Guest Post: College Athletics Doesn’t Have an Awareness Problem. It Has an Engagement Opportunity

Our trip to West Point last weekend keeps giving. Here is a guest post from my colleague Dave Siroty.

I just went to the Tulane at Army football game with good friend Joe Favorito. It was one of those perfect fall Saturdays and here I was at iconic Michie Stadium. It was parent’s weekend filled with the entire Corps of Cadets dressed in their whites. What a scene!

But even with the biggest crowd of the year there were empty seats. While I know Army football isn’t Alabama, Penn State or Oregon, I looked at those empty seats with amazement. I kept asking myself, “how could those seats not be filled?”

Joe and I talked alot about it.

When I got home and settled in for more college football, I was beseiged by Geico, Allstate, State Farm and Liberty Mutual to name a few.

Their commercials were designed to make us remember their names, recognize their brands, and think of them when we need insurance. Millions spent to make sure we know them.

Now consider the position of a college or university.

Most people already know a school exists. They recognize the name, the mascot, and often the colors. In many cases, the institution enjoys the kind of brand awareness that corporate America spends billions of dollars trying to achieve.

Brands would kill to have those awareness numbers, let alone those of the U.S. Military Academy!

I realized that while we all know Army, that awareness alone doesn’t fill a stadium, sell season tickets, generate donations, attract corporate partners, or convince a prospective student to enroll. Clearly, in this age of the revenue, revenue, revenue and more revenue, athletic departments need to rethink how they approach marketing. And I know Army is trying!

Awareness is the starting point, not the finish line

I started out as a college sports guy before moving into corporate America, where I gained a different perspective on marketing, business development, and revenue generation.

I was leading communications for Coldwell Banker Real Estate when Facebook fully emerged in 2005, Twitter a year later and eventually Instagram in 2010. Back then, we like every other brand scurried to attract “social media” people – essentially young people who were really good at posting and commenting.

Back then, after everyone hired their social teams, the trend soon moved into an era of brands “self-publishing” where content was king. We also turned to video. Then we realized the content wasn’t valuable until the engaged did more as we began measuring how social posts and content turned them into clients with a focus on site visits, time on site, desire to buy all the way down the funnel to actual purchase. Everything was measured, thus the term KPI.

I remember a moment about three years into the era of social media and content. My boss told me that my job (social media reported to me) had changed and it now was to create “raving fans.” That was a foreign concept for me, a PR person who was used to media relations not the one-to-one engagement social media allowed. As those days continued and I learned, I often wished I was back in college sports where we already had thousands of raving fans.

I definitely was not in Kansas anyomore.

But maybe that’s the problem!

THE COLLEGE SPORTS BUBBLE

Kansas – and every other school including Army – lives in a bubble. Just like I once did.

When working at the Big East and Seton Hall, I believed EVERYONE cared about us. But when I got to corporate America and soon saw that only 3 of about 50 watched the March Madness Selection Show, I learned a lesson.  Outside of a few, the sun and moon don’t revolve around the players and teams.

The reality is that it takes a lot of work to satiate the ravenous fan. And it’s even harder to create more of them. But today, now more than ever, that’s the job!

College sports appears to be in the early stages of what corporate America learned years ago. College sports is doing social media and self-publishing with incredible skill. It is filled with so many eager to tell stories and create content. But is the entire marketing team working together to move people from awareness to activity, from activity to engagement, and from engagement to meaningful action?

As John Wooden said, “Don’t mistake activity for achievment.”

THE 5

Here are five critical groups to think about reaching:

• Potential students and student-athletes.  A school needs students and teams need players. Recruits wants to understand the program, coaching staff and facilities. A prospective student may be drawn to campus life, school spirit, and the sense of community that comes with attending games.
• Current audiences.  Existing fans, students, faculty, and staff shouldn’t be taken for granted. They need to be nurtured.
• New ticket buyers. There are so many opportunities to reach people who aren’t currently attending games and give them a reason to show up. College sports marketers should do some simple math. Count up student enrollment, faculty, staff and the population of nearby communities. Add in the number of living alumni.
  Now see how your attendance measures up. It’s likely in the single-digits.
  Take Army for example:
  • Student population: 4,500
  • Faculty/Staff: 7,000
  • Alumni 80,000
  • Hudson Valley population: 3 million
  • Football attendance: 30,000 or 1% of their potential audience at a football game.
  I know, I know, not all alumni live near the Academy. And not all who live near it like sports. But I also left out the 22 million who live in the New York tri-state area who might love a day trip. Hopefully you get the idea.
• Donors. Alumni and prospective donors want to “know and feel” the school, teams and players. They want to know their money will be valued.
• Corporate partners. Demonstrate opportunities for sponsors to connect with fans, students, families, and the surrounding community. All of the groups listed above are their future clients. Learfield, Playfly, Van Wagner and the others need a school’s marketing machine to power sales.

IT’S THEIR TIME

I believe athletic department marketers can be uber successful. It starts with having more stories and unique opportunities than they know what to do with. It’s an undending amount of:

• Great student-athlete stories
• Behind-the-scenes looks
• Unique traditions
• Success stories
• Community events

The list goes on-and-on.

I’m a big believer in “surround sound” marketing utilizing PR, traditional and digital advertising, social media, content, websites, apps, newsletters and other available communication vehicles to reach the consumer.

Arewareness is not enough.

College athletics already has something every marketer wants: a powerful platform, an established identity, and an emotional connection with each of its intended audience.

The next step is to put that advantage to work.