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Sports Marketing – How to Find the Hidden Treasure

If you market to athletes, or the youth sports marketplace – tune in for a few minutes and find the six words that could make the difference in your business or organization this next year.

My observation with three children in youth sports has been that the sports organizations we’ve come into contact with have had lack luster marketing and they just don’t understand how to attract, connect and communicate.

Now you would think that these so called sports marketing experts would be all over the web and also use utilizing offline direct response channels to drive business and increase awareness? Well that’s rarely the case, at least in our five going into six years of experience.

This experience tells me that there could possibly be an opportunity that presents itself to your small business. The question is will you even notice it or jump on it when the little opp comes into play?

One of the best ways that you as a marketer can attract more business to your enterprise or organization is simply by surveying those you come in contact with and your existing customers. This is one of the first steps to finding out what the market really wants.

Now you may look at this old fashioned method or say that surveying is a hassle, but I will stand by this simple method and state that a survey can make the difference of profit or loss and success or failure. It made a huge difference in the success of The Tiny Store and over the years I’ve had clients take advantage of this age old tactic.

You see, as the business owner( or manager or director) you need to find out what people want, need and desire. Not what you want, need and desire. Because it’s all about them and not you. It’s all about what they want to do, purchase and read. So you need to meet this need if you want to grow and better serve your local and regional sports community.

It’s one thing to have a great idea for a product or service but it’s entirely another story to bring it to market and see long-term success.

Let me give you a simple example of what not to do:

Many, many moons ago my Dad and Uncle manufactured a hard cover tennis case. It was essentially a violin case but pretty ugly and just not attractive. Now the idea was very sound, but was there a market and real need for this item or did they just concoct this idea and think it would fly and make them a gazillion dollares?

Since it never went anywhere and only the samples were produced, the record shows that this tennis case ended up being a dust collector. Now I believe had they done some simple market research along with simple surveys, they might have found out just what the market needed at that time. This research may have lead to further development and even a full blown launch, but instead the ugly duckling got stuck in the attic and was chalked up as an experiment.

So let me leave you with this…

If you already have clients or customers, then simply ask them what they want!
It’s not rocket science. Just ask them over the phone, in person, by sending an email, via social media channels, or even snail mail.

The bottom line is: Find the need and fill it.

To your sports marketing success,

Dave Krygier
Publisher