How to Win at Sports Event Marketing

Succeeding at sporting events marketing can be a challenging task. If done correctly, then the rewards are vast. Advertisements can be seen around all sporting events now, with various sponsors itching to have their company name and logo on show to the spectators. 

Marketing at Sporting Events

As with all advertising, the location of the advertisement plays a big role in whether it will be a success or not. Sporting events usually draw in big crowds, so make use of the fans attending, make sure your advertisement is in a visible area, ideally with a high flow of people, or in a prominent location which is hard to miss. 

The design of the advertisement has to match the interests of the target audience, a highly important factor in succeeding is grabbing the attention of the intended target market, so design your advertisement around their interests and what might catch their attention and get them talking. The last thing you’d want to do is put time, effort and money into an advertisement which isn’t effective towards the target. 

 

What to Consider When Marketing at a Sporting Event 

You have to think about who your target audience is, some events may have a simple target such as parents of secondary school students, while other events may require you to consider a number of other factors such as income, age, hobbies etc., do your research on your target audience!

Another thing to consider is the core purpose of the marketing campaign. If your goal is to strengthen a community, you need to focus on people, you can get far better results if you consider what the goal is, so you can tailor your marketing material to aid the goal.

Traditional Marketing

Once you have determined your target audience and the message you want to send, you can decide the best technique to deliver that message.

You most likely know about social media marketing and how beneficial that is, it can reach all over the world and that is great, but sometimes it’s nice to stay more traditional with your marketing. A more traditional approach for sports event marketing is still very common, because it works – according to Statista, in 2021 global out of home advertising reached over $34 billion and this number is expected to rise to $42 billion by 2024.

Offline Marketing in a Digital World 

• Posters – one of the main ways of marketing a sports event offline is the use of posters. There are countless places to stick up a poster, including on shop windows, by using Contra Vision window perf for the poster only people from the outside can see the marketing material, while the view out and light levels are maintained for those within the shop. When designing your posters, be sure to make them colourful and eye-catching, remember you want to grab people’s attention!

Posters aren’t the only window graphics application that can be achieved using Contra Vision materials. Contra Vision allows you to cover executive boxes, seating partitions, squash courts, and more, even a stadium wrap! 

• Word of mouth – this goes hand in hand with the posters as well as window wraps and building wraps. If you execute those right then it’ll get people talking and that is what you want with your marketing material. If the marketing material resonates with people then you’re on the right track.

 

Using Contra Vision at Sports Events 

Contra Vision is used across many applications within the sports industry, whether that be in football and cricket stadiums or even gyms. One of the most recent examples is Contra Vision’s materials being used on a cabin for Premier League club Crystal Palace F.C. 

The challenge was to wrap an unsightly cabin from something dull to embracing the brand of the club and its players to help excite and impress home fans, and also away fans, giving them a feeling that an away game at Selhurst Park was something to look forward to each season. The cabin is adjacent to one of the stands, so it’s in a prominent view to spectators, and the club wished for it to be a more pleasant sight and something to make the ground even more impressive and Premier League-esque.

Working on a short timeframe, Contra Vision® Performance™ White on Black in 40% transparency was used on all glazed elements of the cabin to extend the design from the outside, around the cabin, whilst still enabling users within the cabin to have a view out. 

The 40% transparency material is the most popular option, offering a great balance between through-vision and image impact, meaning it is a highly suitable option for full building wraps, like the Crystal Palace F.C. cabin, and vehicle windows.

 

The Bottom Line 

Remember to keep your material fun and interesting, you want to market a good time, so keep the content fun for the audience whilst also making it informative. 

If you want to see other instances of how Contra Vision has been utilised, then feel free to check out our case studies and see for yourself how Contra Vision can be used in sports, retail, vehicles, airports and more!