What Sports Teams Can Learn From Tech Companies

(From "The Carter Files" on GameOps.com, originally posted on 9.26.11)

One of the greatest strengths of the sports industry is the willingness of its professionals to share best practices, ideas and concepts.  Despite competition on the field, sports marketers are usually eager to lend a hand to a counterpart with another team.  The common goal of succeeding in a heavily nuanced profession, with the same pervasive challenges and obstacles present in every game and market, bring sports minds together.  

While sports marketers may be well on top of what’s going on around their league, sometime the laser focus on what will and won’t work within sports prevents a full appreciation of other industries.  Maybe it’s the pressure of the season, the demands of the multiple hats that most must wear, or even a lack of desire to expand our business approach beyond the realm of what we have come to know best.  Whatever the reason, it’s just as important to understand the successes and failures of companies in other trades as it is to stay current on sports business trends.    The more influences you are exposed to, the more diverse your business knowledge is, the more curious you are, the more valuable you’ll be.

Tech companies are among the easiest to learn from, since their entrepreneurial philosophies often mean they aren’t afraid to push the envelope and test the boundaries of traditional business practices. Though seemingly disparate on the surface, the sports and technology industries actually have a lot in common.  Both essentially aim to connect people, be it through a ballgame or a social network.  Both are often entertaining diversions, making daily life more enjoyable by providing an escape or a simpler way of doing something.   They are both dynamic, constantly changing industries where creativity thrives. 

From Google’s renowned corporate culture to Apple’s unique ability to hype a product launch, sports teams need only look to the biggest names in the industry for inspiration.  Here is a closer look at three of those companies and what can be learned from them.

Facebook

500 million active users and growing.  In the United States alone, users spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook in August- almost 10% of all time spent anywhere online during the month.  The numbers are so ridiculous they’re almost impossible to comprehend at times.  Everyone would love to have that kind of customer base, right? Well imagine what it’s like when you want to make changes when you’ve got that kind of following.  Facebook just rolled out some layout alterations and announced more major profile updates that are on the way.  The response was as predictable as it was immediate.  People naturally resist change, but people vehemently resist changes on Facebook.  No matter the irony of people complaining about Facebook via Facebook, the site has become so entrenched in our lives that even the simplest of adjustments sends folks into a tizzy.  

Battling the Dog Days of Summer: Midseason Motivators

(From "The Carter Files" on GameOps.com, originally posted 7.1.11)

Everyone who has ever worked in sports knows the feeling. In every league, you reach the halfway point of a season where it seems like you have to dig a little deeper to make great things happen. Baseball offers the best description of that grind, where the expression “dog days of summer” succinctly explains the daily difficulty in maintaining a high level of performance amidst a marathon-like season.

For teams and players, the All Star Game in July is a symbolic break in the monotony. It’s a chance to take stock of stats and standings; it’s a moment to regroup before it’s too late. A few weeks later, the trade deadline offers teams a literal injection of fresh blood for the stretch run. For those in the business office though, the midseason pick me-up isn’t going to come from a new starting pitcher or a left handed bat off the bench. Sports marketers, like players on the field, need to consistently produce results and provide compelling reasons for fan support no matter how exhausting the season may be.

During those dog days, finding motivation to come up with fresh ideas can be tough. Naturally, it’s harder to get amped for a Tuesday game in July than it is for Opening Day. The ability to discover the motivation to continually try and improve marketing efforts can be what separates a good operation from great ones. Managers need to lead by example and find ways to energize their crew and keep morale high, while every staffer must take personal responsibility for finishing the season as strong as they started it.

Here are some quick midseason motivators to help encourage staff energy and spur efforts to continue producing at a high level.

Take a Staff Trip to Another Stadium

After a long homestand, hanging out with coworkers may be the last thing on your mind. However, taking a staff trip to a rival ballpark or stadium can provide a fun, camaraderie building experience. Even if it’s just a handful of people, this will give you a chance to let loose while also gaining more appreciation for the hard work put into running a sports team. Take notes on things the other team does well and borrow some ideas. It’s equally important to remind each other of the things you might do better than your rival. You’ll never know what you do well or where you can improve unless you have an actual basis for comparison. Most folks working in sports are incredibly competitive and a visit to another ballpark can easily spark a desire to one-up the team down the highway.

Utilize Social Networks to Help Generate Ideas

Even the most creative minds in the business hit mental roadblocks. Sometimes the ideas just don’t flow, no matter how many brainstorming sessions you have. During those times, the best answers usually come from the people you are trying to persuade- the fans. The most effective and personal way of conversing with your fans on a wide scale is through the use of social media, which makes it easy for them to suggest things they’d like to see happen. Whether it is asking their opinion on ways to improve partially-formed new promotions or taking polls on the most popular mascot skit or soliciting feedback on concession items, social media gives you the ability to immediately refocus efforts where they matter most. Also, hosting live social media events (tweetups, social media seating sections) at games is a great way to bring the most active members of the online community in direct contact with your team. It bumps up the pressure to be on point when you know you’ll have people critiquing every aspect of your operation for online consumption. The jolt of excitement these types of events bring can be a welcome change during midseason doldrums.

Keeping Your News in the News: 8 PR Tips for Sports Teams

(From "The Carter Files" on GameOps.com, originally posted 4.27.11)

Some would argue that this is the best time of year for sports fans. You’ve got the NBA and NHL playoffs going and baseball is only a month into the season. Throw in the NFL lockout and the occasional college football scandal and there is no shortage of sports stories to inundate your news feed. There are periods during the year though, where sports do not hold the collective attention of the Nation. In those times, teams fight a constant battle to keep a positive media spotlight on their organization.

Plain and simple, the media reaches far more people than a team’s marketing department could ever touch. Having an effective media and public relations strategy is essential in keeping your team in the public eye, whether it’s the busiest time of year or the middle of the offseason. Of course you could always sit around and wait for media to come to you, but usually that means something bad has happened. On the other hand, if you proactively and aggressively pursue better relationships with members of the media you can help shape the story being told about your team. After all, with the amount of work put into your product don’t you want the people in front of the microphones, cameras and keyboards selling the same experience you are?

Media and Public Relations personnel must do more than prepare daily statistics packages. They are the liaison between the media and the entire brand. Not only should they be informing media members about the players on the field, but they also need to publicize upcoming promotions, depict the game experience and push team marketing initiatives. 

Here are 8 PR tips to keep your news in the news:

The Repeat Customer Success Cycle

(From "The Carter Files" on GameOps.com, originally posted 3.29.11)

As the calendar turns to April, baseball executives around the country are switching gears from a planning phase to an execution mode. It’s time now to actually do all the exciting things you’ve talked about doing. For game operations professionals, this means a much brighter focus on delivering stellar entertainment, presentation and promotional events. Once gates open for the season it is the stadium experience that takes center stage, propelling everything from ticket sales to buzz in the community. So, let’s look at how these crucial organizational components fit into a larger picture during the season, where maximizing business opportunities is always the objective.

As my colleague Pat Walker pointed out in our Best of the Decade audio roundtable, the game operations department may not be the first folks to sell a ticket but they can be the best source of renewal that any organization has. The renewal, or repeat customer, is absolutely critical for any sports team. Sports marketing guru Jon Spoelstra laid it out in clear terms when he said, “Increasing the frequency of purchase by customers is the best and most efficient way of building a business. It is a quick-fix silver bullet.” Think about how hard your sales staff must work to get a first time customer to a game. Then think about that customer’s likelihood of returning to another game after they’ve been exposed to your team’s incredible stadium experience. Indeed, building your repeat customer base is easier and more economical than searching out a stadium full of newbies. While new business prospecting will always be imperative to an organization, moving a fan from the 1-2 game a year threshold to attending 5-6 games is simply more effective than recruiting people who have never touched your live product. During the season, game operations personnel must understand the vital role they play in building the all-important repeat customer base.

Think of building your repeat customer base as a never ending cycle. There are different points in the cycle where a fan may be introduced to your team, but all departments must work together to keep them moving towards increased involvement and more frequent stadium visits. Here then is the Repeat Customer Success Cycle, a simple strategy for building in-season business. During the season, we all know it’s incredibly easy to get caught up in day-to-day details. This cycle helps to provide perspective amidst that daily grind. It helps to show that the game operations staff is not just in charge of fun and games, but more importantly it is the catalyst in turning new fans into rabid, repeat customers.

The Repeat Customer Success Cycle

Each of the six points in this cycle is important. A breakdown in any of these phases could let a potential repeat customer slip through the cracks. While it doesn’t matter where or how a fan enters this cycle, it is essential that you work with other departments to constantly move them through the cycle as often as possible. The more a fan touches the following six points of the cycle, the more likely they are to buy frequently.

Building the Perfect Promotional Schedule

(From "The Carter File" on GameOps.com, originally posted 1.31.11)

For every baseball fan, there are four words that can automatically ease the pain of a long, dark winter. Pitchers and catchers report. It’s a tangible end to the offseason, but more importantly it’s the beginning of a new year filled with optimism and excitement. After months of planning, tweaking, and move making, it’s about time for the rubber to hit the road. It’s time to see how the newly shaped rosters of our favorite teams will actually perform. It’s also time when the business side of baseball puts their own roster to the test. That roster is the promotional schedule- the sports marketing equivalent to a team’s starting lineup.

The promotional schedule not only serves as the creative backbone for your sales force, but it also says a tremendous amount about your team. Taking pride in perfecting your promotional calendar tells your fans and community that the organization is invested in continual improvement of their product. Especially over the past couple of years, reductions in budget and soft sponsorship sales have been tough on promotional personnel. So now more than ever, it is essential to step up creatively to provide new and compelling reasons for fans to get excited about your season.

Building a perfect promotional schedule can start with something as simple as a change in mindset. Back when I was a young and impressionable baseball executive, I clearly remember one of my mentors describing his job to a client. “We throw 72 parties a year,” he said. That one line changed the way I developed a promotional schedule. Every home game is a party and you’re inviting the entire neighborhood. If you look at the plans for one of those parties- say a Tuesday night in June- and you aren’t excited about it, good luck at the gates. You must have goals for every single promotion in order to convince fans that attending a party multiple times at the same place is a worthwhile expenditure of their time and money.

What then are the most significant things an individual promotion needs to do? Here are five:  

1) Sell tickets

2) Enhance the game experience

3) Elevate the team brand

4) Create partnership opportunities

5) Generate publicity and attention.