Quick quiz: When was the last time you hit your local multiplex to catch a new flick, cheered as your favorite team took the field, or just vegged out on the couch binge-watching a show on Netflix or Hulu. If it takes you longer than a few seconds to come up with your answer, you just made an entertainment marketer cry.
Sports and entertainment properties can seem like an easy sell for marketers. Brands in this space can play a major role in how people define and express their personal identities, as well as impacting how we shape and experience our society, at large. And, as our collective passion for popular culture expands, we are coming to expect greater access to the athletes and entertainers we love – a trend simultaneously accelerating digital media innovation, fueling development of more live experiences, and driving more engaging storytelling on all platforms.
But just because sports and entertainment content is in high demand doesn’t mean it’s easy for marketers in this industry to find and engage the right audience for their content or drive casual fans to support their viewing habits with their hard-earned cash.
If you thought marketing sports and entertainment was all fun and games, there are a few things you should know about what it takes to win loyal fans and influence purchases in this landscape.
The noise in this space goes to 11 – and beyond
The saying, “All the world is a stage,” has never been more true. Virtually everybody with a smartphone camera and a dream has the power to establish themselves as entertainment impresarios thanks to the personal brand-building and revenue-generating opportunities afforded by popular social platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat.
New players are entering the field from all sides
For example, consider in just the last few years the very definition of “professional sport” has expanded beyond the pro and collegiate leagues that once dominated the scene. Football (and the Super Bowl in particular) may still be a leading player in broadcast media, but today’s armchair quarterbacks are also tuning in to cheer at ninja-like obstacle course competitions, following player stats to build their own fantasy sport teams, or even taking part in competitive video game tournaments. This has left long-established sports teams scrambling to update their marketing playbooks and create content experiences that will win over the audience – and secure essential sponsor support (more on this in a minute).
The data dilemma
Specifically, increased competition in this space is making it more difficult for marketers to determine how and where to distribute their content for maximum exposure to their target audience.
For better or worse, the solution to this challenge likely lies in a single, all-powerful asset class: data. Deloitte’s 2017 Media and Entertainment Industry Outlook report bears this out, asserting that to succeed in marketing sports and entertainment properties to the content-hungry masses, an intimate understanding of the end user is key. Deloitte concludes that companies that can figure out how to help consumers discover their content will likely have a leg up in this competitive space.
Mark Drosos, founder of Lodestone Social, agrees that sports and entertainment marketing is largely a numbers game, pointing out that data is a particularly powerful currency for these businesses to trade in, as it plays a unique, cyclical role in the content equation: “Not only should your content efforts serve as a means to help your brand gather critical audience data, all your future content efforts should, in turn, be informed by the audience insights that data reveals.”
Yet, in Mark’s experience, sports brands typically use content marketing solely for engagement purposes. Instead of pursuing “likes” and views as the end goal, he advises marketers to position their content efforts as a way to generate more robust first-party data. “The resulting behavior data can be merged with other data they’ve collected, which can reveal opportunities to drive more revenue from the fans they connect with,” he says.
A hidden audience could be hindering your marketing growth
No doubt robust data can take your marketing efforts much further than assumptions alone; but this enhanced potential for success hinges on your brand’s ability to capture the right insights from the right audiences in the first place – a task that isn’t quite as clear cut as it may seem.
Sports and entertainment brands might have it easier than their peers in lower-profile industries when it comes to identifying…
