.
Try asking yourself the “whys” of what you do and how you do it, even about the most
complicated aspects in your job such as “Why is my team called like that?”, “Why do the
fans follow my team?”, “Why do we have these social colours?”.
Listen, read and learn from others - they can be your competitors or your potential
followers. Look closely at what you do and propose with their eyes, try to empathize with
them or, better yet, if you can, ask them what they think. Be open to what they tell you,
you can really get valuable feedback to build new ideas or improve yourself. There is
nothing worse than thinking you already know everything about your ideal audience.
Allow yourself to be curious, follow the magazines they read, search the internet, look for
the forums or the thematic groups that your subscribers spend time on.
Are you always busy and maybe you can't do everything you want or should? Unlikely of
what you think, it may not be a problem of time but more of mental overload. Our brain
needs to reset the memory buffer, clean it up and rest.
To function at its best, your mind needs to be placed every now and then in a state of
absolute freedom from thoughts. You can do this by listening to music, reading a book or
taking a walk. 10 minutes are enough to give your mind some leisure, doing what most
relaxes you and gives you pleasure.
TAKE IT EASY
NEW POINTS OF VIEW
THE “WHYS” GAME
70
If you can’t afford a communication and promotion budget you can still bring the best out
of your club’s graphic design capabilities. There are various free websites such
as canva.com, where you can create social media visual materials, presentations, posters
and much  more by using the proposed templates. Canva even has design tutorials  to
support you in refining your skills. You don’t need any Photoshop experience!
USE A TEMPLATE
CREATE “SHAREABLE”
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
1. INTERVIEW YOUR ATHLETES AND FANS
Why is it important to interview your athletes and fans? Besides the authentic and unique
content, you will have a larger group of people distributing your materials on social
channels and linking to your articles.
2. SHARE THE BEST CONTENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE POST
It's vital to make immediately clear what adds value in your post. Our attention span is
getting shorter and shorter and we value content that helps us solve a problem. Start by
sharing the article’s key tips, and you'll increase the possibility that someone will
continue reading and eventually share your post with their network.
71
3. SHARE A PERSONAL STORY
Sharing a story from a personal point of view is a great
way to generate more engagement than telling the
same story from your club's perspective.
72
4. CREATE CONTESTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Include a contest or challenge as an integral part of your story to
make your material stand out from the large volume of content
posted online every day. Facebook and other social channels
prioritize the content shared by our friends, and asking your
members to mention the hashtag or page of your sport club is
the best support to enhance the engagement.
5. CREATE CONTENT TOGETHER WITH YOUR
AUDIENCE
Has your club created a user-generated content campaign to
collect the stories of your fans? Your associates may already use
a hashtag linked to your brand on social networks to share their
experiences related to your matches. By gathering all that
content and adding the social feed to the site, you will be able to
tell the story of the brand through the eyes of your subscribers.
6. WRITE LONGER STORIES
This might surprise you, but longer posts get more shares than shorter ones. This seems
to slightly go against the fact that our attention span is getting lower, but there are a few
reasons to support this theory. Longer articles provide the reader with more value, thus
increasing the number of shares. Second, longer content can include more calls to action
and links to third party sites. Third, Google likes long-form content more and the more
traffic your post gets through organic search, the more likely people are to distribute it.
7. ADD IMAGES TO INCREASE SHARES
There are researches showing that contents with images get more shares than the one
without. These contents are in fact able to stop the thumb flowing on social channels.
8. ADD MEME AND GIF TO INCREASE SHARES
Memes and GIFs are great instruments for attracting the user's attention. Create unique
memes using the funny faces of athletes, or irreverent GIFs by speeding up the most
grotesque falls. You will be amazed how fun and light content of this kind attracts more
visitors than a serious article about the sets of a match.
Match scenes can get you spikes in views
and interaction with fans. Users are
generally more interested right after the
game, so it's crucial to be timely.
Although very recent sport highlights can
usually only be published by broadcasters,
after the waiting period expires, you can
freely publish this content on your channel.
You should consider live streaming to bring
your fans closer to the match.
Check out YouTube Analytics to find out
which types of videos get the most
audience loyalty - goal videos, player
cheers, or a unique feature of your league.
Load Fast: Match highlights often receive
up to 75% of views within the first 72 hours
of release. Adopt a publication schedule
that allows you to upload match content as
quickly as possible.
When looking for match highlights, fans
usually look for specific moments. Try to
understand how you can edit your video
and use metadata and thumbnails to help
fans find your video.
Guide fans to crucial Moments: For long-
running footage with match scenes, try
using time codes in the video description to
let fans go straight to the segments they're
looking for.
RECORD AND PUBLISH GAME CLIPS
CREATE A
SPORT
HIGHLIGHT
VIDEO
Competition and discussions are an
important part of the community of
fans. Many successful channels
capture the competitive side of the
game by offering opponent videos,
original challenges and repurposed
stock footage.
Go through your archive: think about
the videos in your archive where you
find rivalries, including those between
teams and players; modify and
propose them again.
Light up the competition: Many fans
like to see players compete
creatively. Try introducing athletes to
new and creative competitions such
as a drawing contest or video game
challenge.
Among the different types of
competition-focused formats, you
can go for:
Rivalry between teams of the
same league.
Challenges between members of
opposing teams.
Competitions between athletes of
different sport.
Rivalry between teams over time.
COMPETITION IS THE SOUL
OF THE GAME
73
YouTube hosts hundreds of
channels managed by all types of
users, from national teams to
independent creators.
These tips can help you find great
success on YouTube with your
channel:
Find four historical sport photos.
Search on Google for motivational
sport quotes
Search a list of the most important
international days in the world of
your sport and create special
graphics
You can boost it by sharing the word
through your other channels.
Every day, you create great social
media content. You just have to
remember to post it.
THROWBACK
THURSDAY
MOTIVATIONAL
MONDAY
SHARE THE "WORLD
DAYS"
SPREAD THE WORD
THINK "SOCIAL"
MAXIMIZE YOUR TIME
Very often the creative people do not have the time or mental clarity to
schedule new posts with always different content. For this it is possible to draw
on some advice, easily available on the web, on the weekly trends to follow to
fill the social pages even when company news is limited.
01
Save time (and sanity) by using Twitter
lists to filter out the noise.
Including lots of visual materials to
your social media strategy brings many
benefits.
Invite all your members to an end of
season party and take millions of
photos to archive content.
Business Manager could be a complex
tool to manage but learning to use it
could drastically change the level of the
organisation's communication.
To be sure that you’re receiving all of a
relevant Facebook page’s content, click
on the box at the top of the page titled
“Liked”, then click on “Get notifications.”
MAKE A LIST
CREATE A FORMAT
PROMOTE A PARTY
STUDY ADS
FOLLOW SIMILARS
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
74
FREE TOOLS
FOR CREATING
SOCIAL MEDIA
CONTENT
*ANNEX*
75
www.canva.com is a very useful resource for those who are beginners with
PhotoShop and cannot produce serious creativity, but also for those who need an
online tool. You can use your own photos or buy them (they usually cost $ 1); the
great thing is that it is very social-oriented, you can produce images for posts with
the exact dimensions, thumbnails for videos, covers, etc.
www.picmonkey.com it is very similar to Canva
spark.adobe.com/home starts from the insertion of the text and an image is
automatically inserted. It is then all editable. It has some very nice examples from
which to start with very nice font colours and graphics
fear-of-flight.com/2014/04/09/oh-snap-free-photos-bloggers-delight-pt-1
fear-of-flight.com/2014/09/02/oh-snap-free-photos-bloggers-delight-pt-deux
blog.bufferapp.com/free-image-sources-list
USEFUL TOOLS FOR CREATING / EDITING IMAGES
FREE PHOTO FOR BLOGS
publicdomainarchive.com
unsplash.com
www.gratisography.com
www.freeimages.com
pixabay.com
deathtothestockphoto.com
www.gratisography.com
picjumbo.com
www.pexels.com
www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up
stock.tookapic.com
thestocks.im
snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com
jaymantri.com
www.splitshire.com
isorepublic.com
magdeleine.co/browse
jeshoots.com
kaboompics.com
www.lifeofpix.com
fancycrave.com
libreshot.com
www.idpinthat.com
www.goodfreephotos.com
www.idpinthat.com
www.rawpixel.com
visualhunt.com
photobucket.com/browse
imgur.com
pixambo.com
76
Pic Monkey - www.picmonkey.com
Fotor - www.fotor.com
KigoImage - www.kigosoft.com/kigo-image-converter
Fast zone resizer - www.faststone.org/FSResizerDownload.htm
Image resizer - imageresizer.codeplex.com
Pic Resizer - www.picresize.com
Compress now - compressnow.com
Screengrab (Firefox);
Fireshot (Chrome);
Awesome screenshot (Chrome);
Web Clippet and Skitch (Evernote);
Fool Page Screen Capture.
Snapseed (free, for both Android and iOS): basic editing and some tools to add filters;
VSCO cam (free): basic editing with many filter options both free and paid;
PS Express (free): both editing and collage function. Useful if you work with the cloud;
AirBrush (free): useful for retouching faces and especially for lightening certain areas
of the image (cute filters);
Studio (payment): very useful for adding writings and decorations to photos. They can
create exnovo graphics or use those created by other users with the possibility to
modify them (work with levels);
Aviary (freemium): professional editing and filters;
Logolicious (free, Android and iOS): convenient App to add a PNG/JPG/GIF logo to a
photo via smartphone.
RESIZE A WATERMARK
TOOL FOR MAKING SCREENSHOTS
SMARTPHONE EDITING APP
77
78
Simon CHADWICK, John BEECH - "The Marketing of Sport", Pearson Higher Ed., 2007
Pino VALENTI - "Marketing e comunicazione nell'organizzazione sportiva", CPE Centro
Programmazione, Editoriale, 2002
“Web 2.0: Compact Definition”, Tim O’REILY
www.viasport.ca
www.stellaromagnoli.com
www.giallonote.it/blog/calendario-marketing-2020-b28.html
www.businessinsider.com
www.ninjamarketing.it
www.escagency.it
www.netstrategy.it
blog.hootsuite.com
www.webinfermento.it
trucchifacebook.com
help.twitter.com
innovationopportunities.it
www.mediabuzz.it
youtubevisualizzazioni.com
blog.eipass.com
www.insidemarketing.it
marketing-espresso.com
www.keysponsor.it
help.instagram.com
SOURCES
support.google.com/youtube
www.netstrategy.it/seo
www.modenavolley.it
www.facebook.com/groups/socialgnock
www.sportrevolution.co.uk
www.sportnetworker.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
industry.shortyawards.com
www.marketingtechblog.com
ctb.ku.edu/en
www.mindtools.com
www.dpc.vic.gov.au
bch.cbd.int
creatoracademy.youtube.com
www.sponsorshipcollective.com
ISBN: 978-973-0-32843-1
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BASIC MARKETING FOR SPORT CLUBS

  • 1. BASIC MARKETING FOR SPORT CLUBS • CHIARA LOMBARDO • BAIA MARE 2020
  • 2.
  • 3. BASIC MARKETING FOR SPORT CLUBS CHIARA LOMBARDO BAIA MARE 2020
  • 4. AUTHOR Chiara LOMBARDO ISBN 978-973-0-32843-1 PHOTOS Andreea CĂPLESCU, Ana Luisa D'ORAZIO Alexandra RODRIGUES DESIGN Chiara LOMBARDO, Andreea CĂPLESCU PARTNERS YELLOW SHIRTS – ROMANIA C.S. ȘTIINȚA BAIA MARE – ROMANIA MARKETING GATE – NORTH MACEDONIA UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA SAN ANTONIO DE MURCIA – SPAIN GIOVANI SENZA FRONTIERE – ITALY CONTACTS WEBSITE WWW.VOLLEYBALLSCIENCE.COM FACEBOOK EUVOLLEYBALLSCIENCE INSTAGRAM VOLLEYBALL.SCIENCE SLIDESHARE VOLLEYBALLSCIENCE LINKEDIN VOLLEYBALL-SCIENCE EMAIL VOLLEYBALL.SCIENCE.EU@GMAIL.COM PUBLISHING DATE OCTOBER 2020 DISCLAIMER This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. This manual has been elaborated during the project “Volleyball is not rocket science. We are!” (603393-EPP-1-2018-1-RO-SPO-SSCP), funded by the European Union through the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency, in the context of the Erasmus+ Sport Programme, “Small Collaborative Partnerships” action.
  • 5. 01 INTRODUCTION 6 Welcome What sport marketing is? Guideline for the marketing strategy Why use social media? What social media sites should I be using? 7 8 9 19 21 Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube The best times to post Social media image sizes Tips for athletes Tips for coaches ONLINE VISIBILITY 26 ON SOCIAL MEDIA 02 Gain more followers Build your network Recruit athletes, coaches, officials and volunteers Engage sponsors and partners Engage the mass-media Improve the performance of your newsletter HOW TO ATTRACT 45 MORE PEOPLE 03 Boost your creativity Create “shareable” social media content Create a sport highlight video Maximize your time Features for sport websites How to write an engaging sport article Tips to improve your SEO WEBSITE 57 04 CREATING CONTENT 69 05 ANNEXES 75 *** 27 32 35 38 41 42 43 44 46 47 48 50 54 56 58 64 66 70 71 73 74 76 SOURCES 78 5 Free tools for creating social media content
  • 6. INTRODUCTION 01 Welcome What sport marketing is? Guideline for the marketing strategy Why use social media? What social media sites should I be using? 6
  • 7. Volleyball is one of the most popular sports around the world. It can be played from very early ages and it doesn’t require a lot of investment to play for leisure. Unlike many team sports, there is no direct contact with the opponent and your response is most often based on how you and your team react. It has speed and reaction-based movement that engages you both as spectator and player. Volleyball needs fast reactions, great attention, quick reflexes, coordination of the own movements correlated with your team’s, high communication and leadership skills and last, but not least, a good physical condition. The initiative of this manual started from the desire to promote more volleyball at the grassroots level in order to attract people of different ages to practice it in the free time and why not, to be the path opener to children and youth to an athletic career. In your support we created this marketing guide for the clubs to attract more people to them, and a volleyball guide accompanied by video materials for a visual sustainability for coaches, teachers and self-learners.  The Yellow Shirts team WELCOME 7
  • 8. 8 Sport marketing has been defined by many authors in various forms over the years. Beech and Chadwick (2007) defined it as “A continuous process where events with an uncertain outcome are exploited for the direct or indirect satisfaction of the needs of sport customers, sport-related businesses and other individuals or organizations related to this.” For many years worldwide experts have been searching for a common definition of the term by discussing all over the possible answer to the question: what sport marketing is? Having a good marketing strategy is essential in today’s rapidly evolving society, such as ours. Those who do not have a good online working system risk remaining on the outside of the social and economic dynamics. Sport marketing comes in various ways and involves every single department of an organization. It is utterly important to understand the key role the audience has, which gets itself into becoming a co-creator of your content, by using it. This is why a good marketing strategy shall include different techniques of emotional approaches and use as many methods and tools as possible for communicating in the sport field. It is therefore essential to put a finger on the three macro areas in which sport marketing must develop: analytical, strategic and operational. WHAT SPORT MARKETING IS? “Marketing is really just about sharing your passion.”
  • 9. GUIDELINE FOR THE MARKETING STRATEGY 9 "Failing to plan is planning to fail” and “A goal is a dream with a deadline” are 2 phrases we should keep in mind when planning a strategy in general. Before going deeper into the details of the practical communication instruments mentioned in the following pages, it is needed to clarify the importance of having a clear and defined strategic line. This means knowing the specificities of the attractive and relevant subjects, namely those of the identified followers’ interest as they are the main protagonists of your sport’s promotion. It is important to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of market demand through tools such as the S.W.O.T. analysis, market research, opinion polls, or creation of a database to be constantly updated over time.
  • 10. 10 M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y TEST YOUR ASSETS The first thing to do is to analyse and evaluate all the resources you have in your club in terms of suitability and usefulness for your further promotion. Often the small sport organisations do not have enough financial strength to support on its own a communication; however it is important to realize that nowadays there are plenty of solutions for each case to fill in these gaps. A modern website, mobile friendly and captivating in terms of design and content; All the social channels should be consistent in terms of design and brand identity, constantly taken care of and with a multi- channel content perspective; A set of software programmes for the creation of the graphics and videos; Human resources to manage the communication. Ideally, a sport organization should have a communication structure containing:
  • 11. 11 M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y CHECKLIST OF COMMUNICATION ASSETS Web designer Website Social media manager Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Photographer Videographer Basic graphics programmes Basic video editing programmes Communication manager Press officer
  • 12. The S.W.O.T. analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is an instrument used to support taking strategic choices based on the internal and external factors map of an organisation, be them positive or negative. It also supports the further communication by putting into practice an effective marketing strategy. This type of analysis can underline the strengths and weaknesses of the club, can help identify in due time the opportunities and threats, and support the establishment of a strategy that takes all these aspects into account. 12 M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y CREATE A BUDGET The communication budget, usually determined on an annual base, is the document in which are presented the activities related to the communication plan and the anticipated costs to implement it. It is part of the economic and management process, and is called upon to ensure consistency between the general objectives set by the club and those specific to the communication strategy. The communication budget is not the same with the advertising one, as it includes all communication activities. However the communication budget mainly consists indeed of external costs (not provided directly by the club). It is possible though, with the help of various collaborations, to find someone among your members or your followers who has the suitable skills to diminish or internalize these costs. The budget can be shared according to the actual availability and needs of the club and can be scaled as time goes by to make continuous improvements that can bring monetary conversions. USE A S.W.O.T. ANALYSIS POSITIVE NEGATIVE EXTERNALINTERNAL S strengths W weaknesses O opportunities T threats Factor's character Factor'sorigin
  • 13. 13 M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y DEFINE YOUR PROGRAMME A good communication plan is based on measurable goals. Before starting any practical activity, we need to create a strategy that defines a direction and sets a mood for the communication with our audience. It needs to clarify at the same time the objectives we want to achieve. The communication plan has as main aim to guide all the communication activities needed to achieve the previously set objectives. The plan presents by what means, through what budget and within which timeframe the message will be conveyed externally. This plan is useful also for knowing and profiling the target group, going far beyond the targeting of marketing, and getting to a more in-depth analysis that is qualitatively and quantitatively able to lead the audience to an eased identification of your trademark.
  • 14. M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y DRAFT YOUR COMMUNICATION PLAN The drafting phase or what you want to do and why; The management phase or implementing what has been written in the plan; The evaluation phase or checking the achieved level of the objectives of the set plan. To create a useful and coherent communication plan, you should follow these 3 phases: It is therefore a full cycle process that starts with the analysis of the context, goes on with drafting the plan and putting it into practice while having constant monitoring, including the evaluation of the contents at the end. Once a cycle is finished you can introduce the changes done or observed as needed in the drafting phase. Analysing the scenario Identifying the objectives Identifying target audiences Choosing a strategy Choosing contents Actions and tools Measuring results Budget and timing 14
  • 15. M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y ASK YOUR COMMUNITY CHECK YOUR CALENDAR An impactful marketing strategy allows you to build a real and solid relationship with your target group, who leave to be just passive listeners as in the traditional marketing, but become the directing force of your communication. Constructing trust relationships means not only that the users will keep following and being loyal to your club. It is more than that as they will become your source of useful information to support the improvement of your brand that responds to the audience’s needs. The information of social media lets us know what is basic: people share what they are looking for, the reasons why they need it and eventually why they choose it. Studies show that users are very appreciative when a page representative responds to their comments or posts and even to the negative feedback. This makes them feel valued, essential and taken into consideration. This is a fundamental factor to build on a relationship of commitment from the persons who choose to follow your online activity. This is why we should frequently ask the users for an opinion about our style of communication, the instruments used are been perceived as useful, to see if the social media contents are appreciated or go beyond that and ask what could be done to improve your way to advertise the events outside your club. Many sport communicators have an important amount of working time for promoting programmes, tournaments, competitions and other sport events. Set a calendar that underlines when these events are to happen. If you don’t know the exact date, offer the general context of at least the month in which the event will occur. The calendar is an indispensable instrument for planning the activities of each month. It allows you to keep yourself up to date on the events to be exploited for your communication plan and reminds you the most important dates in due time. It is understandable that, among the many of the daily activities, it is not possible to set aside time specifically for communication, but having a calendar to follow will ease the work of the entire team, making everything organized and easier to implement. 15
  • 16. 16 Creating a marketing plan that follows S.M.A.R.T. objectives means having a direct reference to the strategic planning, which is implemented with the purpose of achieving specific and effective goals for the club. The term S.M.A.R.T. is in fact the acronym that stands for having Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timed objectives. Specific: must be specific and precise; only in this way it is possible to determine a marketing plan capable of bringing the club to the achievement of the desired result. Measurable: must be written guaranteeing the possibility of measurement, so that it can be stated with certainty whether it has been achieved or not, if you are on the right path or if you need to reconsider the methods used. Achievable: must be within the competences of your club which you can reach it, even if in an extended period of time or with extra efforts in terms of work or people. Relevant: must be in line with your general objectives of your club and it should support your club’s general strategy. Timely: must be enclosed in a determined time frame; setting the time of achievement is essential to provide you with an additional analytical tool to evaluate the way in which the work achieved the established goal. M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y THINK S.M.A.R.T.
  • 17. Clarifying the objectives to be followed is the way to start the path that leads to the success of the planned actions. Before getting to the final version of a S.M.A.R.T. objective, this must be made explicit and it is important to implement the rule that states what you want to achieve. Here is a practical example: S: I want to have more spectators at the home matches. M: I want to increase the percentage of spectators with 15%, which numerically corresponds to about 50 new spectators per game. A: The number indicated is feasible if a suitable and structured marketing plan is chosen. R: More spectators at the home matches means I promote to more people my club and my activity, which can increase my income from selling tickets. T: I want this to happen in 6 months. 17 M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y TURN YOUR OBJECTIVES INTO SUCCESS
  • 18. M A R K E T I N G S T R A T E G Y TURN YOUR OBJECTIVES INTO TACTICS Allocate a part of your budget to a professional graphic designer; Create with their help an original, desirable and representative design for your brand; Personalize different promotional materials with this graphic: clothing, sport accessories, notebooks, volleyballs; Spread the materials among the spectators at your matches; feel free to condition them a social media promotion from their side in return of the object (ex. they have to share a photo from the stands using the hashtags indicated). Tactics are the concrete steps you need to take to achieve your goals. Starting from the objectives set as explained above, you could then decide to: EVALUATE YOUR PLAN Being able to precisely evaluate the results of your marketing activity is important because it allows you to immediately identify the problems you may be facing. Under no circumstance this should go underestimated. Discovering the points that don’t go according to the plan in the shortest possible time allows you to change the direction as soon as discovered, and will allow you to test other terrains, which could bring you greater satisfaction. Each marketing campaign represents an investment for your club, even if the results are not always guaranteed. This is why your ultimate goal must be to obtain a positive return on the investment (ROI), that is, to fully cover the invested initial costs, and, of course, to go further and achieve results beyond that. Measure the amounts spent for each campaign and compare them to the brought results: which campaign did not cover the investment and, consequently, is ineffective for your club? The value or profit, in some cases, brought by your audience during their time spent within your club (customer lifetime value) should be higher than the money invested to bring that user to you (cost acquisition customer). Having this comparison in mind it would be easy to identify the various channels that bring us benefits and to understand at the same time how much money to invest in which type of campaign. 18
  • 19. 19 The boom type of development happening in the digital technologies has substantially changed our ways of life in terms of communication, sharing information, learning, buying or having fun. When we get to sport clubs, the digital era has offered to marketing specialists new fascinating ways to get to know and follow the fans, and to create personalized products and services based on the needs of the individuals. The way in which people meet their needs and consequently the instruments through which clubs must deliver their value propositions have undergone a radical change. The digital world has led to new ways of communication, advertising and relationship building tools, from online ads, video sharing tools, online social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) to smartphone apps. The most revolutionary changes resulted from the expansion of the internet, reaching in fact today over 2 billion users online. Web 2.0 as defined by Tim O’Reilly is "the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an <<architecture of participation>>, and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences". WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA?
  • 20. 20 By analysing the digital marketing in comparison to the traditional one, we can underline the favourable points such as: a more spread user base, the opportunity to obtain a wider audience, international accessibility at a low cost or even for free; universal usability, anyone being able to manage the means of its production; communication in real time, without the need to wait for larger production times; changeable content posted on social media almost instantly through comments and edits. The most used communication instruments in these times are the social networks, including the most famous Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube, which we are all familiar with to a certain extent. The growth and therefore the expansion these platforms have, represent a huge opportunity for clubs. These media platforms are increasingly establishing themselves as the future of communication and social interaction. In fact, with the evolution of the social networks, the way of communicating has irreversibly changed for what concerns relationships among people, and between people and clubs. Keeping yourself out of this "new world" means self-excluding and basically isolating oneself. This cannot happen in the case of a sports club since it has the real need and therefore the obligation to communicate with the outside world. WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA?
  • 21. WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA SITES SHOULD I BE USING? Having a good social media marketing strategy in the sport sector is essential for the communication from the club’s side to pass above all through social media. Since sport clubs have become real trademarks, they need all the precautions entities in other sectors have, including specific attention to the sphere of the web and social media. These are essential to be able to communicate with fans using an adequate tone for the brand. WHAT ARE THE MOST USEFUL SOCIAL NETWORKS FOR A SPORT CLUB? This social media hosts over 1 billion accounts now. A major proportion of your members is likely to be already online. It’s no surprise the majority of sport organisations report they reach the highest success on Facebook. Remember to follow Facebook’s rules and you will get benefits of all the platform has to offer to entities. Better open directly a Facebook page and not a personal account in your club’s name. Instagram is one of the most important social networks on the global market, especially for the users in mobile mode. Its identity is essentially based on images and videos which represent a unique and irreplaceable lever to get attention and to establish a strong and lasting bond with users. The goal of using Instagram is therefore to give a renewed and complement the visibility of the sport clubs. 21
  • 22. Twitter is a “micro blogging” platform allowing maximum 280 characters in a “tweet.” While Facebook needs two accounts to be in contact with each other (“friends”) before they can interact, Twitter ones are the majority all public so you can follow and interact with anyone, even if they don't “follow” you back. You can search for tweets on whichever subject you want, by using hashtags (#). If you have video content to share, YouTube is a place to be. The platform lets you publish videos which then you can share on your other social media networks. It also makes it easy to embed videos within your own website using the codes provided by this platform. YouTube also allows you to basic edit the videos, tag them so others could easily find them, create playlists of your content or receive comments on your material. If your videos get very viral, you can even make money from them. Pinterest boasts 200 million users per month and is an increasingly popular platform for interesting demographics. Half of American millennials, in fact, use this social media. Its users turn to it for inspiration, as well as for ideas for buying new products. If you have not yet implemented a plan that includes the use of Pinterest in your marketing strategy, you might be missing out on interesting opportunities to expand your audience and reach new potential one. LinkedIn is the “professional” social network, closely linked to the world of work, where you can talk about business and develop relationships. It rather supports the creation of the professional networks and aims at the professional approach the business sector has. Both corporate and personal profiles represent a digital identity card with great connection potential with sponsors, local authorities, other clubs and players, and the community itself. 22
  • 23. For TikTok, Business Insider reported that on November 18, the app had reached 1.5 billion downloads across both the App Store and Google Play. It’s seen over 614 million downloads in 2019 alone – a 6% increase year-over-year. It’s also the third-most downloaded app this year – and the only app in the top five not owned by Facebook, which includes itself, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. When it is to talk about social media, professional sport, leagues and teams are often attracted to the following trend. In 2004 Vimeo was born as a video streaming platform allowing users to upload and promote videos with the assistance of advanced customization options not found on other competing sites. Vimeo has rapidly grown by over 170 million monthly active viewers, including those using the site to watch videos and professionals who loved the multiple possibilities Vimeo offered to promote their content in a unique way. In communication the challenge is being able to share concepts and emotions as we would like the recipients to understand and experience them. It is the way in which the marketing and communication aspect is defined that will determine how it will be solved. Once it is defined, we are ready to dig as deep as possible and begin determining the causes that generate the communication or marketing problem. The first step is to define what you consider to be the aspect to be solved, such as where you currently are and where do you want to reach in terms of brand awareness or profits, for example. PROBLEM SOLVING TIPS 23 The causes are represented by the obstacles that prevent you from getting where you want. After defining the problem and seeing its causes, the next step is getting creative in terms of generating potential solutions to solve the blockage. Two excellent solution- generator methods in this process are the brainstorming and mind mapping within a focus group. Once identified various ideas that could solve the problem, the next step is deciding on which solution suits the best your problem. This can be done through the generative negotiation analysis as the final step of a focus group.
  • 24. 24 SOLUTION Look for a resource right next to you. Many young people who have just graduated, or who are taking their first steps in the labour world, might be happy to help your club in exchange for issuing an internship certificate. Check with your members or even with the entire community. They can also be a good source of new members through their own circle of acquaintances. Collaborate with local faculties or profiled high schools, or even get in touch with organisations that collaborate with volunteers. Externalise as much as possible the easy work to people eager to do it for you in exchange of an experience of working within your club. SOLUTION Call a meeting to explain the fundamental importance of the good communication and visibility for the club. Explain to them what each platform does and decide together which one they would approve the usage of. Prepare a visibility plan for each platform and ask their approval or show them your work before posting anything. You will thus create a trust relationship with them and later they might allow a free hand for your work. Explain them the importance of their images for the club’s image itself as it is easier to the community to engage to “human faces” as they can identify with the people more (images) rather than information (text). A practical idea could be to assign different tasks to different athletes and share among all the responsibility, specifying that the success of the team always depends on the common effort. It allows you to perform the analysis and negotiation of it, giving up on the least solving ideas in the favour of the “ideal plan” that answers concisely the problem we have. PROBLEM All of our members are engaged in collateral activities and we have no one else who has the skills to draft and carry out a marketing strategy. Having already the solution determined, it is now the time to act upon it. Considering the number of steps required for the intervention, an action plan has to be prepared and treated in fact as a project on its own. PROBLEM My athletes and coaches are not used to social media, they don’t want to share their image, they are not collaborative in the creation of content and they also do not understand its usefulness.
  • 25. 25 PROBLEM Although the online communication has improved and we are generating excellent numbers in terms of views, the stands during matches continue to be empty. SOLUTION Invent engaging and desirable merchandising strategies to turn online users into spectators, offering them rewards and recognition for every presence in the stands. Organise photo/video competitions and offer prizes as rewards for their efforts to help you promote the club. Spread posters and flyers around the city making sure they are posted in all your community. Launch online promotions such as events, post distribution, videos or photos with text inviting to the match. Ask the athletes to spread the message and invite their friends and families to the matches. Get a good connection with the local sport news reporters and invite them to the games, preparing in advance or upon the end of the match information that can be used for articles (statistics, names, declarations from coaches or athletes, etc.).
  • 26. ONLINE VISIBILITY ON SOCIAL MEDIA 02 Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube The best times to post Social media image sizes Tips for athletes Tips for coaches 26
  • 27. CREATE YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE CHOOSE THE SUITABLE CATEGORY CREATE THE PERSONALIZED USERNAME PROVIDE A DESCRIPTION LET PEOPLE KNOW WHERE TO FIND YOU PROVIDE YOUR CONTACT DETAILS As we already said, Facebook is at the moment the main and most powerful social network in the world. Today it is not enough to be present on Facebook to be satisfied with your work. It is in fact necessary the page of the sport clubs to respect all the canons to be functional, useful and potentially a source of conversions. Here's how to create a complete Facebook page: Go to www.facebook.com/pages to create the page. Select one of the two macro- categories present: Company or brand / Community or public figure. Write the name of the page and select the most suitable category from those that appear suggested. In the case of a sport clubs, the right category could be “sport and leisure”. Create a “Username” for the page, in order to personalize the web address making it more recognizable as well as effective SEO. For example: www.facebook.com/EUvolleyballScience Offer details regarding the general information and a brief description. Provide a physical address and information on parking and price range. Make visible your contact details (telephone, email address and website). FACEBOOK BASICS TO GET STARTED 27
  • 28. All this information will get your page to be more easily searchable by the internal Facebook search engine (Graph Search) and on Google. It is important to learn how to optimize images and the page design. At the end of this chapter there is a summary of all the dimensions that graphics should have to adapt to different types of social networks. Each Facebook page has the ability to assign roles to manage certain functions of the page. To access the administration roles, simply go to the page settings and click on “Page roles”. From here it will be possible to manage existing roles, add new administrators and assign their specific role. Facebook also has a call-to-action button available for all pages customizable to various functions. The button must be chosen according to the main objective of your Facebook page. FACEBOOK BASICS TO GET STARTED 28
  • 29. When we think about the different types of materials we can post on Facebook status updates, photos and videos come to mind, but there are at least 15 types of posts to date, and new features are added frequently. STATUS: The classic and historical content on Facebook is the status that is a text up to 63,200 characters. It can include symbols, emojis, moods or activities, place, stickers, and recently, it can also have a background colour. When a new status is published, we speak of an “update" saying what we are doing or thinking. PHOTOS: Another classic type of content allowing you to publish one or more photos at once. All photos not included in a personalized album end up in the “Timeline photos”. LIVE VIDEO: By now everyone should know about Facebook's live videos, which can now be published from computers as well, without the use of external software. Live video is a video post that notifies users who follow the page and allows for live user interactions. It is very useful for live streaming matches. LINK: Link posts are status updates that contain a hyperlink to a web page. As soon as you enter the URL, the system automatically loads information such as title, description and thumbnail of the link. EVENT: When an event is created, it is published in the diary (of the profile or page) with a post of this type. Same thing happens when you sponsor an event. ALBUM: An album groups several photos and videos together. It can be created directly from the publication box, or from the timeline photo area of the profiles. SLIDESHOW: Slideshow is a video that can be created from Facebook pages using 3 to 10 photos. You can choose the duration for each photo, the type of transition and the background music. This is a great idea to introduce the team players rooster. CAROUSEL: The carousel allows you to have up to 10 images or videos, with links. Each image can have a different title and description and point to a different web page. CANVAS: Canvas are content for mobile devices, which create an immersive experience with images, videos and links, allowing companies to tell their stories and showcase products (such as merchandising) and services. COLLECTION: Collection is a brand new advertising format that allows you to sponsor an entire catalogue in a mobile ad. NOTES: Notes are similar to a blog. Each note can contain text with different styles, images and links. It can be published on both profiles and pages. It is the best tool for disseminating post-match press releases. TYPES OF CONTENT YOUR FOLLOWERS WILL ENJOY 29
  • 30. SPREADING THE MESSAGE TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE TARGETED CONTENT CHECK YOUR COMPETITORS USE VIDEO MATERIALS AD MONITORING Concentrating the efforts on achieving the quantity rather than the quality of contacts is a serious error of assessment. To really spread our message to the right people, we need to define a specific target of users to speak to a predetermined number of people selected on a well defined profile (the basis of age, location, interests, etc.). It is essential to create content that is not self-conclusive. Users prefer to get to know a new service through the experience of other users who have already tried it. For this reason, even when we create a post we shall always try to give maximum importance to the dialogue with users (real or potential) by asking them for their opinion. Dialogue stimulates dialogue. It is necessary to monitor the communication activities of competitors, both to observe what they are doing or not doing, and what they do to differentiate themselves from all the actors who operate in our same sector. To do this, it is essential to offer quality content, in line with our brand identity, consistent with our content strategy and interesting for our audience. Videos are confirmed to be one of the most captivating formats to exploit the users’ engagement. It is the simplest and having the most immediate impact that allows you to maximize the engagement with your audience. Facebook offers a series of Analytics that represent an important index for measuring the success and effectiveness of communication campaigns. It is essential to monitor this data to confirm that our advertisements perform at their best and that our communication really has an impact on the identified target. TIPS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR EFFORTS 30
  • 31. DIFFERENT TYPES OF ADS Facebook also gives you the opportunity to have a real-time view of the actual performance of a particular ad and, if the results are far from the expected indicators at the beginning of the campaign, it is possible to stop it (to avoid wasting further budget) or to modify some parameters. Another valuable tip is to create various ads, with different formats - for example a video format and a page post link - and evaluate which of the two works the best. It is advisable to test different solutions before defining which is the best for maximize the effectiveness of our communication campaign. Once the results are out you can choose directly the type of format that worked for each particular audience. 31
  • 32. LOGIN TO TWITTER PERSONALIZE THE PROFILE DETAILS PROFILE OR HEADER PHOTO PERSONALIZE THE DESIGN UPLOADING PHOTOS PINNING TWEETS Even on Twitter it is easy to customize the profile. Just select an original profile image and header, add the name, bio, position, date of foundation and the website. It is also possible to choose the colour theme and to pin a Tweet "at the top" for others to see immediately by accessing your profile. Here's how to create a complete Twitter page: Log in to twitter.com or open the Twitter app (iOS or Android). Log into your profile and click or tap the Edit Profile button to change the header photo also called "banner" (the recommended size is 1500x500 pixels), your profile photo (the recommended size is 400x400 pixels), the name, the bio (maximum 160 characters), the geographical position, the web site, the entity. To change your profile or header photo, click or tap the camera icon and select Upload Photo or Remove. Choose the colour of the feature via twitter.com. From the sidebar menu, click More, then Feature. At this point, choose the font size, colour and background theme you prefer. Photos can be in the following formats: JPG, GIF or PNG. Twitter does not support animated GIFs for header or profile images. You can pin a Tweet on your profile to be the first Tweet to be shown when others visit your profile. From your profile, find the Tweet you want to pin. Click or tap the icon at the top of the Tweet. Select Pin on Profile. Click or tap Set to confirm. TWITTER BASICS TO GET STARTED 32
  • 33. TWEETS FONTS You may notice that the fonts of some of your Tweets are larger than those of other Tweets. Tweets that got the most engagement appear slightly larger so you can easily find your best content. TWITTER BASICS TO GET STARTED 33
  • 34. TEXT: Type your Tweet (maximum 280 characters) in the text box at the top of your main timeline or click the Tweet button in the top navigation bar. You can add up to 4 photos, a GIF image or even a video within. Press the “Tweet” button to post it on your profile. To save a draft of your Tweet, click the X-shaped icon in the upper left corner of the edit box, then click Save. To schedule the sending of your Tweet at a later date / time, click on the calendar icon at the bottom of the write box and set the schedule parameters, then click on Confirm. To access drafts and scheduled Tweets, click Unsent Tweets in the Tweet edit box. IMAGES: On Twitter you can share photos taken in real time or uploaded from a device. You can modify them with filters and you can create galleries with more photos (max 4). Adding an image allows you to express your personality even more and leads to higher tweet interaction rates. In fact, users are three times more likely to interact with tweets that contain videos and photos (source twitter.com). VIDEO: With videos on Twitter you can capture and share the most important moments, from your point of view. Directly from the official app you can shoot, cut and share short videos in a simple and effective way. In line with all the other social platforms that in the last year have focused heavily on visual and video communication, Twitter has also integrated videos as native content where previously it was necessary to upload them to external platforms, YouTube in the first place. PERISCOPE: Periscope is a live streaming application launched in April 2015 by Twitter. Currently available for iOS and Android platforms, the application allows both direct video from smartphones and access to live streams made by other users registered on the platform. This means that, depending on the users you follow and your preferences, you will be able to follow the live footage from the quiet and sandy beaches of Hawaii and then, within a few seconds, switch to images from a street protest in Egypt. During the shoot, the audience will be able to express their thoughts in two ways: by writing a comment that can be viewed by all the other spectators or by sending a heart of approval by tapping on any part of the tablet or smartphone screen. Once the shooting is complete, you can save the video and make it available for 24 hours: in case you have missed the live streaming of the match of your favourite team, you will have a whole day to review it on a deferred basis. GIF: If you don't have time to make videos or are looking for an immediate and fun form of expression, GIFs are the right content to add to your tweets. With over 100 million GIFs shared and an internal search engine, you have tons of available choices. TYPES OF CONTENT SUITABLE FOR TWITTER 34
  • 35. ENTER A RECOGNIZABLE AND SEARCHABLE USERNAME EASILY SEARCHABLE BUSINESS NAME BRANDED PROFILE PHOTO Your Instagram profile will be public automatically, meaning anyone can see it and your posts on Instagram. If you're creating an Instagram profile for your sport club, then that's what you want - you want anyone to be able to view your posts and follow your brand if they want to. Otherwise, if you keep your profile private, anyone who visits your profile will not be able to view your photos, which therefore, may dissuade them from following you. Here's how to create a complete Instagram page: To change your @username go to your profile page and click the “Edit profile” button to the right of your profile photo. Then, click on the text or open the space to the right of the person's icon and enter the desired username. Make sure you add the full company name to the “name” section of your profile. To change your business name, go to your profile page and click “Edit Profile”. Then, click on the text or open the space next to the clipboard icon at the top and enter the desired business name. Your profile picture is one of the first information anyone sees when opening your Instagram profile, as it is visibly highlighted in the top right corner. To add or edit a profile photo, go to your profile page and click “Edit Profile” then, tap “Edit” at the top right. Here is where you can import a photo from other platforms like Facebook or Twitter or even choose from your library or computer. INSTAGRAM BASICS TO GET STARTED 35
  • 36. 36 SET AN ACTIONABLE AND INFORMATIVE BIO TRACKABLE LINK IN YOUR BIO Like your profile photo, your “bio” (the description at the top of your profile) is one of the first things your profile visitors will see. You have a maximum of 150 characters; use them to let people know what you are doing and also to give them a reason to follow you. Include who you are and what you do, and make sure you add a touch of personality. You can also use this space to encourage certain actions, such as using a certain hashtag or clicking a link in your bio. One of the biggest frustrations people have with Instagram, especially businesses, is that clickable URLs are only allowed in the single “website” box in your bio. That's why it's essential to add a link to the “website” box in your association's Instagram bio. INSTAGRAM BASICS TO GET STARTED Instagram is not a social network for everyone. Based on a refined visual sensitivity, content marketing in these cases becomes a direct operation towards narration and digital storytelling. It is not easy to move in these fields, so it is right to focus your attention on the best content for Instagram.
  • 37. AUTHENTIC CONTENT: Quality photos can make all the difference in a professional Instagram profile but you must never forget authenticity. Take and post photos of people participating in sporting events, show what happens in your locker room, show the world that your club is human and that there are real people behind your brand. The technical perfection and the good photographic execution give way, from time to time, to spontaneity and amateur shooting because, as always happens, people trust people. TESTIMONIAL AND REVIEW: In your editorial plan on Instagram you can foresee this item: content capable of testifying in your favour. It could be a photo of a coach satisfied with a win, or maybe a video interview posted on the account. HASHTAG: Working with hashtags is one of the ways to get good results, for example, to increase followers and interactions on your content such as comments. This is because hashtags give you the ability to add whatever you like in lists of images and videos dedicated to a single topic. This allows you to present shots and footage to a new audience. Think that now it is even possible to follow the new hashtags, your choice in this case can become significant. Optimizing these labels is one of the best tips to follow carefullyfor Instagram. CONTEST: You don't have to organize a contest on Instagram with big prizes to be successful and to get interesting results. Public engagement and involvement develop with a simple invitation to interaction and active participation. Gamification in this case becomes decisive: you have to make sure that people find pleasure in participating in your initiatives. And that they obtain advantages that are not necessarily material, think of the awards linked to a shot taken and published. STORIES: Instagram Stories, the future of visual storytelling. Today you can get a lot from the stories you post on this platform because through the combination of images and videos implemented by your creativity you can engage the audience through an effective perspective. PHOTO ALBUM: Instagram stories are not always enough to give value to what you have created. That's why you can and should use another decisive function of albums, that is to say a sequence of images that follow a very specific order, to browse, that is, from left to right. This way you can bring together content related to a single theme or define a chronological order. TYPES OF CONTENT SUITABLE FOR INSTAGRAM 37
  • 38. CREATE A YOUTUBE COMPANY CHANNEL UPLOAD YOUR FIRST VIDEO ENGAGE WITH THE COMMUNITY Even if with a Google account you have the possibility to watch videos, subscribe to channels and click on Like, in the absence of a channel you cannot be publicly present on YouTube. In fact, if you want to upload videos, create playlists and add comments you must have a YouTube channel, even if you already have a Google account. Here's how to create a complete YouTube channel: Log in to your account and go to the user icon. Click on the gear icon to access your account's YouTube settings. Click on Create a new channel. Select Use a business name. Add your logo and click create. Fill in the “about” section. Fill out your profile and channel description: this is the first option you see after creating a channel. Here, you should describe your club and what viewers can expect to see on your channel. This is also a great place to add links to your website and other social media networks you use. This description will appear in more than one place on your channel, so be sure to put a description that is as effective as possible. Once you finished filming your first video, edit it at your convenience and upload it. Log into YouTube and select the Videos tab on your user page. Click on the "Upload a Video" button, then on "Select file to upload" or alternatively you can drag and drop files into the window. At this point YouTube will start converting and uploading your video. If you want to know who is watching the video, click on the Privacy drop-down menu and select Private. Remember if you want to upload videos longer than 15 minutes, you need to have a verified Google account. Gathering a community on your channel and engaging your followers is a very important step. Reply to comments, ask and respond to questions, and more than anything, listen to them! Your viewers want to see what you create, so remember to offer them what they want. It is important that immediately after you upload a new video you spend some time responding to the first comments from viewers. Users who comment right away are the ones most interested in your videos and therefore it is important that you take them into consideration. YOUTUBE BASICS TO GET STARTED 38
  • 39. GENERAL ASPECTS TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN PREPARING UP YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL To create a successful YouTube channel, however, it is not enough to set the baselines and publish videos that, although interesting, would lose value if not placed in the right context. Here are some tips for optimizing channel performance: CHANNEL COVER IMAGE: When you go to a YouTube channel, you will be immediately greeted by a large banner showing the channel name. This is your cover photo and it's essential for presenting your brand. You can make your cover photo as minimal as you wish, but just make sure your brand is the focal point, as it will be the first impression someone gets upon entering. YouTube recommends uploading your cover photo at 2560 x 1440 pixels with a maximum size of 4MB. CHANNEL TRAILER: Channel trailers are generally short and soft, and make a good introduction for the new visitors. With these you can let your audience know more about you, what your activities are and what type of content they could see on your channel in the future. Creating your channel trailer will also be a good practice for your first video. KEYWORDS: While uploading a video, you will be asked to enter a title, description and tag. These are essential components to make your video easily found in YouTube search. Just like SEO for your website, YouTube has its own set of parameters for optimizing your video for search. Fill these sections to the best of your ability using keywords to describe the video and your business. A rich keyword based title (yet not fully) and description can bring you many viewers so you'll be able to see what is suitable for your videos as you continue to upload. If your video is optimized for YouTube itself, this can extend to search engines too. Since it is Google-owned instrument, YouTube is highly integrated within the search engine. If you play your cards right, you'll find your videos high up on YouTube and Google. 39
  • 40. PUBLISH REGULARLY: Building a successful YouTube channel takes time and effort, and viewers expect consistency from the channels they subscribe to. After your first video, be sure to plan your next videos in advance. Not sure if you will have time to shoot a video every week or every two weeks? It's not a problem! Take a day of free time to shoot more than one video and post them on your schedule. Go for a new video every two weeks, if not even weekly. When you need to be away for a longer time, notify your viewers. It is important to organize constant publication, this helps to build your following. Think in terms of a TV show; everyone eagerly awaits a new episode of their TV shows and always knows when the episode will be available. 40
  • 41. BEST TIMES SOCIAL MEDIA TO POST ON THE Click-through rates are higher during weekdays and working hours. Monday-Friday 12:00-6:00 PM Thursday & Friday 1:00-3:00 PM The closer the weekend the more chances you have people to go on Facebook and check posts FACEBOOK The companies use this time to post and engage interaction. Monday 3:00-4:00 PM INSTAGRAM People have more time to sit back and relax. Saturday 8:00-11:00 PM YOUTUBE TWITTER 41
  • 43. Make the most of the tool to avoid making blunders like thinking that your profile is a private space to do everything. Growing awareness of the potential of social media languages and technicalities in order to act as influencers with respect to contracts with sponsors and companies interested in investing in sport and using athletes as images and amplifiers of their brand. Digitalization has involved every person who needs or is obliged to have a media exposure. Sport and athletes are not an exception and while sport clubs can now count at all levels, on an internal structure dedicated to communication and digital marketing; the athletes on the other hand may still be too immature on the rules of the correct use of social media as it uses them as an individual. Today, in structuring a team and in choosing whether or not to aggregate an athlete to a team, the media exposure of the individual player is evaluated: if they use social media in a consistent matter with the sporting spirit of the discipline and above all if their digital life can also be a driving force for the club's marketing and merchandising activities. There are two important factors according to which the athlete is pushing for a conscious use of the network and social networks: TIPS FOR ATHLETES FIND YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS: SEPARATE YOUR PERSONAL LIFE FROM THE PUBLIC ONE POST ABOUT YOUR ACTIVITY IN AND OUT OF THE FIELD ENGAGE WITH THE LARGER SPORTS COMMUNITY BE APPROPRIATE AND REMAIN POSITIVE 01 02 03 04 43
  • 44. TIPS FOR COACHES FIND YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS: SHARE DETAILS OF YOUR LIFE AS A COACH BEFORE AND AFTER MATCHES JOIN GROUPS TO GET IN TOUCH WITH OTHER COACHES FROM THE WORLD QUESTION THE COMMUNITY ABOUT YOUR GAME SCHEMES AND ASK FOR PRACTICAL ADVICE SHARE MOMENTS FROM THE BENCH TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE BUILT- IN SPIRIT OF CURIOSITY OF THE PUBLIC 01 02 03 04 Since the beginnings of social networking platforms there have been various modifications from the internal logic and grammars structure’s point of view, as well as understanding and foreseeing in communication strategy and marketing. To offer an example, it can be a good practice to live broadcast coaches' conferences or post-match interviews on Facebook or Instagram. This offers the possibility to fans- users to interact at the exact moment when the event happens. These details are precious, since emotion and involvement are certainly triggers not to be missed when thinking about social media marketing in sport. The fan is driven by passion and a sense of belongingness to a team, which they leverage well-rooted impulses and feelings that often have little to do with rationality. In fact, “we cheer for tradition, we cheer for belonging, we cheer for the colours, we cheer for the accomplished feat or to be accomplished. Cheering must not be convinced: cheering must be nurtured” (Ortenzi 2017: 38), something that can be done precisely by exploiting the countless possibilities given by social media platforms. 44
  • 45. HOW TO ATTRACT MORE PEOPLE 03 Gain more followers Build your network Recruit athletes, coaches, officials and volunteers Engage sponsors and partners Engage the mass-media Improve the performance of your newsletter 45
  • 46. GAIN MORE FOLLOWERS Having a good social structure is definitely essential, but even more is to let the public know that you are present there. Print large QR CODEs and hang them in the gym, insert social buttons on brochures and print them on athletes' uniforms. Make sure everybody knows where you are. TAP INTO YOUR COMMUNICATION NETWORK Take advantage of your fans' spirit by making your social platforms a useful instrument full of unique content. If the primary way to find out the results, photo albums or match features is by checking your social media channels, your followers will be glad to do so. GIVE YOUR MEMBERS A REASON TO FOLLOW YOU Go for engaging articles and connect with your subscribers through questions about your posts. Use a positive approach. Reply to people who comment on your page. Create unique features for the most passionate audience. CREATE A COMMUNITY The content in the online environment is the leading king. Don't get scared to take risks or becoming creative as long as you foresee every potential result before. Use humour and induce the good mood but pay attention not to offend anyone. If you lack time to shape up content on your own, call upon the support of your followers. Play with viral stories, become a source of inspiration. CREATE GREAT CONTENT 46
  • 47. BUILD YOUR NETWORK Social media is an exceptional marketing tool allowing you to reach millions of potential fans, but it plays as well an important role for networking. To build professional relationships around you it is no longer needed to have worked in the corporate world for years and years; what you do need to know is how to make the most of the tools available online. PRODUCE VALUE People will start following and connecting with you if they can identify the value in you. Make sure you revise what you already have and only share relevant material in your area of expertise or interest. Giving value means offering information without expecting in returns likes, reactions or compliments on the short term. You are building something bigger and play an important role in their education so you need patience. UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION The Unique Selling Proposition or your trademark is in fact the message you want to transmit. This must differ from that of your competition. There is plenty of content out there but very often having a lack of originality. Knowing how to innovate becomes a fundamental skill to carry out a catchy project. Among the endless created contents on the same topics, yours will have to be special to stand out and engage the public. EACH PLATFORM MUST BE ACTIVE Having some platforms that you occasionally use, but not constantly, will make your organization appear inactive. If you lack time to invest in maintaining a platform for the purpose it has, better not have it. 47
  • 48. 48 THE STRENGTH OF THE NETWORK IS REINFORCED BY OFFLINE ACTIONS The key to having success on the social media doesn't always have to involve the internet in its promotion. Make sure you offer information about your social media accounts in your promotional materials you can offer as gifts. A sport club that has well-cared social media and which is rich in authentic content will be more likely to attract not only fans but also athletes and coaches looking for a new adventure. Having an aspect on the web that is up to the current situation, in step with the times, gives an inestimable value to the club. It could also be the decisive factor that makes a professional to choose your club over another. The future of sport entertainment is increasingly switching to social networks, with formats adapted to each application. The tweet of the champion. A photo posted on Instagram after a victory, with the teammates or during the holidays. A status on Facebook, perhaps accompanied by a snapshot or a classic selfie. RECRUIT ATHLETES, COACHES, OFFICIALS AND VOLUNTEERS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
  • 49. 49 With the help of the social media you can stay closer to the fans and, at the same time, to create an image for yourself, to convey who you are. The stakes are relevant this is why behind every social move of sportmen there can be no improvisation. Avoid the risk of gaffes as athletes increasingly rely on consultants who have the task of suggesting and guiding. Never replacing them of course. “Behind a social account is the player with his story. It is he who speaks. It is he who posts. Always. Professionals like me just advise and follow him”, says Max Sardella, one of the social media manager of Alessandro Florenzi, Roma midfielder. As does Andrea Saule, a communication consultant for Massimiliano Allegri says: “I talk with the sportman before and after the match. We call or write to each other. We exchange views. He tells me what he wants to do. I listen and advise him, if necessary, on how it is best to act”.
  • 50. 50 The activation of sponsors is the best way in which sport clubs have to make their sponsorship pay off. This is why sponsors really like it when it comes to “Activation”. The best sponsorships are those that allow the sponsor to be seen. Being present with the logo is no longer enough for a deep impact. The clubs should know this and be open to work with the sponsors to create something new, different and unexpected that allows you to get noticed by your audience. The best ideas are those that commit to activating the sponsor or the public towards the sponsor. ACTIVATION OF THE PLACE Actions that allow your public to be able to interact with the sponsor and its product. The most common solution is that of having an information desk. You can though let your imagination fly to find other alternatives that make sure your audience can get close and get in touch with the sponsor company and its product. Competitions, contests, draws or tests are just some of the activities you could foresee. The public will be happy and the sponsor will be able to experience the effectiveness of its sponsorship first hand. ENGAGE SPONSORS AND PARTNERS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
  • 51. 51 ACTIVATION WITH CONTENT Activating your sponsor can create personalised content specifically to what suits you to enrich its web and social presence. Each sponsorship is a potential source of content such as photos, videos, text posts, stories and direct messages are there to give both parts the opportunity to tell their stories. Talking about being a partner of an initiative is as well a great way to relate to the public. Don't allow your sponsor to underestimate this aspect. ENGAGE SPONSORS AND PARTNERS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA
  • 52. 52 INTRODUCE YOURSELF Briefly describe who you are and a sentence or two about your club. Less is more! TELL THEM WHY YOU GOT IN TOUCH Tell them why you got in touch with them! The key word being "them". Why did you choose their company and why did you choose them in particular? Show them that you've done your homework. TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE Do you have your prospect's target customer? Here is where you prove it. Describe who your audience is, why they are involved with your club, the types of purchases they plan to make and data related specifically to your prospect. TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR ACTIVATION OPPORTUNITIES Give them three examples of activation ideas that your sponsors and your audience love. Be specific and be clear about the way you work with sponsors and how sponsors can add value to your audience who is also their target customer. THE SPONSORSHIP LETTER TEMPLATE HOW TO WRITE A SPONSORSHIP PROPOSAL The goal of the letter is to get the attention of your prospect and to get them to take your call or agree to a meeting. How do you get their attention? Like This! TELL THEM WHEN YOU WILL FOLLOW UP Let your prospect know that you are going to call them on a specific date and time or tell them that you plan to stop by their office on a certain date to learn more about their goals and how you can help them achieve their goals.
  • 53. 53 Specific financial requests Focusing on need Leaflets, pamphlets, samples or proposals Words like "to whom it may concern" (Be sure to address the letter to a specific person) Pictures of your stakeholders or program users Assumption about their target audience or key demographic Stay focused on the core goal of the sponsorship letter, to present your opportunity in a respectful way and ask for a meeting. If you sent your letter to a cold prospect then get ready to follow up. A lot. WHAT NOT TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOW UP TIME! THE SPONSORSHIP THANK YOU LETTER The thank you letter that you send your sponsors is actually called a fulfilment report. Outline all of the things you promised your sponsors and then report on how well you delivered those assets. Make sure to thank your sponsors within one week of the end your event or campaign (or quarterly if you have a yearlong relationship with your sponsors).
  • 54. 54 BE THEIR MAIN SOURCE OF INFORMATION While watching the TV we realize that today all the presented sport information is somehow taken from the social media of the sport clubs or athletes. Even the articles of the printed press are increasingly based on distributing content that clubs have produced and shared through their social channels. OFFER HIGHLIGHTS OF YOUR MATCHES AND ACTIVITIES Making available the highlights of a match or an interview with your player will facilitate the work of the journalist, who will be more inclined to tell stories about your sport club. BRING THE HUMAN FACTORS OUT The traditional media started to surrender to the exponential reach of social communication. Their interest in telling personal stories of clubs and players to make their services appear more “human” is rising. ENGAGE THE MASS-MEDIA USING SOCIAL MEDIA
  • 55. 55 BUILD A NETWORK WITH THE LOCAL MEDIA REPRESENTATIVES Having a good connection within the local editorial offices is certainly a great advantage to evaluate. Looking for a press officer among the members of your team reduces the time and costs of such communication even more. OFFER THE MATERIALS YOU WANT THEM TO USE AS INSPIRATION Prepare a press release at the end of each meeting and send it to the main media. This will make the effort bilateral and will assure the communication is clear, constant and always in line with the vision of the club. USE HASHTAGS AND DISTRIBUTE YOUR POSTS AROUND FOR AN EASED IDENTIFICATION OF YOUR MATERIALS AND BRAND Use the hashtags with your club's and your opponent's names, your sponsors and sport's name. Share the materials from your website to various members of the local press directly or on the social media. ENGAGE THE MASS-MEDIA USING SOCIAL MEDIA
  • 56. The communication with your members or with your supporters (perhaps for fundraising campaigns) becomes very simple with a newsletter. All clubs should send informative or promotional emails quickly and effectively as each one of them has a core reference in its database: the contacts of its members. When registering with the club, the member leaves various data. Surely this is the most suitable time to collect a fundamental contact point such as the email address. It is obviously binding at that time to communicate the privacy policy to them. If we then intend - and we should! - to use the email to contact the member not only for information strictly related to their associative role, but also for newsletters of communication and promotion of activities; it is good to specify a series of possibilities in the registration form. Make sure you take into consideration the opinion of your subscribers and address their needs in the topics you prepare for your newsletter. Leave it to the members to tell you their interests or how often they wish to receive information. Pay a deeper attention in the processing of personal data, such as email, in the case of underage members, as it often happens within a sport club. In this case, the consent must be provided by one of the parents. A small point about the maintenance of your member lists: in the case of the members list, it may be tempting to re- register those who have unsubscribed from the newsletter. The advice is always to respect the will of the individual who has decided to unsubscribe; rather, in the unsubscribe message we point out that from that moment on they will no longer receive club’s communications and that in any case their membership status remains unaltered. In this case it is also useful to reiterate the associative contacts. A well constructed and maintained contact list is a fundamental treasure for the club and an excellent means of promotion and communication. 56 IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR NEWSLETTER
  • 57. WEBSITE 04 Features for sport websites How to write an engaging sport article Tips to improve your SEO 57
  • 58. 58 ALL SPORT WEBSITES SHOULD MAKE A BIG IMPACT THE LOGO Your team logo must be positioned correctly on your website. It's what makes your team recognizable. If what's useful depends on the contents, what's pleasurable depends on its design. Choose a layout suitable for your website that you like and that has colours subjecting to very specific rules. Try to follow the web design trends by visiting the trendiest pages and take a cue from them. Do what's needed for clarity, an eased navigation and reading, consistency between pages and between the site and any other campaigns of your club (flyers, brochures, logos and colours). Highlight your club's winning points and the most important information otherwise everything will look the same. Pay attention to the language and do not take anything for granted if you are addressing a large audience. Instead try to be very precise if you are addressing trained users. Creating a sport website is now easier than ever thanks to WordPress. A sport website can help the team communicate with fans. Thanks to the site fans can stay up to date on upcoming events to stay in touch and keep up to date with the latest news. More important, it can help sport teams to promote themselves better with an online presence, to seek out new athletes, sponsors and media partners.
  • 59. 59 The news section of the sport blog is essential both for keeping fans informed about team news and for SEO. It is undoubtedly the best way to share your victories with your followers than to blog on your sport team's website. It may be more difficult to read online and we know that the user only stays on a page for a few seconds. Thinking of putting back texts created for paper or other media on the web is a mistake. Online works differently so generally a little is said in a very short time. Short well planned texts and titles can attract the user. Summaries or brief introductions come in handy. Insights and external links can be much more useful if grouped at the end of the text. Use the graphic styles well by putting the most important terms in bold. Try to create a text full of meaning that is grasped at first glance. Do not underline texts though as usually this is for links. Leave plenty of blank spaces and don't clump texts. Don't put too many things (texts, links, images) on the same page. All of these things together turn your texts into suitable ones for the web. NEWS AND BLOGS
  • 60. PHOTOS AND VIDEOS A beautiful photo is worth a thousand words even on the internet. But let's not exaggerate; there are rules to follow the optimization of an image on the web. Let's not forget that images weigh in kilobytes, so they take longer time to download. If you want to use an image it is better to optimize it first or reduce it to a size suitable for the page where you will load it. Convert it into a compressed format such as GIF or JPEG to weigh much less. Like this they are more useful for navigation and for understanding the site. Finally, a note on copyright: even if technically it is easy, we cannot legally take possession of every image we find on the net. Every published work, except for specific indications on the contrary, is in fact protected by copyright. For using it you will need to ask for permission. Many photos that could be useful to you are collected in the so-called Stock Photo archives, which are collections of images sold or transferred under specific copyright rules, but often freely usable for non-commercial purposes. Tip: Use high quality visual materials. The pixeled or deformed images are not likely to be appealing for the viewer! 60
  • 61. 61 CURRENT TEAM ROSTER A sport team is rarely static as there may be changes happening from different reasons such as a new player coming, a retirement of another or in case of the least desired injuries. It is important to have a team components section to keep your followers aware of the latest player line-up! SCHEDULE YOUR EVENTS Schedules are an important tool that eases the way to keep your followers updated about the upcoming events and activities you may have.
  • 62. 62 LEADER BOARDS, TOP SCORERS AND STATISTICS All fans want to keep updated about their favourite teams and players and how they clash with other teams and clubs. Keep track of scoring, statistics, results and a detailed leaderboard so your athletes always know where they are in the top and which aspects to focus on to improve their performance. SOCIAL PROFILES Besides being actively present on the social platforms, don’t forget to connect your all channels to the website by using social icons and so to facilitate your visitors the access to your various platforms’ contents. Adding WordPress plugins to your website like Ultimate Social Media or SumoMe can help you connect your social platforms with the page.
  • 63. PLAYER PROFILES Offer a mixture of player statistics with unique player profiles for every team member so fans and managers are always aware of the key performance metrics of their favourite players. CONTACT INFORMATION Every follower and sport club would want to keep in touch with the team. Make sure you are having it easy for the community to connect with your club on the platforms. This data can easily be used within connections with the sponsors or even with the press. We would recommend a separated page on your site only for getting in touch with your club. More than that, you can put a contact form so people directly contacting you through a message, without having to get to their email to contact you. Contact Form 7 and BestWebSoft are two great plugins to get this job done for you! 63
  • 64. HOW TO WRITE AN ENGAGING SPORT ARTICLE Before the match. You could write a short article presenting the event. At the end of the sporting event. You could give an update of the results and briefly describe how it took place (if there is a ranking you can update it). When you organize something specific. Dedicate a full article to it or publish its poster; don't forget to create the event on your Facebook page for a better promotion. Go beyond the match. Any other posts may be associated with contents that are relevant to you (promotions, interviews, photos, etc.). Metatags. When creating news item, take into consideration the importance of Metatags, which is an excellent instrument providing search engines with information about your site. Title Tag: it is essential as it is the title of your post, so it is important that it is captivating, short and concise; try not to exceed 55 characters and to cover the main concept of the whole article; Tag Description: it should not be let aside because it is often reported by search engines; must be a short and clear description of the page as it is used by Google for positioning and helping users understand if your page is what they are looking for or not; Keywords Tag: is a list of keywords which you should choose based on the topics covered in your article. Don't forget to fill in these fields when you create an article directly from the dedicated panel, without the use of code. SEO is fundamental in order to get you visible within search engines. Another equally important aspect is enhanced by Google and the similarities gotten by the articles you upload on your sport site. Search engines go for the quality content so when you publish news it is better to be placed in a relevant way for your followers. If you are just starting with this and do not know what content to post on your site, check these ideas and suggestions which may help you to post your content in the best possible way: When you are creating news in the control panel, besides the ability to add images and attachments, you will find also the SEO tab, which you can fill in keeping these tips in mind: 64
  • 65. the “I want to know” moments, when doing informative searches; the “I want to go” moments, when looking for places nearby; the "I want to do" moments, when wanting to know how to do a certain action or even try something completely new; the "I want to buy" moments, when wanting to buy something and needs support to see which, when and where to purchase it. SEO and copywriting make writing an indispensable tool for any digital marketing strategy. We can say the blog post is the most complete and complex expression of SEO writing. The highest difficulty in writing a blog post is in creating valuable content that is engaging and respects the parameters of SEO. As anticipated, before starting to actual write, it is important to work on the keyword research. This gets us to understand which words are most likely looked for by our target audience and to identify topics to be included in our content strategy. Tools such as Semrush or Google Keywords are just two of the many supports for keyword research, which must be done frequently to keep up with the search trends. However, just searching for keywords is not sufficient as it is an exercise that could prove to be minimal and not very helpful. Writing blog posts by researching topics related to yours allows you to get relevance and authority, and have a better chance of appearing in search results. The suggestion is to start from a main topic (topic cluster) and divide it into sub-topics (content cluster) that will be treated in separate blog posts in order to create a relationship between all the contents. Another aspect to take into consideration in SEO writing is the user intent, or the needs that hide behind user research. What are our personas looking for? What keywords do they use for their searches? Analyzing user intent means putting yourself in their shoes so to offer them the content they need, thus also suiting everything to the user experience. In this direction, Google has analyzed the user intent, defining the micro moments or those moments in which a person relies on internet searches to satisfy an immediate need such as: This analysis allows us to understand how important it is to be present on the Web and to offer quality content in line with the different needs and micro-moments of users. SEO writing needs to focus not only on optimization rules, but people as well, which is why it needs to be engaging, clear and direct. 65
  • 66. TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR SEO A website despite being graphically attractive will not be able to become an effective tool for your club if it is not visible on search engines. This is why it is needed to apply specific techniques to ensure that your site is considered as "quality" by the SEO and obtains a high ranking. Do you want to get the maximum visibility on Google and increase the traffic on your site? Do you want to surpass your competition online? First of all, it is good to be clear about the steps that a search engine takes on your site to understand if it can be considered of quality or not and, therefore, what positioning to offer it. The robots - spiders - of the search engine perform an analysis of the site, called “crawling”; the material obtained is indexed, meaning it is made present on the search engine; there is the positioning phase, which is precisely called “ranking”, for a specific keyword. Once you have clarified, in a very general way, how search engine spiders work and how the latter decides in which position to place you, it will be time to check that the technical requirements are fully satisfied. Below you will find the main elements to be taken into consideration in this first phase of work for the optimization of the site: ROBOTS.TXT The most important thing to do when you are just starting is to make the pages of your site viewable by the “spiders” of search engines. If, in fact, Google fails to carry out the analysis and therefore to index your pages, 66
  • 67. It is not enough to simply comply with the technical requirements imposed by search engines to be able to allow you to relax. SEO is much more than that and it also concerns the level of satisfaction of the user who visits the site. In fact, in order to achieve a high ranking or maintain it over time, you must make sure that whoever clicks on your result does not disappear the next second. The so-called "User Experience", that is, the experience that the user has when accessing your site, is of considerable importance for search engines. To please your visitors you will therefore have to respect further technical aspects such as: LOAD SPEED Nobody likes waiting for a site's page to load. In the today’s technological era it is unreasonable to offer a good browsing experience to the user without paying attention to the site's loading speed. MOBILE-FIRST A growing number of users surf online through mobile devices like tablets or smartphones. This is a recent habit, which has led to a disruption even within search you will have no chance of appearing on the search engine, let alone of positioning yourself well and accessing the benefits of SEO on websites. This is possible by creating a robots.txt, a very common text file that will be placed in the root folder of your site. It works as a guide for the spiders who visit your site, as from there they can understand which pages they can view and which not. SITE MAP The robotx.txt control represents the first step for SEO optimization. This is usually followed by the creation of a site map. The site map works in exactly the same way as a book index, showing spiders what pages and what kind of menus your site is made up of. In this case, it is a page of the site, which may still be invisible to the user's eyes. 67
  • 68. TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR SEO engines. While those who owned once a site had to pay the ultimate attention to the desktop display, together with this, today the mobile one came to further expand everything. Search engines supporting the new devices’ usage by users have decided to penalize those who have not yet design an adapted format and to reward, instead, those who have paid more attention to these aspects, thus also improving the User Experience. INTUITIVE SITE ARCHITECTURE Another aspect to concentrate on for the optimization of your site is regarding the creation of an intuitive architectural structure for the user. Think of your webpage as the best way to respond to your potential followers and create a path that allows the easy navigation. This element is so critical (even if it is still often left in the background today) that, normally, SEO specialists initiate the strategy by analyzing the site organization chart, that is, the hierarchy of the navigation menu. Thus they are able to channel the keywords relevant to the core domain into the bearing pages and, in the same way, make the user experience more fluid within it. 68
  • 69. CREATING CONTENT 05 Boost your creativity Create “shareable” social media content Create a sport highlight video Maximize your time 69
  • 70. BOOST YOUR CREATIVITY Asking questions is what drives us to a continuous learning. Children are very good at this game when they start to be curious and ask the why of everything; it is their way of discovering the real world. Try asking yourself the “whys” of what you do and how you do it, even about the most complicated aspects in your job such as “Why is my team called like that?”, “Why do the fans follow my team?”, “Why do we have these social colours?”. Listen, read and learn from others - they can be your competitors or your potential followers. Look closely at what you do and propose with their eyes, try to empathize with them or, better yet, if you can, ask them what they think. Be open to what they tell you, you can really get valuable feedback to build new ideas or improve yourself. There is nothing worse than thinking you already know everything about your ideal audience. Allow yourself to be curious, follow the magazines they read, search the internet, look for the forums or the thematic groups that your subscribers spend time on. Are you always busy and maybe you can't do everything you want or should? Unlikely of what you think, it may not be a problem of time but more of mental overload. Our brain needs to reset the memory buffer, clean it up and rest. To function at its best, your mind needs to be placed every now and then in a state of absolute freedom from thoughts. You can do this by listening to music, reading a book or taking a walk. 10 minutes are enough to give your mind some leisure, doing what most relaxes you and gives you pleasure. TAKE IT EASY NEW POINTS OF VIEW THE “WHYS” GAME 70
  • 71. If you can’t afford a communication and promotion budget you can still bring the best out of your club’s graphic design capabilities. There are various free websites such as canva.com, where you can create social media visual materials, presentations, posters and much  more by using the proposed templates. Canva even has design tutorials  to support you in refining your skills. You don’t need any Photoshop experience! USE A TEMPLATE CREATE “SHAREABLE” SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT 1. INTERVIEW YOUR ATHLETES AND FANS Why is it important to interview your athletes and fans? Besides the authentic and unique content, you will have a larger group of people distributing your materials on social channels and linking to your articles. 2. SHARE THE BEST CONTENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE POST It's vital to make immediately clear what adds value in your post. Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter and we value content that helps us solve a problem. Start by sharing the article’s key tips, and you'll increase the possibility that someone will continue reading and eventually share your post with their network. 71 3. SHARE A PERSONAL STORY Sharing a story from a personal point of view is a great way to generate more engagement than telling the same story from your club's perspective.
  • 72. 72 4. CREATE CONTESTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA Include a contest or challenge as an integral part of your story to make your material stand out from the large volume of content posted online every day. Facebook and other social channels prioritize the content shared by our friends, and asking your members to mention the hashtag or page of your sport club is the best support to enhance the engagement. 5. CREATE CONTENT TOGETHER WITH YOUR AUDIENCE Has your club created a user-generated content campaign to collect the stories of your fans? Your associates may already use a hashtag linked to your brand on social networks to share their experiences related to your matches. By gathering all that content and adding the social feed to the site, you will be able to tell the story of the brand through the eyes of your subscribers. 6. WRITE LONGER STORIES This might surprise you, but longer posts get more shares than shorter ones. This seems to slightly go against the fact that our attention span is getting lower, but there are a few reasons to support this theory. Longer articles provide the reader with more value, thus increasing the number of shares. Second, longer content can include more calls to action and links to third party sites. Third, Google likes long-form content more and the more traffic your post gets through organic search, the more likely people are to distribute it. 7. ADD IMAGES TO INCREASE SHARES There are researches showing that contents with images get more shares than the one without. These contents are in fact able to stop the thumb flowing on social channels. 8. ADD MEME AND GIF TO INCREASE SHARES Memes and GIFs are great instruments for attracting the user's attention. Create unique memes using the funny faces of athletes, or irreverent GIFs by speeding up the most grotesque falls. You will be amazed how fun and light content of this kind attracts more visitors than a serious article about the sets of a match.
  • 73. Match scenes can get you spikes in views and interaction with fans. Users are generally more interested right after the game, so it's crucial to be timely. Although very recent sport highlights can usually only be published by broadcasters, after the waiting period expires, you can freely publish this content on your channel. You should consider live streaming to bring your fans closer to the match. Check out YouTube Analytics to find out which types of videos get the most audience loyalty - goal videos, player cheers, or a unique feature of your league. Load Fast: Match highlights often receive up to 75% of views within the first 72 hours of release. Adopt a publication schedule that allows you to upload match content as quickly as possible. When looking for match highlights, fans usually look for specific moments. Try to understand how you can edit your video and use metadata and thumbnails to help fans find your video. Guide fans to crucial Moments: For long- running footage with match scenes, try using time codes in the video description to let fans go straight to the segments they're looking for. RECORD AND PUBLISH GAME CLIPS CREATE A SPORT HIGHLIGHT VIDEO Competition and discussions are an important part of the community of fans. Many successful channels capture the competitive side of the game by offering opponent videos, original challenges and repurposed stock footage. Go through your archive: think about the videos in your archive where you find rivalries, including those between teams and players; modify and propose them again. Light up the competition: Many fans like to see players compete creatively. Try introducing athletes to new and creative competitions such as a drawing contest or video game challenge. Among the different types of competition-focused formats, you can go for: Rivalry between teams of the same league. Challenges between members of opposing teams. Competitions between athletes of different sport. Rivalry between teams over time. COMPETITION IS THE SOUL OF THE GAME 73 YouTube hosts hundreds of channels managed by all types of users, from national teams to independent creators. These tips can help you find great success on YouTube with your channel:
  • 74. Find four historical sport photos. Search on Google for motivational sport quotes Search a list of the most important international days in the world of your sport and create special graphics You can boost it by sharing the word through your other channels. Every day, you create great social media content. You just have to remember to post it. THROWBACK THURSDAY MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY SHARE THE "WORLD DAYS" SPREAD THE WORD THINK "SOCIAL" MAXIMIZE YOUR TIME Very often the creative people do not have the time or mental clarity to schedule new posts with always different content. For this it is possible to draw on some advice, easily available on the web, on the weekly trends to follow to fill the social pages even when company news is limited. 01 Save time (and sanity) by using Twitter lists to filter out the noise. Including lots of visual materials to your social media strategy brings many benefits. Invite all your members to an end of season party and take millions of photos to archive content. Business Manager could be a complex tool to manage but learning to use it could drastically change the level of the organisation's communication. To be sure that you’re receiving all of a relevant Facebook page’s content, click on the box at the top of the page titled “Liked”, then click on “Get notifications.” MAKE A LIST CREATE A FORMAT PROMOTE A PARTY STUDY ADS FOLLOW SIMILARS 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 74
  • 75. FREE TOOLS FOR CREATING SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT *ANNEX* 75
  • 76. www.canva.com is a very useful resource for those who are beginners with PhotoShop and cannot produce serious creativity, but also for those who need an online tool. You can use your own photos or buy them (they usually cost $ 1); the great thing is that it is very social-oriented, you can produce images for posts with the exact dimensions, thumbnails for videos, covers, etc. www.picmonkey.com it is very similar to Canva spark.adobe.com/home starts from the insertion of the text and an image is automatically inserted. It is then all editable. It has some very nice examples from which to start with very nice font colours and graphics fear-of-flight.com/2014/04/09/oh-snap-free-photos-bloggers-delight-pt-1 fear-of-flight.com/2014/09/02/oh-snap-free-photos-bloggers-delight-pt-deux blog.bufferapp.com/free-image-sources-list USEFUL TOOLS FOR CREATING / EDITING IMAGES FREE PHOTO FOR BLOGS publicdomainarchive.com unsplash.com www.gratisography.com www.freeimages.com pixabay.com deathtothestockphoto.com www.gratisography.com picjumbo.com www.pexels.com www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up stock.tookapic.com thestocks.im snapwiresnaps.tumblr.com jaymantri.com www.splitshire.com isorepublic.com magdeleine.co/browse jeshoots.com kaboompics.com www.lifeofpix.com fancycrave.com libreshot.com www.idpinthat.com www.goodfreephotos.com www.idpinthat.com www.rawpixel.com visualhunt.com photobucket.com/browse imgur.com pixambo.com 76
  • 77. Pic Monkey - www.picmonkey.com Fotor - www.fotor.com KigoImage - www.kigosoft.com/kigo-image-converter Fast zone resizer - www.faststone.org/FSResizerDownload.htm Image resizer - imageresizer.codeplex.com Pic Resizer - www.picresize.com Compress now - compressnow.com Screengrab (Firefox); Fireshot (Chrome); Awesome screenshot (Chrome); Web Clippet and Skitch (Evernote); Fool Page Screen Capture. Snapseed (free, for both Android and iOS): basic editing and some tools to add filters; VSCO cam (free): basic editing with many filter options both free and paid; PS Express (free): both editing and collage function. Useful if you work with the cloud; AirBrush (free): useful for retouching faces and especially for lightening certain areas of the image (cute filters); Studio (payment): very useful for adding writings and decorations to photos. They can create exnovo graphics or use those created by other users with the possibility to modify them (work with levels); Aviary (freemium): professional editing and filters; Logolicious (free, Android and iOS): convenient App to add a PNG/JPG/GIF logo to a photo via smartphone. RESIZE A WATERMARK TOOL FOR MAKING SCREENSHOTS SMARTPHONE EDITING APP 77
  • 78. 78 Simon CHADWICK, John BEECH - "The Marketing of Sport", Pearson Higher Ed., 2007 Pino VALENTI - "Marketing e comunicazione nell'organizzazione sportiva", CPE Centro Programmazione, Editoriale, 2002 “Web 2.0: Compact Definition”, Tim O’REILY www.viasport.ca www.stellaromagnoli.com www.giallonote.it/blog/calendario-marketing-2020-b28.html www.businessinsider.com www.ninjamarketing.it www.escagency.it www.netstrategy.it blog.hootsuite.com www.webinfermento.it trucchifacebook.com help.twitter.com innovationopportunities.it www.mediabuzz.it youtubevisualizzazioni.com blog.eipass.com www.insidemarketing.it marketing-espresso.com www.keysponsor.it help.instagram.com SOURCES support.google.com/youtube www.netstrategy.it/seo www.modenavolley.it www.facebook.com/groups/socialgnock www.sportrevolution.co.uk www.sportnetworker.com en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme industry.shortyawards.com www.marketingtechblog.com ctb.ku.edu/en www.mindtools.com www.dpc.vic.gov.au bch.cbd.int creatoracademy.youtube.com www.sponsorshipcollective.com
  • 79.