Introduction
UCR Women’s Basketball is an upcoming sport, which requires extensive marketing and promotion for fans, stakeholders, and the general population to know its existence. Given that different sports have established competitive brands through marketing and promotion over a period, UCR Women’s Basketball also needs to apply effective marketing and promotion strategies.
Other women’s sports, which have established competitive brands such as soccer, volleyball, basan eball, cricket, and tennis, offer competition to UCR Women’s Basketball. Therefore, this essay describes appropriate marketing and promotion strategies that UCR Women’s Basketball requires to apply and establishes quantifiable marketing goals.
Marketing Strategies
Partnering and networking is an important marketing strategy that UCR Women’s Basketball needs to apply in establishing its brand in sports. Since other sports for women such as soccer, volleyball, baseball, cricket, and tennis have established their brands, UCR Women’s Basketball needs to create networks that link it to these sports because they share fans, stakeholders, and well-wishers.
One way of networking is by playing friendly matches with other teams and participating in numerous competitions. Playing frequently with other teams enhances its awareness among fans, supporters, sponsors, and potential stakeholders. Moreover, partnering with other teams in promoting sports within the university provides a way that establishes the brand of UCR Women’s Basketball.
External communication is an essential marketing strategy because it generates awareness of UCR Women’s Basketball among potential fans, supporters, and sponsors.
Given that the majority of fans and supporters are young people, advertising through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Instagram, and YouTube amongst others. Social media platforms are powerful in advertising because they allow potential fans, supporters, sponsors, and other stakeholders, and thus, they increase awareness of UCR Women’s Basketball.
Moreover, generating publicity of basketball through social media is easy for it creates networks that link many social site users and allow them to interact effectively. Promotion strategies such as printing of magazines, brochures, and posters are essential in advertising basketball among the general populations. During sports events, the use of signage such as placards, murals, banners, and billboards are appropriate in promoting basketball among external populations.
Advertising through jersey is an effective marketing strategy because it promotes awareness of UCR Women’s Basketball. Designing jerseys that contain a logo and the name of the basketball and selling them to fans, supporters, and sponsors effectively promote UCR Women’s Basketball.
When fans, supporters, and sponsors wear these jerseys in social events such as sports, they increase awareness of UCR Women’s Basketball among diverse populations. Moreover, availing free jerseys to the fans and supporters during sports events enhance awareness amidst many sports teams. Hence, advertising using well-designed jerseys is a strategy that effectively promotes URC Women’s Basketball in sports events and other social events.
Internal communication is a marketing strategy that forms the basis of marketing because it makes the staff, partners, and other stakeholders understand the mission, vision, and goals of UCR Women’s Basketball; and therefore, creating a sense of ownership. When stakeholders comprehensively understand the mission, vision, and goals of the basketball, they become part of it and strive to establish a competitive brand through their marketing initiatives.
Internal marketing can occur through magazines, brochures, and posters given to staff and partners or placed at strategic locations where they can easily access and peruse. Staff, partners, and other stakeholders can also pass the information amongst themselves through word-of-mouth, and thus, promoting awareness of UCR Women’s Basketball.
Marketing Goals
The first goal of the marketing strategy is to partner and network with other teams by playing friendly matches and promoting sports. URC Women’s Basketball aims to play two friendly matches in a month to assert its presence among various basketball teams that are in the neighboring universities and clubs. Playing two friendly matches per month is an achievable goal because competitive basketball teams are ready and willing to play with the team provided they have ample time to schedule their matches.
Additionally, URC Women’s Basketball aims to promote sports among fans, supporters, and general populations. In this view, the goal of the basketball is to promote a sporting culture in the university by supporting one sports event per semester. The sporting event will host diverse sports to attract many people, and thus, promote awareness of URC Women’s Basketball.
The second goal of the marketing strategy is to increase the social presence of UCR Women’s Basketball by employing both social media and print media. By using social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Instagram, and YouTube, the basketball team aims to double the number of its fans within a period of one month. Specifically, the basketball team aims to get at least 15 followers on Twitter, 25 likes on Facebook, 10 fans on Myspace, 20 likes on Instagram, and 5 views on YouTube per day.
This implies that the basketball team aims to get additional 75 fans and supporters per day in the social media, and thus, improves its online presence significantly by approximately 2000 fans and supporters in a month. Using the print media, the basketball team intends to give 100 free magazines, 500 brochures, and place 200 posters in one sports event. Moreover, during a sporting event, the basketball team targets to produce one billboard, 20 banners, five murals, and 50 placards.
The third goal of the marketing strategy is to enhance awareness of UCR Women’s Basketball using well-designed jersey through endorsement. The basketball team intends to offer the first 200 jerseys free to fans and sell cheaply to others during sports events such as friendly matches and other sports events. The fans, who get free jerseys must prove that they are truly fans of basketball through their dressing code and knowledge of the sport. In this view, fans will undergo interrogation to determine their legibility to get free jerseys.
The fourth goal of the marketing strategy is to promote internal awareness of the basketball team among staff, partners, and other important stakeholders. To achieve this goal, the basketball team will ensure that each stakeholder owns a magazine, a brochure, and a poster.
Moreover, the basketball team will offer an additional ten magazines, 50 brochures, and 50 posters so that they can supply them to other people as a way of promoting the team. The staff, partners, and other stakeholders should also reach out to at least 5 people through the word-of-mouth per week.
Conclusion
Marketing strategies that UCR Women’s Basketball needs to employ in establishing its brand in sports include partnering and networking, external advertising using social media and print media, jersey endorsement, and internal marketing. The application of these marketing strategies will enable the basketball team to achieve its quantifiable goals and establish a competitive brand in the sports.