Sporting events are the life of people these days, no matter if it is Cricket, Football, Basketball, or any other. And for generating awareness among the fans, it is necessary for the teams or clubs to undertake marketing of their events or matches. And social media ads are one of the chief ways to do that.
If we look at the statistics, earlier in the year, the TV ad spend for the biggest sports marketers declined by 30% due to the pandemic. But post that, one of the biggest sporting events of the Indian subcontinent, IPL, saw a 20% boost in the digital ad spend. So, we can deduce that as things are coming back to normal, the marketing of sports events is picking up pace.
And almost all sports organisations these days are using social networks for marketing. Why? Well, social networks like Facebook and Instagram have a wide user base, thus more user interactions.
Here are some sports clubs and organisations that leveraged Facebook and its tools for their marketing campaigns.
Some High-Yielding Facebook Campaigns Designed By Sports Organisations
1) FC Barcelona
Run Time:
29 November - 29 December 2019
Target Region and Audience:
17 Countries
Performance:
The video ads generated by the sports club played a pillar role in raising awareness among people. The campaign delivered an 8.3 point boost in campaign awareness in France. Moreover, the three-second video generated by the brand received 6 million views.
Goal:
The chief goal of the ad campaign undertaken by the Spanish football club was to put a word out about their behind-the-scenes documentary. The eight-episode documentary series was about the 2018-19 season.
Approach and Buyer’s Journey:
Working towards their motive of raising awareness and strengthening their association with Rakuten, FC Barcelona produced two video ads. One had a duration of 10 seconds, and another one was of 3 seconds.
These ads were targeted to users all around the world, and the artist of these ads was Rakuten. The engaging video ads featured most of the famous football players of the club off the field. They were shown preparing for their game to nudge the user’s mind into watching the documentary.
The ads also informed the users about the streaming of the web series on Rakuten TV. To measure how well the campaign performed, a Facebook brand lift study was conducted. It was primarily focussed on fans of ages 18-65 years and in four regions:
Spain
France
UK
Italy
Results:
The ad campaign for the series Matchday: Inside FC Barcelona excelled at attracting user attention and delivered the following results:
A boost of 13-point in ad recall in the UK.
10-point uplift in intent to view in Spain.
An increase of 8.3-point in campaign awareness in France.
The three seconds video received around 6 million views.
Products Used:
Video ads, Measurement, Core Audiences
2) Atlético de Madrid
Run Time:
August 2019
Target Region and Audience:
Madrid
Performance:
The WhatsApp powered virtual assistant made by Atletico de Madrid served as the best way to boost customer interactions and conversions. The brand was able to handle 35% of interactions outside of business hours.
Goal:
To ease the user experience related to booking tickets, finding parking, and other aspects of the game, Atlético de Madrid used Facebook’s Whatsapp Business API. They understood that people already used WhatsApp for communication, so it was the best way to provide the user with a seamless digital experience.
Approach and Buyer’s Journey:
The approach to use WhatsApp as the communication platform proved to be excellent for the professional football club. Initially, they created a list of customer requests and queries from social media, email, telephones, and stadium offices.
Post this; they crafted a WhatsApp powered virtual assistant that provided users with a classified list of queries that most of them may have or may like to know about. It included info about the players, matches, parking, membership, and many more. The list or menu was displayed in both English and Spanish.
Based on the user request, the app responded with the required info along with emoticons, images, and even videos. This integration with WhatsApp allowed Atlético de Madrid to respond to users even outside business hours, which was great.
This technique led to remarkable results for Atlético de Madrid, and it is still working on WhatsApp virtual assistant to further enhance the user experience.
The Result:
With the most used chatting application in the world, Atlético de Madrid reached out to countless users and got the following outcome:
46,000 messages were exchanged w.r.t fan queries in the initial two months.
35% of user interactions were handled outside business hours.
36% of traffic from conversions was redirected to the sales platform.
Products Used:
WhatsApp Business API
3) Vitesse Arnhem
Run Time:
April 2019
Target Region and Audience:
Netherlands
Performance:
The use of WhatsApp Business API for interacting with users turned out to be a milestone for the football club. The football club witnessed a 10% boost in revenue along with an 80% decline in average response time.
Goal:
With the primary goal of enhancing user experience, the football club wanted to find a quicker and efficient way to handle user inquiries.
Approach and Buyer’s Journey:
Unlike earlier time killing methods, the football club decided on using WhatsApp to assist customers regarding their queries. For this, the club worked parallel to Falcon.io (a WhatsApp business solution provider). Both collaborated to make WhatsApp a dedicated platform for football fans to gather the required information.
No matter if they wanted to know about players, tickets, subscriptions, or anything else, the messaging platform was the prime source for them. To handle this seamlessly, Vitesse Arnhem trained four customer service agents and a community manager.
The customised version of the app was created for both desktop and mobile. This helped in broadening the scope of users. After implementing this method, the football club started working on the integration of WhatsApp on the website and mobile app.
Results:
The success numbers of this approach were off the charts; the collaboration of the football club with Falcon.io scored the following:
The net promoter score was up by 30%.
10% uplift in revenue.
40% increase in the first contact resolution.
The average response time decreased by 80%.
Products:
WhatsApp Business API
Are you excited to create your own Ad Campaign?
Well, sporting organisations tend to spend a lot on marketing their events. But, the tricky thing for them is the location and audience. As different sports are popular in different parts of the world, organisations require to focus a lot on targeting their audiences across the globe.
Don’t worry; if you are using Facebook, you will get some great tools to get the best out of your ad campaign. However, make sure that you opt for the right tools and do quick research about the market and your competitors before you build your ad campaign.