INTRODUCTION

Today’s athletic directors are faced with complex financial problems including dwindling resources, attendance fluctuations, found-raising campaigns, and competition for the consumer’s entertainment dollar. Nowhere else are these concerns more evident than among Division 1 football programs through out the US. To be able to confront these growing concerns, an athletic director will need to have an effective strategic marketing plan. A properly formulated marketing plan is the end product of a systematic planning process that involves the development of marketing objectives, marketing opportunities, marketing environment threats and resources. Historically marketing plans were developed primarily but large profit driven firms. However, today many athletic departments are relaying on marketing plans to assist in their development efforts. When properly implemented, the strategic marketing plan offers a collegiate sports organization a systematic approach to become more market oriented I its day-to-day operations. For some time now the Minnesota football program had needed en effective marketing plan to positions itself as a stable competitive program. The opportunities for exposure and revenue are available but have not yet been tapped due to minimal resources.  

 

 

 

Problem Statement  

The purpose of this Senior Project is to support the implementations of a strategic marketing plan for the Gophers Football program. A strategic marketing plan can assist the program’s effort to positions the team as one of the premier program in the Big 10 conference. Other goal included is improving the image of the program and increasing future attendance, which will ultimately produce larger revenue for both the football program but also other programs in the athletic department, which are not a revenue sport.

Every program at a university is critical to the success of the athletic department in that they provide athletes from all social backgrounds and cultures the opportunity to compete in the sports they desire. My intent with this plan is that both the football team and the athletic department will benefit from this senior project. With an effective social marketing plan, the department can set a strategic path in obtaining its goals for the football program. Compared with other years, there will be a strong sense of direction and consistency with social media.    

 

 

 

It is important to find three principles that we could keep in mind as we created a marketing plan for the Gophers football team. If the Gophers new marketing and my social media plan have common principles, both plans will have the same tone. The first word we decided was HONESTY, we wanted to be transparent, treat fans with respect and understand their point of view. Second word was COMMUNITY. It was important for us to facilitate the team-to-fan relationship that empowers the fans world. The last word was PIONEER. We always have to seek new truths and question conventional wisdom.  

 

 

 

 

 

FANS SOCIAL MEDIA HABBITS

Social media is user-generated content on the Internet. It’s created with free or inexpensive technology, is easy to update, and can reach a niche audience or millions. It can be mere words in a blog, but also user-generated videos, photos, and audio. It can be interactive with unfiltered comments from visitors. And as user-generated content, it does away with controls associated with traditional media – and most of all, it removes the need for big media.”

“We no longer control our brand – it is being shaped by our customers in social media with or without us, so we must engage with them to protect and enhance the brand.” Social media is where our communities are shifting their attention; we ignore them at our peril. If we delay our entry too long we risk being left behind by our customers and our competitors. We need to be where our audience are, as we can see our audience are presence in social media, therefore it is imperative for the gophers football team to heavily engage in this community.  

“We no longer control our brand – it is being shaped by our customers in social media with or without us, so we must engage with them to protect and enhance the brand.”  

 

 

The new web empowers people to interact, generate and share multi-media content across the web, seamlessly. The web has moved from a solo activity to a series of participatory activities enabled by new applications, platforms, technologies and methodologies. Websites have become a 2- way platforms and facilitators of people, content and conversations. In addition, these platforms are accessible from multiple devices. The PC, netbooks, mobile phones, interactive TV, media players and gaming controllers. How is this changing the team and fan interaction? The athlete and team can now become a media platform by creating and atomizing exclusive multi-media content, having a broad social footprint and owning relationships with fans. The athlete and team become more accessible and can promote sponsors by having authentic interactions directly with fans creating an accumulated influence effect. The new web applications and platforms empower the fan’s passion-portability by sharing their team and athlete affiliations in real time. Fans are able to scrape and share exclusive content with their social networks contributing to the team; league and athletes accumulated influence beyond traditional media platforms. Exclusive content provides sponsors influence-extension opportunities through the athlete or teams social footprint.  

Key reasons the gophers need a social media plan.

Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online, no accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet

Social media has grown rapidly – today nearly 4 in 5 active Internet users visit social networks and blogs Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other U.S. website

Close to 40 percent of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone

Social networking apps are the third most-used among U.S. smart phone owners

Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile Internet

Although a larger number of women view online video on social networks and blogs, men are the heaviest online video users overall streaming more videos and watching them longer  

70 percent of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12 percent more likely than the average adult Internet user

53 percent of active adult social networkers follow a brand, while 32 percent follow a celebrity

Across a snapshot of 10 major global markets, social networks and blogs reach over three-quarters of active Internet users

Consumers frequently trust

the recommendations of their peers, making social media an ideal platform for influencers to spread their ideas and purchase power. Research by NM Incite shows that 60 percent of social media users create reviews of products and services. In fact, consumer-created reviews/ratings are the preferred source for information about product/service value, price and product quality. Offline, active adult social networkers are more likely than the average adult Internet user to be found at professional sporting events and working out at the gym.  

 

 

HUMANIZE THE BRAND

"HUMANIZING A BRAND SIMPLY MEANS TRYING TO INTERACT WITH EACH

COSTUMER ON A PERSONAL LEVEL” IT’S NOT ENHOUGH TO MERELY HAVE A

PRECENCE ON THE SOCIAL WEB. NOW, MORE THEN EVER, BRANDS NEED TO

BECOME HUMNA, AS AUDIENCES HAVE TO EXPECT CUMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT OVER TRADITIONAL ONE0WAY COMMUNICATIONS. TO PROPEL

RAND VALUE AND INSPIRE ADVOCATES, IT’S IMPARATIVE TO LISTEN, ENGAGE,

WITH AND CELEBRATE AUDIENCE.

 

 

BRAND HUMANIZING Historically, fan interaction with athletes was well through planned, controlled environments or accidental. The chances to meet were typically not authentic in nature. Fans could visit a team, league or athletes website and read statistic content, maybe send an email or post a message board. The important part about fans is that they feel an ‘ownership’ in their sports affiliation and want to be hear, any good relationship is about listening and that

is what the Gophers need to keep in mind in their interaction through social media. Now the social web has created a renaissance of authentic athlete and fan interaction. Teams and athletes are lifting the veil of stardom and are becoming more transparent, authentic and ‘real’ to their fans through the use of social media. Fans need to get a peek behind the gophers ‘celebrity aura’ and get the chance to be ‘friends’ with the team

The athlete and team, in essence becomes a media property and content platform. The team can give people a transparent real-time peek at behind the sense activities; this creates an emotional bond with the fans. This provides the athletes and the team a safe way to interact in their own voice with fans to share what is on their mind or to listen and learn from others perspectives, and it makes them more accessible. It’s a great way to build up goodwill with the gopher football fans in case of bad game days.

Creating and atomizing content is a great method to create exclusive and original multi-media content via text, video, photos, and auto and dissemination that via various web-based content sharing such as applications, platforms RSS feeds, widgets, video and photo sharing platforms and social networks. Authentic Interactions is important because it’s the

opposite of contrived, forced or veiled interactions. People these days can see through planned interaction, in addition to weather or not the athlete or team is the actual driver behind the social dialogue. The real currency in the social-sphere is authenticity. But its important to keep in mind that you will wither be rewarded or strung up for your level of authenticity.  

 

 

KEEP THE BRAND ALIVE

1. Create Access Give access to the fans behind the scenes. Open up the looker room and give them a peek. Make them feel they are on the inside and that they can only get this exclusive content from the gophers.

2. Teat them as partners Treat the fans and the customers as the face of the Gophers. Moved beyond conversing with fans on social networks to co-creating content, even products and promotions with them.

3. Reach out to key individuals Show the fans that you care when they communicate with you. Re-tweet and comment back on face book to key individuals so they feel special. This makes it more likely for them to comment again and for others to also communicate  

 

 

4. Put your fans to work Making your fans take pictures and create content is a great way to keep social networks alive. By promoting them to do so they create free content for you and others see that people are engaging. This makes it more likely for other to engage as well.

5. Be Present Show the fans that you are present in the community and show other activities the players are engaging in out side of football. Helps them look more human and fans can relate to them.

6. Be open to debate and mistakes People periodically argue, likewise, a brand should be willing to engage in public debate. Be open to say you made a mistake. Do not hide anything, it will come out in social media. Hiding it can be worse and create a social media storm that can be a huge problem and hard to fix.

7.  Get  creative  Be  spontaneous  and  be  creative  with  it,  the  less  “staged”  it  is  the  more  real  it  is  for  the  fans.    

 

 

S

O T  

• Plenty of existing content. • A social media savvy marketing manager. • Already have twitter, facebook and Youtube. • Great Youtube channel with frequent updates. • New contract with a production company. • Encourages people to follow them socially.

 

W  

▪ Faceboook and Twitter had low numbers of followers. ▪ Infrequent updates on Facebook and Twitter ▪ Infrequent updates on fan page ▪ Poor quality of the conversation ▪ Non social media campaign engaged ▪ Facebook tabs infrequently used such as photos, videos

and forums ▪ Do not replay often to other fan tweets or Facebook

comments.

▪ Humanizes the ‘brand’ and makes the recruitment process more personal.

▪ Competitors not undertaking social media. ▪ Developing a following/ audience that auto-nurtures itself ▪ Recruitment of interested new team members or students. ▪ Great opportunity for fans and organizations to connect

and exchange content.

▪ Senior management not convinced by social media ▪ NCAA governs the type of messages the gophers can

broadcast ▪ Hasty comments or messages from the team or athletes on

the team can hurt the brand and create a negative social media storm

 

 

The approach that should be pursued is to ensure that the brand positioning, the personality and the messages are delivered synergistically across every element of communication and delivered from a single consistent strategy. The focused primary target are students at the University of Minnesota 18-34 years old. The Secondary target is other fans and season ticket holders. Position the Gopher football team in the minds of the University of Minnesota students, fans and ticket holders as the leader in information exchange. This information should exchange which is relevant to all students and fans looking to get involved.

 

 

4 Marketing Objectives 1. Be the leader of relevant information to ROS’s Tactic: Be the “Home base” for unique content. Form a community where fans feel comfortable posting and contributing with content and discussion. Create conversation and participate in the conversation with fans. 2. Increase participation and awareness of RSO and game days. Tactic: Use social media to generate awareness with increased involvement. Come up with creative content that will create buzz around campus and on line. This is also a great way to run promotions, and make the fans feel special of getting unique promotions deal for “liking” or being a follower of the Gopher football teams social sites. 3. Build meaningful relationship with students. Tactic: Respond to students to keep real-time interaction. Increase student engagement with re-tweeting and facebook posts. Make them feel appreciative for sharing content with the Gophers. 4. Increase communication flow Tactic: This is a great way to reach the secondary target. Chose what content fans ‘liked’ the most in social media and email it out as a new letter to people whom signs up for the new letter and to ticket season holders.

 

 

How it all works together: The Gopher main football site should be the ‘home base’ for all the content. All the content put on the website should be posted to Facebook. The content should be linked to and shared on twitter. Here it is also important to respond and talk to the fans as they react to the content the Gophers are posting. Track INSIGHT to see what the fans are reading, how many are reading and what are they reading. You will get to know you audience, see what the tone is and keep producing the content they respond best to. You can quickly see what the fans like or not. The YouTube channel also is a great way to measure. It tells you how many people have watched it and when they watched it. By publishing the movie on Facebook, twitter and on the website you get full exposure and all fans have access to it no mater where they are online. Videos here need to be humanizing as stated earlier. You can also run promotions and be creative, open up for the fans. Give them a glint on the “inside”.

 

 

 

 

THE UMBRELLA

The Boston Bruins have launch their new Bruins Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a network that integrates all of the team's digital, mobile and social assets in a strategic fashion, reaching more than 2.5 million unique fans each month. Through its various channels, the DEN deliver original, engaging and entertaining content to all Bruins fans that live and play in these digital spaces.

The new network will provide the team's corporate partners with an

opportunity to more effectively integrate within the digital fan engagement experience. The team and its partners will also benefit

from the network's enhanced social analytics capabilities, powered by a new partnership with digital start-up Umbel

"Whether in our home arena at the TD Garden or in these newly created digital arenas, we are committed to maximizing and enhancing the experience of our fans"

 

 

THE UMBRELLA What Bruins have done is a start of the new sports marketing. Because social media have become such a big part of fans sports experience, teams have no choice then to give the fans what they want. Now they get closer then even by them selves to their role models by tweeting at them and getting responses. They can see what the athlete or team are doing all the time. Bruins have made a new social media a site that ties all social media together. You can go to the DEN page and have all he unique content right there. They have twitter videos they update every game day about 2 hours before they hit the ice where they speak to the fans, show them how nervous, and excited they are for the game in the looker room or on the ice. It really gives the fans a peak behind the scenes. It also shows that the players care for the fans to take the time to send the video. By uploading instagram pictures from twitter that automatically goes to the DEN, again it shows the players behind the scenes, and what life is like when they are not one the ice.

 

 

They have also created an app. The app is

basically an extension of the Boston

Bruins home site and much more. There

are embedded Twitter feeds, links to all

Bruins players and Bruins ice girls’

Facebook and Tumblr pages. It also

features the best plays of the week, real

time stats and allows you to buy the

bruins tickets directly from the app. The

most exclusive thing about the app is it

gives fans the option to compete in the

Fantasy Five game with other B’s fans.

The most entertaining thing is you can

view funny clips of all the Bruins Players

on their Mascot’s show, “The Bear and

the Gang” and other updated videos from

bostonbruinsTV. The trailer below features

a lot of the Boston Bruins roster: Brad

Marchand,Tyler Seguin, Shawn Thornton,

Andrew Ference, Tuuka Rask, Dennis

Seidenberg and Zdeno Chara.

This is an esay layout that the Gophers should pursue. They have all the social network sites,

they just need to be put under an UMBRELLA such as the Brunis have done.

 

 

ENGANGMENT PLANNING

By planning how fans or customers are engaged in social channels you ensure that a common tone and style is used whoever replies on Gophers behalf. Engagement planning involves:

▪ Agreeing a tone of voice ▪ Developing engagement

policy ▪ Identifying internal social

media champions ▪ Planning the social media

workload ▪ Social media maturity plan

Engagement planning still needs to be discussed with the Gophers. The tone of voice determines the way that fans and followers are spoken to in social channels. Another important part that will be on the Gophers shoulders is identifying internal social media companions. The social media champions are those individuals within the gopher’s organization who are responsible for taking part in social media activity.

WEEKLY CONTENT PLAN

The content plan defines the type of content that the gophers will post to social media channels, how it will be used and when it should be used. It will be governed by various factors including:

▪ Existing content types ▪ The client’s business (technical firms

will usually benefit from blogs) ▪ The client’s customer base (will they

prefer video content to text?) ▪ The campaign theme (is it to educate or

entertain?) An example content plan might be:

▪ Blogging used for technical articles ▪ Video used for educational purposes ▪ Facebook for promoting new blogs and

videos ▪ Twitter to break down blog articles into 140

character tweets.

 

 

CAMPAIGN IDEAS Gopher Reward program encourages content sharing The idea behind this campaign is to encourage fans to interact socially by given users incentives to share content relating Gopher Football. Any participating fan who posts pictures, shares videos, rewets @GopherFB, uses certain hash tags or checks in to Gopher sporting events will earn points depending on how they have shared Gopher content. Fans can by participation redeem tangible prizes such as team gear and tickets to Gopher Football games. Prizes could include lunch with gopher coaches, chance to lead the Gopher team out the tunnel at the games.

This type of social media marketing program is successful because it gets interaction from gopher fans while gaining content support. It is important to keep your customers consistently active on social media. Providing content paired with promotions gives costumers and fans reason to return back to gophers’ social media pages. It putts gophers brand on top of their mind. The main goal of any business is to make money by selling your product, but the goal in social media marketing is sometimes not direct sales. But social reach can be leveraged for sales. Prior to the 2012 season Gophers can hold a one-day presale via Facebook to increase ticket sales. By creating a one-day presale exclusive for fans on Gophers football Facebook page it allows passionate fans with exclusive content and a sense of adding value simply for being a Facebook fan. By creating a landing page on facebook about the presale promotion and require team enthusiasts visiting the page who were not yet fans to ‘like’ the team in order to see the wall content. Once a fan has ‘liked’ the facebook age, they can access the link to the presale offer. This promotion does not only get fans to buy tickets but it also gets the facebook page more fans. Not only is it a big win in terms of ticket sales before any games are played, but it can be argued that the new fans added will be valuable in the long run.

 

 

Differentiating themselves from competitors is extremely important for any business. Engagement, interaction and providing unique content are the basis of all examples. No brand can survive without their customers, just like teams cannot survive without their fans. Interaction on social media is key, even at the most basic level, such as re-tweeting, @mentioning and replying to posts on Facebook. Demonstrating your appreciation to your fans by offering exclusive deals, promotions and rewards are a few of the ways to retain customers and add new clients through social. Implementing a social media hub to interact with fans, it is important to remember that technology is always changing! The key to undefeatable social marketing is staying ahead of the curve.

 

 

CELL: 612.850.8283 EMAIL gsekse@gmail.com LINKEDIN linkedin.com/in/genettesekse TWITTER @Genette_Sekse HOMEPAGE about.me/genettesekse  

GENETTE SEKSE  

MY MEDIA STORY  

Coming in to St. Olaf as a freshman I had experience interning as a sports reporter at TV2 Oslo for a year. I knew early I had to find a major that related to media. Since that did not exist at St. Olaf I started freshman year in Mass Media 160 pursuing a Media Studies Concentration During my academic and professional experiences in Media, I realized that I was able to strategically study and analyze something I had always been consuming since I was little. Through out my media studies I have been able to learn how to view the media world with a critical lens of a marketer, analyzing the brands, and advertisement that I take in every day of my life. Now the academic and professional experience had led me to a career path focused in Sports PR and communications, with a specific interest in social and digital media. To demonstrate my career path and passion, I have separated my work into three categories that I have gained both academic and professional experience in: ADVERTISING, COMMUNICATIONS & MEDIA  

 

 

 

GENETTE SEKSE 1500 St. Olaf Avenue • Northfield, MN 55057 • (612) 850-8283 • sekse@stolaf.edu @Genette_Sekse

EDUCATION St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN Bachelor of Arts: May 2012 Major: Business Management and Communications (individually designed major) GPA 3.3 Major GPA 3.85 Minor: Media Studies Honors: Giere Scholarship, Maude Lee Stellner Scholarship, Jacobsen Scholarship, Cole Scholarship, Hilleren Scholarship, MVP Alpine Ski Team, Ryan Smith Sportsmanship Award, Second Team All- American Languages: Fluent in Norwegian, English, German, Swedish and Danish Computer Ski l ls : Final Cut Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Google AdWords, Google Display Advertising, Reporting & Advertising, Facebook Ad Platform, ComScore, DoubleClick, Ad trafficking, Prezi, Lighthouse, basic website maintenance and design

PROFESSIONAL INTENRSHIP EXPERIENCE Sports Intern, Hubbard Broadcasting KSTP-TV, St Paul, MN (January 2012 – Present)

• Attend and participate in press conferences for all professional and collegiate sports teams in Minnesota. • Write nightly scripts for sports anchors, and interview athletes for on-air content. • Screen games, selecting shots for highlights. Create shot sheets for assigned highlights. Experience with VO Unit, highlight

producing, content screening, game logging, script writing and organization. Lucky 13 Media Buying Intern, Campbell Mithun & Compass Point Media, Minneapolis, MN (June – August 2011)

• Participated in and won a contest on Twitter, later featured in the New York Times, to land an internship. • Analyzed current market trends and data to help client formulate brand demographic targets. Researched and identified

potential competitive opportunities and threats to the client. • Created an Ad campaign for a case study project with six other Lucky 13 interns, and presented to Land O’Lakes. Mastered

presenting complex media plans and competitive analyses to clients with clarity and precision. • Worked on new business pitches and presented to CEO, president, and others. • Planned, implemented, optimized, and reported on digital media campaigns for Frontier, General Mills, and Land O’Lakes.

Sports Intern, TV2 Oslo, Norway (2008-2010)

• Organized and observed editing sessions of final cut taped footage for the sports broadcast show. • Brainstormed and researched sport news by collaborating with a highly motivated team of ten. • Interviewed athletes and coaches and produced stories under tight deadline. Maintained attention to detail. • Accompanied reporters and photographers in the field to cover sports news. Co-wrote scripts for on-air and updating the

website for news and videos. LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE Team Captain and Member, Varsity Alpine Ski Team, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN (2008-Present)

• Balance rigorous skiing and academic schedule by using excellent time management skills. • Demonstrate a commitment to the team by using motivation and a positive attitude to successfully achieve the team’s common

goal of participating and winning the USCSA National Championship, which we have successfully done. Head Manager, St. Olaf College Football Team, Northfield, MN (2010- Present)

• Advertise weekly games though social media and videos to increase fan attendance on game days. • Manage and organize the day-to-day operation at practice and game day. Collaborate with coaches, assistant managers, and

players to provide an environment that maximizes the team’s potential. • Use detail-oriented nature to analyze trends in plays at practice and games through video.

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE Private Tutor, Norwegian Department, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN (2008–Present)

• Foster excellent interpersonal skills by privately tutoring individuals and groups of students in Norwegian. • Communicate feedback on writing and reading. Aid students in developing a strategy for academic success. • Lead training meetings for new tutors. Promote a team environment. • Assist professors in instructing students when necessary and grade assignments.

Internat ional Counselor, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN (2009- 2010)

• Plan, advertise, and promote weekly meetings and monthly events for international students. • Advise and counsel 110 international students on academic, personal, and social matters. • Educate advisors on ways to aid international students in overcoming cultural and educational challenges.