Digital and Social Media Marketing in Sports: The Essentials

Summary

Digital marketing is the use of digital platforms such as the internet to deliver branded communication to potential consumers. It involves a wide range of different techniques which are aimed at promoting a brand and its benefits to an audience, in the same way that radio and TV marketing work, only through the internet. Social media marketing is a particular facet of digital marketing which has gained a lot of attention in recent years thanks to its potential impact.

Social media is the name given to describe a website or application which allows users to create and share content with each other through the internet. Social media has become one of the most popular ways people spend their time online, with major platforms such as Facebook and others attracting millions of daily active users and forming a large percentage of total internet traffic.

It’s the large audiences of social media sites, along with the features designed for creating and sharing content, that make them so appealing for marketers. A brand can use social media to boost its reach and engage with new audiences in new markets, increasing their overall brand awareness and bringing an increase in sales.

With the fast growth of the internet and the fact that there are now billions of people online, digital and social media marketing have rapidly grown in significance. Today, these platforms can be used in a variety of different ways to improve the image of a brand and help a company to reach its target demographics. In the world of sports, digital and social media have been used to connect fans in their love of their favourite sports, teams and athletes. Sports marketers have also made the most of these platforms to appeal to sports fans and associate brands with major sports teams and sporting moments.

Brands that want to stay ahead of the competition need to be able to adapt and pick up new techniques and ideas. Digital marketing is one of the biggest changes to the field of marketing in the last decade or so and is still rapidly evolving as new tool emerge that allow brands to make better use of digital and social platforms. Digital marketing is now a major component of any marketing strategy, with most companies now aware of the benefits that it can bring.

Digital marketing includes techniques such as search engine optimisation, content marketing, paid online advertising and social media marketing, among others. All of these techniques can be used in tandem to create a robust and effective digital marketing strategy capable of increasing brand awareness, brand equity, positioning and ultimately, improving sales.

Sports marketing is an integral part of the sports industry and just as traditional marketing has adopted digital techniques, so too has sports marketing. Now, sports marketers use digital and social platforms to connect with wider audiences, engage directly with fans and bring sports to new markets.

As well as being on top of current digital marketing trends and techniques, brands must constantly be looking to innovate in order to gain a competitive advantage. This is true in any industry, but the sports industry in particular is highly competitive, and organisations and those that work in it need to be able to stay on top of current trends to stay ahead of the competition. The digital landscape changes quickly, and social media is always developing and bringing new ways to interact with users. Being a great digital and social media marketer means staying ahead of these trends and innovating to create and develop new techniques yourself.

What You’ll Learn

· What is search engine optimisation and why is it so important

· How content marketing forms a large part of any digital marketing strategy

· What is paid online advertising and how it can be used to promote brands

· The basics of social media marketing

· What is brand awareness

· What is brand equity

· What is positioning

· How is branding to sports fans different from branding to regular consumers

· What is market research and why it’s so important to a marketing plan

· How to create user personas and for what purpose

· All about metrics of digital marketing including how to set and track goals

· How to take the components of digital marketing to create an actionable marketing plan

· How social media can be utilised to build brand awareness

· How social media can be used to build and measure engagement

· All about distributing content on social media

· Why is engagement such an important factor for marketing campaigns

· How a brand can activate its marketing

· How modern marketing teams use data to drive marketing strategy

· Mobile optimisation and how it affects digital marketing

· How voice searches are affecting digital marketing

· How artificial intelligence can be used to create successful digital marketing strategies

· Why brands are focusing more on creating personalised content and experiences for their consumers

· How live streaming can be implemented into a digital marketing strategy

· The use of augmented reality in marketing

· The rise of eSports and how it offers opportunities to brands looking to align themselves with a new market

Words from the Author, Saam Momen:

I have a true passion for teaching! I have proudly taught university courses in Switzerland, USA and Brazil. My career spans over 15 years in the sporting industry with jobs at the London Olympic Bid Committee, UEFA, CSM and TEAM Marketing. I possess a Master Degree in Sports Management and an Executive Education diploma at Harvard Business School on The Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports. I hope that throughout this course you are able to have a wonderful learning experience! Please do not hesitate to reach out should you have any queries.

Why Choose This Course

This course has been developed to give you a clear and comprehensive understanding of digital and social media marketing. The course will lay out the foundations of what you need to know about these areas of marketing including the components of digital marketing, the basics of branding, creating a successful marketing plan, social media marketing, increasing engagement, using data analysis and innovation and trends in digital marketing.

Throughout the course, you’ll be able to learn more about how digital and social media marketing can be applied to sports organisations and why these techniques are so useful in the sports industry. The course will look at the theory behind digital and social media marketing as well as offering real-world examples in the form of case studies for you to learn from. As you gain a wider knowledge of the techniques and ideas behind digital marketing, you’ll also be able to see how they’re applied in the sports industry by major brands and organisations. This will not only help you to see how digital marketing is relevant to sports but also help you to understand the core aspects of this field of marketing.

If you plan on working in marketing, whether in the sports industry or anywhere else, a strong understanding of digital marketing is essential in today’s world. Skills in both digital and social media marketing are highly sought after thanks to the potential benefits that they can bring to an organisation. Modern businesses require people who understand the modern business landscape, and that means those who can make the most out of digital and social media platforms.

This course begins by laying down the core techniques of digital marketing. You’ll learn about the basics of search engine optimisation and why it’s so important for improving website traffic. The course will also show you what content marketing is and how it’s applied to a marketing strategy to build brand awareness and engagement. Along with these, the course will also explain how paid online advertising can be used and the basic idea of social media marketing.

Branding is the use of advertising to promote a product, service or organisation, and it’s the main focus of marketing. Most marketing campaigns, including digital marketing, will be occupied with improving brand awareness, equity and positioning. The course will explain these concepts in-depth, teaching you the importance of each. You’ll also learn about how branding to sports fans is different from standard marketing and what sports marketing campaigns need to consider when advertising to fans.

Planning and preparing a marketing plan is a crucial step in any campaign, and allows the marketing team to research the market, determine their intended audience and set actionable goals. This marketing plan is then adjusted over time, with the marketing team continually reassessing their goals and the techniques they’re using to achieve them. You’ll learn why a plan is so important, how a plan is formulated and the details of each step. The course will take a close look at the importance of market research, user personas and marketing metrics, allowing you to see why these areas are part of any marketing plan.

Social media has added a new dimension to digital marketing, allowing brands and organisations to connect with fans and consumers in ways that were previously unimaginable. There are lots of different platforms which each provide a unique way of engaging and interacting with followers. The course will focus on the different goals that social media marketing can help a brand to achieve, and you’ll learn how brands use various social platforms to distribute their content.

Through this course, you’ll also learn more about engagement and why digital and social media marketing focuses on this area so much. Engagement and activation are important terms, and you’ll learn what each means by looking at the specifics. The course will show you why these two areas are so important and how data is used to measure engagement and track marketing goals.

The course also goes into depth on current issues affecting digital marketing, looking closely at trends that are changing the way the field works. Concepts such as mobile optimisation, voice searches, artificial intelligence and personalised content are all the latest digital marketing trends that are shaping the world of digital marketing.

Lastly, you’ll learn how to futureproof your career by examining innovations in digital and social media marketing. The course will explain how the field is constantly developing and adapting to new technology and shows examples of this in action. You’ll be able to learn about concepts such as live streaming, augmented reality and eSports and how they can be used by digital marketers in the sports industry.