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Marketing options for FAU

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I was thinking back on the football season as well as thinking about our basketball and baseball programs as well. FAU has lagged behind in the marketing department for far too long. I know the main money is in big money sports such as football or mens basketball, but our women's basketball team is doing remarkably well. Baseball has been the one consistent sport for the university and only a couple hundred people show up for games, except for games versus Miami and FIU. We are basing our hope that AD Chun's grand marketing scheme will help bring money and people to the venues, but if you just use email and radio ads no may attend except for rivalry games. I think FAU should spend a little extra cash and hire a marketing agency to help market games for the university. I knowing winning helps as well, but if people don't know what is going on at the university, how are folks going to attend. That is my opinion.
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

The thing that bothers me the most is seeing FIU banner ads on here, OwlAccess, Facebook and I think even Rivals. I definitely feel like that's something we should be doing, especially in this day and age.

I don't listen to the radio (even internet radio), I don't read the newspaper and we don't advertise on TV (other than during televised games) - and I bet I'm not too far removed from most people (you guys probably listen to more sports radio than I do).

The stuff we should see most often:

- Facebook/internet banner ads
- Bus side ads and moving billboard trucks
- Billboards
- Flyers on pizza boxes, ads on Pepsi cans, ads on tray liners (went to McDonalds the other day and got an FIU football ad on the tray liner)
- Schedule Posters at local businesses
- FAU on the side of Pepsi vending machines at places like Publix (they have this in Gainesville, don't see why we can't get a similar deal)
- And then on campus, the yard signs all over the place, banners in the Breezeway, t-shirts before the game and anything else they could do to get attention (like a giant inflatable or something)

Have you ever seen Athletics tabling in the Breezeway? I haven't.
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

they think it isnt their job to market their programs to students... ive heard them say that.

It's Owl Time!
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

PowerOwl said

they think it isnt their job to market their programs to students… ive heard them say that.

Wow. That's crazy.
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

Marketing options for FAU

Owl2Doc said

PowerOwl said

they think it isnt their job to market their programs to students… ive heard them say that.

Wow. That's crazy.

That has been the attitude of the athletic department under Angelos and AD Chun has been trying to change that with the t-shirt give away the blog, twitter and facebook. But you are right, they should be out there in the breezeway by the bookstore, Starbucks and such to connect to the students.
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

Marketing isn't easy. Some of the ideas are great ones (pizza boxes, vending machines, etc.), but most of that deals with corporate partnerships. It's not like someone can call Pepsi and say "Can I have our FAU schedule on your vending machine at Publix on 20th street?" Pepsi probably doesn't even own that Pepsi machine - and Publix may not either.

We also have to think of ROI sometimes: will marketing on Facebook and the expense of the marketing be returned with ticket sales? Not too sure.

At the school I work for, I am the athletics marketing staff member and we are finding it increasingly hard to figure out what works and what doesn't work. In San Antonio, rough estimates: newspaper ads run between $8,000 and $25,000 depending on size and day you want to run the ad.

For example, we ran three weeks of 2-inch by 1-inch ads on a local TV station's iPad app and it cost us $2,500. How many tickets were sold from it: zero that we could identify.

And seeing the e-mails and posts on the national athletics marketing listserv I'm a part of, the common questions include things like: "how do we increase student attendance?" and "what's a creative marketing scheme for a single-game promotion?" Marketing isn't an FAU challenge… it's a challenge everywhere.

I'm a proud lifetime member of the FAU National Alumni Association. Are you a member? Join now at www.faualumni.org.
Tradition in the Making, One Alum at a Time…
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

smittysahoot said

Marketing isn't easy. Some of the ideas are great ones (pizza boxes, vending machines, etc.), but most of that deals with corporate partnerships. It's not like someone can call Pepsi and say "Can I have our FAU schedule on your vending machine at Publix on 20th street?" Pepsi probably doesn't even own that Pepsi machine - and Publix may not either.

We also have to think of ROI sometimes: will marketing on Facebook and the expense of the marketing be returned with ticket sales? Not too sure.

At the school I work for, I am the athletics marketing staff member and we are finding it increasingly hard to figure out what works and what doesn't work. In San Antonio, rough estimates: newspaper ads run between $8,000 and $25,000 depending on size and day you want to run the ad.

For example, we ran three weeks of 2-inch by 1-inch ads on a local TV station's iPad app and it cost us $2,500. How many tickets were sold from it: zero that we could identify.

And seeing the e-mails and posts on the national athletics marketing listserv I'm a part of, the common questions include things like: "how do we increase student attendance?" and "what's a creative marketing scheme for a single-game promotion?" Marketing isn't an FAU challenge… it's a challenge everywhere.
While I agree with your comments, for FAU teams that are doing well like the women's basketball team, or the defending sun belt champs the baseball team, its getting people to attend the non main money sports that is tough, along with trying to fill the stands for football and men's basketball. Nobody will attend if they don't know if games aren't promoted, or promotions like a bobblehead day or stuff like that. As fans we would like to see a more aggressive marketing campaign to try and get people to attend especially those possible corporate donors for a new baseball stadium.
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

smittysahoot said

Marketing isn't easy. Some of the ideas are great ones (pizza boxes, vending machines, etc.), but most of that deals with corporate partnerships. It's not like someone can call Pepsi and say "Can I have our FAU schedule on your vending machine at Publix on 20th street?" Pepsi probably doesn't even own that Pepsi machine - and Publix may not either.

We also have to think of ROI sometimes: will marketing on Facebook and the expense of the marketing be returned with ticket sales? Not too sure.

At the school I work for, I am the athletics marketing staff member and we are finding it increasingly hard to figure out what works and what doesn't work. In San Antonio, rough estimates: newspaper ads run between $8,000 and $25,000 depending on size and day you want to run the ad.

For example, we ran three weeks of 2-inch by 1-inch ads on a local TV station's iPad app and it cost us $2,500. How many tickets were sold from it: zero that we could identify.

And seeing the e-mails and posts on the national athletics marketing listserv I'm a part of, the common questions include things like: "how do we increase student attendance?" and "what's a creative marketing scheme for a single-game promotion?" Marketing isn't an FAU challenge… it's a challenge everywhere.

Great points Smitty.

But ya gottta try and work at it, even when you are approaching sell-outs (which we are no where near too). How much have we worked at good press relations and steady press releases for the papers to publish positive stories on FAU academics athletics and campus life to fill that space. People still buy papers for the news and they do have to fill the space for the readers towant to buy the paper.

How much do we get out INTO the community with the Coaches and players to build local ties, interest and future loyalty?

There are things to be done which DON'T cost thousands of dollars. And contact the alumni for more than just wanting them to donate, get ALL the alums involved more, especially the local ones!
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

GeorgiaOwl said

smittysahoot said

Marketing isn't easy. Some of the ideas are great ones (pizza boxes, vending machines, etc.), but most of that deals with corporate partnerships. It's not like someone can call Pepsi and say "Can I have our FAU schedule on your vending machine at Publix on 20th street?" Pepsi probably doesn't even own that Pepsi machine - and Publix may not either.

We also have to think of ROI sometimes: will marketing on Facebook and the expense of the marketing be returned with ticket sales? Not too sure.

At the school I work for, I am the athletics marketing staff member and we are finding it increasingly hard to figure out what works and what doesn't work. In San Antonio, rough estimates: newspaper ads run between $8,000 and $25,000 depending on size and day you want to run the ad.

For example, we ran three weeks of 2-inch by 1-inch ads on a local TV station's iPad app and it cost us $2,500. How many tickets were sold from it: zero that we could identify.

And seeing the e-mails and posts on the national athletics marketing listserv I'm a part of, the common questions include things like: "how do we increase student attendance?" and "what's a creative marketing scheme for a single-game promotion?" Marketing isn't an FAU challenge… it's a challenge everywhere.

Great points Smitty.

But ya gottta try and work at it, even when you are approaching sell-outs (which we are no where near too). How much have we worked at good press relations and steady press releases for the papers to publish positive stories on FAU academics athletics and campus life to fill that space. People still buy papers for the news and they do have to fill the space for the readers towant to buy the paper.

How much do we get out INTO the community with the Coaches and players to build local ties, interest and future loyalty?

There are things to be done which DON'T cost thousands of dollars. And contact the alumni for more than just wanting them to donate, get ALL the alums involved more, especially the local ones!
+1 GeorigaOwl. We all agree the athletics department marketing strategy has been a little behind the times, and that has hurt us. AD Chun has taken steps in the right direction, but we still need to improve dramtically.
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Re: Marketing options for FAU

Smitty for Post of the Day.

I absolutely agree with you that marketing isn't easy, especially when you're adding several new avenues of marketing (bus ads, iPad ads, etc) at one time and trying to figure out which one actually worked so you're not "wasting" your money on the others. I say "wasting" because even if you're not marketing for a particular event, you're still putting the brand out there for people to see.

And that's what I meant about the Publix vending machines. It wouldn't be for a specific event, but rather be generalized to say football like the vending machines in the Breezeway. People use those vending machines frequently and every time they do, they'll be reminded of FAU football. That would be the idea there. I don't know who owns them - I suppose you're referring to the idea that an independent vending company may contract with Pepsi and put the machines wherever is most convenient for them - but I do know that we were able to get FAU-specific vending machines to the Breezeway and to the Oxley, so somebody at Pepsi knows how to get specific machines to specific locations.

Outside of the Annual Report, the minutes to Athletics meetings aren't posted online for some reason so we don't know where their head is at. I will say this: if you told me that we're spending more of our marketing budget on entertainment for the gameday experience rather than pay to place ads in the newspaper, I'd actually be okay with that. I would. For instance, the fireworks were an awesome idea and I hope we continue that.

I'd also be on board with the idea of hiring someone with event planning experience… that is to say, someone who doesn't know the technical details of the marketing field per se but knows how to create and execute events that draw thousands of people. Maybe a car show, or a small carnival, or a concert, that you can only get into if you've purchased a ticket to the game. Or take that $5,000 you were going to spend on a newspaper ad and raffle off a couple 55" TVs; for the FAU student section, win an FAU-themed moped. Stuff like that.

Because that kind of hire may be the smartest thing for us to do right now if our marketing team has no creative ideas for single game promotions, exacerbated by the fact that the John Does and Jane Smiths in Boca Raton don't know anything about teams like ASU and ULM. We don't play their alma maters or ranked teams at home so to them the games are interchangeable and mean nothing. We probably have to give them something besides the game as a reason to come here.

And rally towels, a local reggae band or a year's worth of Pepsi (despite being convenient) are clearly not the answer.
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