Mini Analysis report

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Running Head: SEGMENTATION IN SPORTS MARKETING

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SEGMENTATION IN SPORTS MARKETING

Segmentation in Sports Marketing

Texas Women’s University

02/22/2018

Introduction

The success of any marketing strategy is highly dependent on how well it satisfies the needs of the target market. As such, there is the need to identify the kind of people that will be using the product or service, in addition to determining the reasons for increasing promotional efforts through marketing. This, therefore, calls for the need to conduct an appropriate market segmentation that will help in tailoring and ensuring that the intended product or service suits the requirements or expectations of the target market. For instance, in sports marketing, this can be achieved by overcoming the dissatisfaction of losing a game by making the overall experience of the game an interesting spectacle to the fans. The service aspect should be stronger, thereby making the experience of losing to be forgotten immediately. This way, the event, the players, the service providers, as well as the image conveyed will all form an important part of the overall experience that is fun and entertaining, regardless of the outcomes (Ratten, 2016). Warner Athletics has focused on the critical aspects that entertain the fans, regardless of whether the teams win or lose, and this has assisted the board to secure sponsorships and partnerships with other organizations thus increasing its revenue. In this paper, the unique nature of sport marketing will be described and explained.

Rationale

Warner Athletics currently has ten soccer teams, and the popularity of this sport has increased considerably in the last few years. Therefore, the organization’s board would like to take advantage of this opportunity. However, sports perception between different age groups, races, and ethnicities vary significantly (Schmid, Kexel, & Djafarova, 2016). In this case, to be able to effectively market sporting activities, all these factors should be analyzed in order to appropriately segment the market (Fullerton, 2010). The organization would like to increase the fan attendance and the revenue collected during high school soccer games. The best way to achieve this is through proper identification, as well as segmentation of the target market, which, in turn, will help in identifying the needs of the clients and how to meet them (Shank & Lyberger, 2014).

Nature of Sport Marketing

A study conducted by DeGaris (2015) discovered that 80 percent of team respondents working in different sports disciplines are keen to include market segmentation to be an extremely valuable component of their organizations’ daily business. The findings from this study illustrate the increasing importance of segment-based marketing in sports. Many sports managers and their teams today, no longer perceive all their fans in the same way. Instead, there has been a growing trend towards using market segmentation to target smaller groups based on the particular products or experiences they are likely to find appealing (Watkins, 2017).

Schmid et al. (2016) argue that the segmentation helps sports marketers analyze their potential customers from a certain group down to the individual level, and this increases the team’s prospects as well as the customers based on a variety of factors. Through segmentation, sales representatives of a sports team are likely to achieve the increased efficiency through different campaigns, customized sales, elevated close rates, as well as sampling programs. The improved efficiency of the sales and marketing efforts also helps in delivering a better experience to clients through the customized programs that are targeted at a specific segment of the market.

Implications and Practical Application

As part of the Warner’s Athletics board’s most recent segmentation strategy, our customer relation department called a selected number of individuals that had been carefully chosen from a large catalogue based a combination of behavioral and demographic aspects. This not only led to an increase in efficiency, but also resulted in a much higher conversion rate compared to our competitors. Having a properly segmented market also helps in making informed decisions, and this assists the board in identifying the types of clients that bear a close resemblance to current buyers (Shank & Lyberger, 2014). As such, equipping the sales and marketing teams with kinds of leads greatly helps them know the type of potential clients to engage with, which in turn increases the close rate, thereby maximizing efficiency and saving costs.

In essence, learning about specific demographic elements and then modeling this information into various market segments allows sports marketers to mirror these aspects when trying to find new leads, which also creates a better chance of appealing to new clients in the most effective way (Ratten, 2016). This not only makes sense from a sports marketing perspective, but it also saves money and time. The organization’s marketing has recently adopted a new strategy, in which it also targets nontraditional sports customers by highlighting the importance of the participating sporting activities for health reasons.

By offering unique opportunities for such people to get out of their homes and participate in cheering their favorite teams as well as learning about their interests, Warner Athletics’ board has not only been able to secure new sponsorship deals, but it has also been able to establish connections with many companies that are highly relevant to the different market segments. This has allowed the organization to create huge revenue sources that will sustain the sporting activities in the long run in addition to delivering excellent sporting experiences that cater to the needs of various consumer segments (Zhang, He, & Chen, 2016).

Conclusion

In essence, market segmentation is a highly effective sports marketing strategy that allows an organization to tap into new niche markets and opportunities, forge new partnerships, operate more efficiently, and increase revenue streams. It is a simple and cost-effective way for sports organizations to identify the potential customers within a target market which they can then use to create new opportunities and sustain their viability as a business.

References

DeGaris, L. (2015). Sports Marketing: A Practical Approach. London: Routledge.

Fullerton, S. (2010). Sports Marketing. London: McGraw-Hill Companies, Incorporated.

Ratten, V. (2016). The Dynamics of Sport Marketing: Suggestions for Marketing Intelligence and Planning. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34(2), 162-168.

Schmid, B., Kexel, C., & Djafarova, E. (2016). Multidimensional Sports Spectators Segmentation and Social Media Marketing. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, 10(8), 2673-2676.

Shank, M. D., & Lyberger, M. R. (2014). Sports Marketing: A Strategic Perspective. Routledge.

Watkins, J. S. (2017). Household Life Cycle as a Segmentation Approach for Major Professional Sports Teams.

Zhang, R. L., He, W., & Chen, M. Y. (2016). A Study of Market Segmentation among Adolescent Consumers of Action Sports. Asian Sports Management Review, (10), 11-24.