The Perfect Partner for Cause Marketing

By Cheryl

I came to HTM from the client side which definitely gave me a unique perspective on why the high school sports platform is the “perfect partner” for cause marketing. As the Regional Marketing Director with CENTURY 21, I was faced with the challenge of finding advertising initiatives that would strengthen the company’s global brand recognition, while supporting the local offices where agents are seen as friendly neighborhood professionals. In the real estate industry, it’s all about relationships. People want to work with a professional and a company who they feel cares about them ...and cares about the community in which they live.

In our hunt to find a cause in the community to support, we stumbled upon HTM and the light bulb went on! Education is a key issue for moms and there is a high school in every community that CENTURY 21 serves. Women with children are the leading target market for real estate, and high school activities and athletics are strong in this demographic. With a portion of the funding going directly back to the high schools, an HTM campaign establishes the company’s support for the community and a sense of local responsibility.

According to the latest Cause Evolution Study from Cone, consumers globally believe companies have an explicit responsibility to help change the world. In America specifically, 83% of respondents said they wish brands would support causes, and 41% bought a product/service because it was associated with a cause. This is encouraging news for cause marketers because consumers not only appreciate a brand supporting a cause – but will reward them for these efforts. In relation to education, 90% of respondents felt that support was “very or somewhat important.” This is even more exciting to HTM and our clients since our platform directly supports high school education, activities and athletics.

HTM has several clients who have found high school sports as the ideal partner to promote their cause. The Office of National Drug Control Policy used our platform for its “Above the Influence” campaign to help prevent and reduce teen drug use. A public service message from American Family Insurance promoting teen safe driving couldn’t find a more captive audience than those attending high school activities and athletic events. The American Dairy Association and Dairy Council of Utah uses HTM’s State Association platform to raise consumer awareness about the nutrition and health benefits of Chocolate milk. It’s also the supreme space for the Ohio Ophthalmological Society to educate athletes and fans on sports eye safety and for the Missouri Department of Transportation to encourage public safety with their “Buckle Up” and “Arrive Alive” campaigns.

Together with our clients, we are supporting causes that will help make a lasting impact on students’ high school experiences and in their future.

Title Sponsorship High School Sports by Jackie

Some days the glass is half full, other days half empty; today it’s half full. It’s my turn to blog and I’m always hoping to get inspired and have something interesting to talk about. I struck gold today, or at least I think I did. Pick up a copy of today’s USA Today and check out the Sports Section, page 16C- there is a great article by Jack Carey and Michael McCarthy about title sponsorships for high school tournaments. Just last month the California Interscholastic Federation, the nation’s largest high school association, voted to begin offering title sponsorships for all state and regional championships beginning with tournaments held next fall. I see this as a great moment for high school student athletes and corporate sponsors.

Back in the days before I worked at Home Team Marketing, I worked for one of the nation’s leading wireless providers. My job was to find ways to invest sponsorship dollars, earning the maximum ROI, while supporting the community. It was tough sometimes to find just the right opportunity. At that time either my dollars could go towards professional franchisees or the local 5K race, there wasn’t a whole lot in between. Right before I left the wireless company I was approached by Home Team Marketing and asked if I would be interested in purchasing signage at high school football games in my target markets. I thought it was a tremendous opportunity and wondered why no one had thought of it sooner; to get from that point in 2003 where signs where being sold at football games to the point now where a corporation can be the title sponsor of a state tournament is incredible to me. If I were still on the buying side I would jump at the opportunity.

To me high school sports are grassroots. They are the heart and soul of the community. Prior to my wireless career I worked for a professional sports team that packed up and left town. That doesn’t happen with high school sports. During the summer HTM produces a high school charity game at Cleveland Browns Stadium. The crowds for the games are incredible. The students and alumni that come to support their teams makes my heart swell. It’s cool - it’s loyalty - it’s support for the community. And now corporations have the opportunity to reach that audience and give back to the schools, if I were a buyer, I would ask where to sign up.

Licensing High School Spiritwear

High School Licensing by Patrick Spear

Licensing has existed in professional and collegiate sports for a long time. Teams have their marks and logos licensed in order to protect them, as well as to generate revenue from the retail goods bearing those marks. Licensing continues to grow and has become relevant in the high school marketplace. For years retailers have sold school spiritwear without providing any funding back to the schools. However things are changing and high schools now have the opportunity to license their mascot and logo if they chose to do so. This is an opportunity to ensure that the high school marks are given the same professional protection and that all logos, fonts and colors are used correctly.

High school marks represent the schools and the communities where they are located. Each school’s situation is different and each will individually need to decide what works best for them and make the best decisions proactively addressing these changes.

High School spiritwear in the retail space will become a $100,000,000 industry over the next several years. Now is the time for schools to evaluate their options and move forward from there.

Let's End the Chess Game

By Jake

My post today is going to be very short and to the point. I was in a meeting yesterday with a potential client and we were discussing all the fun stuff when negotiating a partnership: mainly what is going to be executed and what the investment level is going to be. Because I have a great relationship with this person we finally got to a point in the discussion where I said, "can we just end this chess game?" The chess game that I am referring to is the one between the property and the partner and the evaluation of the give (what the sponsor receives in the form of exposure) and the get (what the property receives in value for the exposure).

In order to move partnership/sponsorships forward we need need to realize the amount of time both sides spend on this game is ultimately lost value that could have been better directed into the partnership. Obviously neither side wants to be overworked or pay for something where they are not realizing the proposed value, but there is a better process that we can adopt that will ultimately lead to partners with higher investment levels and longer commitments.

The way to end this game and maximize the value of the partnership is to first get a hard dollar that the partner would be willing to spend and then the property builds to that level. This process allows the partner to clearly lay out all expectations and expected goals and it allows the property to build a partnership that maximizes the value proposition but also achieves the revenue goals (we are not selling partnership to make $0, but that is for another post).

Think about it in terms of building a house. As the buyer, you pick out a neighborhood, plot of land, and even a style of house. The next step is the most important, you would hire an architect to construct a blueprint of exactly what your house will look like inside and out. If you approve the blueprint, the house is built and hopefully you have received exactly what you were expecting at the amount you predetermined was acceptable.

All too often we are in the position of skipping the blueprint process and we jump straight to building something and we do not necessarily even know if this is what the buyer is looking for or expecting. As properties we have to push the potential partners to give us a dollar amount that they would be comfortable investing before we build their product, otherwise we are guessing or worse playing a "Chess Game"!

Effectively using Facebook

Dan came across this great article by Jim Belosic about using Facebook to your advantage. Wanted to share...

5 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fan Engagement

By Jim Belosic
Published February 14, 2012

Want to increase your Facebook fan engagement?

Keep reading for some simple techniques to get your fans more involved.

Even if you’re active on your Facebook page’s wall by posting regular status updates, interacting with fans and answering questions, you’re still missing out if you aren’t using calls to action.

A call to action encourages or even incentivizes fans’ responses to your content, and it can be as basic as a simple status update.

Your fans will enjoy interacting with your Facebook page and your page will benefit the most with increased visibility, traffic and marketing opportunities.

Many Facebook page admins aren’t quite sure how to foster an active fanbase, so here are five effective ways to call your fans to action.

#1: Post Fan-Centered Status Updates

You want to get your business in front of your fans. But how do you do that? Too many page admins resort to posting the same status updates over and over as a solution. But in the long run, that technique becomes annoying to fans and it doesn’t play to the power of EdgeRank.

EdgeRank is the algorithm Facebook uses to determine the importance of a status update. The more comments a status update receives, the higher its EdgeRank. The higher the EdgeRank, the higher that update is placed in news feeds. In addition, Facebook will display that update to more people. This means getting comments should be your goal with your status updates.

To get more comments, tailor your status updates to ask for your fans’ opinions, stories and even advice. The comments will float your post to the top of your fans’ news feeds, giving more fans the opportunity to interact.

#2: Start Conversation With Relevant Content

If you’ve tried asking your fans for input but you’re still hearing crickets, it’s time to look back over your status updates and evaluate your posts. Are you posting more about your company or your community?

Facebook users want—and will respond to—relevant content. A car company that posts nothing but advertisements in their status updates won’t get nearly the response they would if they posted information about tire recalls, car seat safety test results and tips to improve gas mileage. Give your fans a reason to chime in by creating status updates that discuss issues they care about.

#3: Enable Sharing and Get Traffic to Your Custom Content

Too often, Facebook page admins create these gorgeous, highly functional tabs, but fail to include a call to action. It’s not just your status updates that are important; every bit of content on your page is important, and you need to get that content spread around Facebook. That’s why all of your content must be sharable.

All of your content can include a share button that encourages your fans to post that content to their walls. If you’re holding a sweepstakes, provide fans with a share prompt upon entry submission so that they can let their friends know they’ve entered your contest. When one person watches your video or enters your contest, that’s great. But if that fan tells their 200-plus friends about your content, that’s more clicks, more traffic and potentially more business.

It doesn’t matter what the content is. If it isn’t sharable, it isn’t benefiting your page as much as it could be.

#4: Sign Up Now! Create Action-Based Incentives

Your custom Facebook tabs are a great place for your newsletter or customer relationship management sign-up form. If you aren’t seeing the number of sign-ups you had hoped for, incentivize it.

Remind your fans what is sent to subscribers (like coupons). It’s a great way both to populate your list and get your fans excited about your product or service.

#5: Like Us to Enter! Harness the Power of Simple but Effective Fan-Gates

Want to drive up your fan count and increase engagement at the same time? Create a custom tab with a fan-gated contest. Serve non-fans a message that tells them about the prize, but inform them that they have to like the page to be eligible to enter. Once the non-fan clicks Like, present an entry submission form that collects your targeted user data, whether that’s an email address or phone number.

If you’re giving away something good, you’ll get the likes and you’ll get the data. However, it’s important to note that if your contest is on a welcome tab, don’t gate the whole thing. You don’t have to let non-fans be eligible for contests and promos, but you can’t hide all of your content from them.

Neutrogena's welcome tab is perfect: it's fan-gated, incentivizes liking the page and includes lots of information for non-fans who may not want to click Like.

The more content you gate—the more abandonment you’ll see.

Remember—Fans First!

All of these steps revolve around fan-centric content. While this looks different from brand to brand, the first step in successfully creating a call to action is to put yourself in your fans’ shoes. So ask yourself—Why do they like my brand? My page? What do they all have in common? What interests do they share? Answering these questions will help you find your starting point.

About the Author, Jim Belosic

Jim Belosic is the CEO and co-founder of ShortStack, a Facebook platform–based application helping businesses build customized tabs for Facebook pages that maximize their social media presence and potential. Other posts by Jim Belosic »