Internet Strategies
Internet strategies details how to dove tail traditional media/PR with Internet/PR to create community dialogue leading to a successful communications programs to garner fan support for the team, for new stadiums, etc
- The Team are the People’s Team.
- Stadium issues address all of the tough economic times
ahead for most cities in the future, promising jobs, revenue, economic
growth, pro-team quality of life for all citizens.
- The best problem solving discipline is communications.
- There is no Teflon, whether in the private or public
sector, even for the formidable.
- It is true for all: you cannot not communicate. Everything
said and done is a communication.
Internet Campaign Goals for Success
- Generate fan awareness and interest in the Team’s
Season
- PR campaign for Team ownership group.
- Begin campaign to increase attendance or continue
sell outs.
- Increase number of season ticket holders
- Create ticket give a way plan to generate more single
game ticket sales
- Begin the process to double the value of the team
within four years
- Begin the process to generate $200 million/year of
local revenues.
- Generate fan interest in Head Coach, his record,
and the Team’s future.
- Begin human interest stories re team members, players, coaches and owners.
Internet Strategies for Success
- Take advantage of the INTERNET, as outlined below,
with an interactive, flexibly changing web page and Email communications.
- Develop email lists of all reporters, print and broadcast
and cable, and, as appropriate, selected national ones (especially those
with whom good relations already exist). Create buzz.
- Put an auto responder on each web site for instant
responses to emails, with those to actually respond to with more to be
decided on a case-by-case basis.
- Have explanatory paragraphs for most issues for use
in selecting email responses.
- Send out a short one paragraph statement every day,
with reference to longer pieces on the campaign web sites, to all who subscribe
the Email newsletter.
- Use the 1-2-3-4 knock out punch of the Internet of
reach of audience/exposure; richness of content (quantity and quality);
affiliation for loyalty, and navigational control/influence (which is changing
things faster than we can sometimes comprehend, so why not create a parade
rather than follow someone else's), with interaction in ways that are still
being explored and discovered, in order to impact positively with the fans.
- Exploit the differences in communications channels
by adapting to each accordingly. Develop and add to WEB LOGS, which can
run on any site, and which run in reverse chronological order, including
listing relevant web sites, so people can follow the team better.
- Web Stream news conferences and game highlight on
the web site, so media, fans, etc., can hear from the organization's key
people, and talk about subjects close to their heart without having to
be edited to a too short piece or edited by media where the message is
considerably different from the unedited version.
- The Web page can also create the "perfect" periodic,
easily changeable pamphlet to reflect the Communications Strategy approach
being followed at the moment, as well as enable the providing of "examples" of
what may otherwise undermine and sabotage the otherwise fine relationship
between the organization and the fans.
- Use an intranet for the Team organization and its
consultants, on which can be placed schedules, commentaries, favorable
media pieces, and provide navigational links to appropriate information
related to the team (see layout of www.ceoexpress.com
- Have a chat room on the Internet site to discuss
the team and to keep up with the debates in the community. Chat rooms are
the biggest "value" AOL provides to its users, and creates it "stickiness" (return
visits).
- Have a designated consultant from Beacon on the Hill
Sports Marketing provide input into any continuing negative thread that
might appear on one of the major newspaper’s web site, in order to
provide a positive response. Keep an eye out for others and respond to
them as well.
- Develop a FAQ list, updated regularly on the Internet
site.
- “Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual
Communities”: Hagel and Armstrong make the case that business success
in the very near future will depend on using the Internet to build not
just relationships, but communities.
- “Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge”: Figallo shows the advantages businesses can gain from creating or supporting online communities, plus what types of expectations are unrealistic. He believes, for example, that creating online communities is not a reasonable way to directly boost sales or provide a highly profitable income stream. He does show, however, that it can offer major corporate advantages in the same way that good public relations or other indirect marketing activities do.