I am a huge sports fan. The drama. The intensity. That during a game you can jump on twitter, tweet your thoughts, and participate in discussion / banter with other sports fans. Participating in sports as a kid teaches you so much about teamwork, how success requires hard work, how to win with class and loss with dignity. But as a fan there are so many things you can learn from it as well, including leaderships lessons, marketing lessons, dealing with pressure and stress, and much more. Sports breeds competition and a lot can be learned and translated into everyday life from competing in athletics. Being a marketer myself, and someone who was not gifted with the talents to be a professional athlete but with dreams of being a marketer for a pro sports team, here are several valuable lessons I have learned from sports marketing.
Before I get into the lessons marketers can learn for sports marketing, there is one major difference between sports marketing and other types of marketing. That is, sports marketing is essentially built around one event that marketers can’t control every piece of. That event usually happens the next week or next day depending on the sport. Either way, there are several lessons that marketers can learn from sports marketing.
Doing several things well is better than doing a lot of things average
A lot of today’s marketers are wearing numerous hats and are focusing on many marketing initiatives to keep their brand at the top. You don’t need to master everything. That is one important lesson that I learned early on during my tenure as marketing director at a convention and visitors bureau. It is best to concentrate on your niche and focus on where your audience is than trying to be everything to everyone. By trying to master everything and being everything to everyone, failure is right around the corner as things may not perform as well as they could. Every successful marketer know that they can increase brand awareness and achieve their goals my staying in their preferred court. By playing to your strengths in both your personal life and professionally, you will increase your chances of doing well.
If you don’t have a goal, you don’t have an end game
At one of the very first conferences I attended when I started in the tourism industry, I learned that marketing is a marathon not a race. It’s the same message that I was told when I started trying for my first half marathon. You are not going to achieve your goal right out of the gate, but you will either put yourself behind the eight ball or set yourself up for long term success. Just like in anything else that you do, achieving success in marketing takes a lot of time and effort. If you do not set a goal early on in the process and are not clear on what you are trying to achieve, then you are setting not only yourself but you campaign up for failure. Goal setting is not a task, it is a process and your have to trust the process to achieve that goal. Marketers know that you need to plan, execute, and monitor your efforts to achieve your long term goal. Just like a professional sports team, the road to a championship is a long process and doesn’t happen overnight.
If you’re afraid to fail, you’re afraid to succeed
Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” No one likes to fail or wants to fail, as we all want to succeed. There is nothing wrong with wanting to succeed every time, but that is nearly impossibly. Everyone fails every once in awhile, and some are on bigger stages than we are as marketers. When I was marketing director at a convention & visitors bureau, I came up with this crazy idea to a song search contest where local musicians would write a song about the area, judges vote for the best one, we create a music video to the song to promote the destination and use it in our marketing. It was a crazy idea, but one I believed in. Later on I found out my boss was really skeptical about it, even though she gave me the green light. I am also pretty sure my board of directors and co-workers all thought I was nuts. I didn’t listen, I just keep believing in the project and worked hard. Could it have failed? Of course it could have. Did it? No, it did not. My point is, it is okay to take risks in your marketing efforts, some will be successful and some will fail, but at least you tried something to move the needle and that is what matters. To achieve success in marketing, you need to take creative risks.
Marketing and sports are quite similar, know your path, set your goals early and accomplish them. Patience and persistence are keys to any successful strategy. Remember, Rome wasn’t built overnight. It is a marathon and not a race, so keep your eye on the prize for the long haul.
