One of the easiest ways to market a product is to meet consumers where they are at or choose a Sports Teams. As technology has evolved, those consumers are generally checking March Madness odds, scores, and social media to stay up to date on whatever it is they like.

Digital marketing has become so important for the sports industry. Teams at all levels are beginning to invest in developing digital marketing teams or at least growing what they have because it is relatively inexpensive, and the reach potential is far greater than the traditional ways.

In older times, buying ads in newspapers and billboard space was a great way to draw consumers’ attention, but newspaper sales are declining, and billboards are evolving. The latter is still valuable, but a cheaper option is a digital billboard where tweaks can be made during a campaign.

While companies sacrifice sole space for rotating with other campaigns. But with cell phones in the pockets of young kids all the way to older adults, it is much easier to hit a targeted campaign – especially with social media demographics segmented – in the online space.

Here are a handful of ways that the sports industry is using the digital space for marketing and promotions.

Social Media Becomes King

There are so many social media platforms that people are constantly scrolling to find the content they enjoy. A younger demographic thumbs through Instagram for photos and reels, while TikTok is also popular for informative videos, highlights, comedy, trivia, and any content imaginable.

Sports teams are using these two platforms specifically to peel back the curtain and show the players’ personalities. It also allows for more creativity with fun questions, player interactions, and things that go beyond the standard ad.

Then there is Facebook, which eventually gets those same reels but has a much better ad system for targeting certain demographics, typically older generations. These are great for promotional graphics, ticket information, scores, and other useful news.

The same could be said for Twitter, but those are usually the hardcore sports fans who are looking for real-time updates, whether that is news, player and coach reactions or scoring updates and highlights.

Amateur Levels Ramp Up

It is incredible to see how college staffs have expanded to include digital marketing; and brand communications departments to meet those consumers. They are employing storytellers – both written, video, and audio – in addition to their sports information departments in order to share their own creativity.

But the teams building graphics and videos, particularly for recruiting, are all to attract top talent to the university.

Being able to market those players helps in the era of name, image; and likeness, so those players are more visible. That is another element to making money – which drives all of this, anyway.

Even high schools are investing in media to cover their teams; much like colleges have done, with their own stories, highlights, and graphics packages. Pretty soon, high schools across the country will have their own media teams beyond one or two people.

Outside Of Teams

Of course, sports teams are going to market themselves as best they can; but there are plenty of other businesses that use sports to market. Being able to get an athlete to sponsor a product is huge for brand recognition.

Athletes appear in all sorts of advertisements; whether it is for a few hours for a photoshoot or a short commercial. But instead of buying ad space on television, those campaigns are being pushed to digital media and sponsoring those posts.

With many people cutting the chord in favor of streaming; it offers another great opportunity to meet that digital audience who may be recording shows and skipping over commercials.

Brand recognition – tying an athlete to a product; – is one of the best ways to hit target markets based on location. A national brand testing a product out in Denver may get Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson.

There are also a number of digital products, such as companies with nonfungible tokens (NFTs) or cryptocurrency; who are looking to get their products out there. Being able to get a user to click and go to a website to buy those items is key.