SPORTS MARKETING (Essay Sample)

Sport Marketing
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
1. Sport Marketing
Marketing, as defined by Drucker (2008) is the process of creating customers by making them aware of their need for the product in question. Sports marketing utilize marketing techniques such that the clients, in this case, fans are created, and a relationship is built with them. That is done through sponsorships from companies, events, and endorsements from famous athletes (Bernstein, 2015). Sport marketing entails utilization of commercialization mechanisms to increase the popularity of sports products and services. It is also commercialization of not for sport goods via the association of the sport (Mihai, 2013).
In the first step of the process of commercialization, sports marketers encourage the purchase of sports products and services by making the fans or customers aware of these products and services. Second, they seek to change or improve attitudes of customers towards the products and services in question. They encourage current customers to spend on sports merchandise or entice them to spend more on ticket-based services. For instance, consumers are encouraged to upgrade from a semi-plan package to a whole season ticket package. They also give potential customers incentive to try the products and services in question, hoping that these customers will return and be regular customers (Bernstein, 2015).
2. Strategies for NFL to increase female fans and customers
The NFL should work harder to make it safer for players and spectators in the stadiums. Naturally, women are widely known to care more about safety than men. It is, therefore, no surprise that some women avoid NFL Stadiums due to their explosive nature. There have been violent brawls witnessed in the stadiums, caused by rival team fans or other issues (Barton, 2013).
In promoting safety, the NFL should avoid the use of somewhat discriminatory safety measures. For instance, once every spectator is required to carry their purse or bag contents in a plastic bag, this can be rather uncomfortable for women. Men mostly will have wallets, but women often carry items such as female sanitary products, which they might be uncomfortable to have in clear bags (Barton, 2013).
NFL should expand their female merchandise to appeal to the women who are mothers. Many mothers would love to nurture their children into the sport, and items such as jerseys, and sippy cups for the children would appeal more to them, encouraging them to bring even their children to the games.
3. The difference between exposure and engagement in marketing.
Marketing is done with the intention of making customers aware of the products and services available, exposure and engagement are two results that can occur once the information is released for access by consumers.
Engagement in marketing strategies involves exposing brands to consumers and ensuring they participate through a call to action. This is done through product promotion tactics, for instance by giving discounts or free samples to first time consumers. Marketers do this in a bid to build consumer trust and encourage consumers to pay for that particular product or service (White, 2015).
Engagement guarantees more sales than exposure since the marketer seeks to connect with the consumer, even after the consumer is aware of the product or service. As Grimaldi, (2014) observes in her research paper on the effect of sports sponsorship on brand awareness, corporate image and brand association, ‘the greater the engagement with the event, the better will the experience be.’
Marketers use modes of engagement such as contests for the consumers, where consumers win some of the products and services in question, encouraging them to pay for more. Marketers also write blogs on the products and services they are offering, even including discount codes for the readers who purchase the product or service in question (White, 2015).
Exposure promotes brand awareness among potential customers. It involves getting the word out to consumers, for the consumers to encounter the brand, product or service, and are left to decide what to do with the information they have.
Unfortunately, there is so much noise when a marketer tries to get the word out since there are much more such advertisements available. The attempts to do away with this noise can incur extra expense to the marketer, which renders exposure less valuable than engagement.
Tools that are used for exposure of brands, products, and services include, media platforms such as social media accounts, Twitter being a commonly used platform for marketing. Other media like audio and visual media, like radio and television advertisements, are also used for exposure.
Banner and billboard advertisements are also a commonly used mode of exposure in marketing.
4. Use a product or service to explain the hierarchy of effects model
I. Awareness: recently, I saw a tweet about the football game happening at the university. The same game was advertised on Facebook, and there were posters all over campus about the same game. A few of us were looking for a weekend sports event to attend, hence with this access to information, we were aware of the game, and we were excited to attend.
II. Knowledge: on social media posts and the posters around campus, the details provided for the game were motivating for us to pay tickets for this game since; first, the tickets were relatively cheap to purchase, and the location was favorable to us since it was on our campus.
III. Liking: the teams competing in the game were our school Football Team, who are our favorite team, against a rival university team. Our university team has beaten the rival team throughout the season; hence we were excited for the game, as we believed that