In the business of Sport Brands, above all, be useful.

The sports world is coming back to life, and with it renewed efforts by the industry to grow and deepen fan reach.

But the deeper your engagement with core fans, the less accessible you may be to new ones.

Constantly offering newly created products, services and experiences might help in the short term attract new audiences in to your marketing funnel, but it is costly and could turn off existing consumers who feel they’re being sold to non-stop.

It’s a hard balance, but ultimately in the world of the savvy, price conscious, purpose driven sports consumer, if you want to be more valuable than a pre-season kit, a ticket purchase or annual sign up, then you must 𝗕𝗘 𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗙𝗨𝗟

Identify who your stakeholders are, and beyond the expected level of product, how else are you useful?

There are tonnes of ways brands, clubs, NGB’s and athletes can achieve this for their audiences…

_𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲/𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿.
_𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗿𝘀.
_𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
_𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀.

Ultimately you need to be able to provide a guidance or benefit that the consumer would not have got themselves simply from the initial purchase - you must be deliberate in how you service the relationship.

Demonstrate value beyond the commercial, and you will begin to create deeper engagement that will in turn provide the motivation or reward needed to lengthen the member lifecycle and create advocacy.