It’s that time of year again to prove that you know better than any other football manager out there. Pep Guardiola? Never heard of him.
Real-life weeks simply become gameweeks and, until the clock strikes on that deadline, nothing else matters.
Like many of you, here at Yardstick, we have a fantasy football league. I’ve spent the last few weeks with sleepless nights; Do I go with Harry Kane or Haaland? Do I swallow my pride and include Liverpool players? (I’m a pained Manchester United fan). Do I go stingy at the back and all out up top?
During this time, I’ve thought about what we can learn about marketing from how we manage our fantasy football teams. Here are five lessons.
Be proactive, not reactive
It’s no good transferring in Jarrod Bowen in week 12, after a sublime run of form, as by then it’s too late. Your rivals have already had him in their team for three weeks and now you’re playing catch-up. Meanwhile, the league leader has picked up Alvarez before a run of easy games and is about to score endless points.
The same is true with marketing, as reacting to events will only get you so far. You must look for opportunities before they arise to reap the full benefit.
Don’t wait for opportunities to market yourself, create your own. There are plenty of ways you can be proactive in your marketing and make yourself seen.
Follow the data
While I’m a firm believer the heavy focus on stats in today’s game is taking some of its beauty away, there’s no denying it holds an important place.
In the world of football there are more stats than ever: expected goals, expected assists, tackles per 90 minutes, the list goes on. However, following these stats might just lead to you picking up a hidden gem.
Marketing is no different and data holds a key place. With today’s technology you can know more than ever about your marketing:
- Running an email campaign? Look at your open rates, your click-to-open rates and which links people are clicking.
- Running a social media ad campaign? What’s your cost per click? How many impressions are posts getting? What’s the cost per download?
- Want to know how clients are interacting with your website? You can view your number of sessions, the number of users, the average time spent on the site, where people are visiting the site from, and the list goes on!
With all of this data, you can review what’s working and what isn’t. From there you can adapt your plan accordingly.
Beat the competition
There’s no getting around it, I won’t win this year’s league. The competition is too high, we have a ringer in our midst (despite their constant claims of “luck”), but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to win. I want more than anything to see my name next to the number one spot.
Your attitude needs to be the same with your marketing, you need to want to be better than your competitors. You must believe you offer a better service than them – something more unique.
With this, you must keep your aim and strive towards it. This will help keep you focused and motivated on making your service the best it can be.
Be well balanced
By now we all know the key to a successful fantasy team is high-scoring defenders. If you haven’t either got Cancelo, Robertson or Trent you have no chance. This is why you need to balance your budget for your team, spending on each position accordingly.
With marketing, while the concerns may be different than which full-back you’re picking, you still need to make sure you’re succeeding in your balancing act.
It’s not just a website an email campaign, a social media campaign or even regular content that will make your business successful. It’s elements of all these things and more that lead to your success. Spending tens of thousands of pounds on a brand-new website may seem like a good idea, but if this uses up all of your budget how are you going to tell people all about it?
To succeed you need to:
- Ensure your website works and is accessible
- Provide the relevant information on the website
- Provide regular unique content (such as blogs) to improve the site’s performance
- Give people an easy way to access this content
- And much more.
So, to make sure that your marketing campaign succeeds, ensure that you have a well-balanced plan.
Dare to be different
Look, yes, captaining Salah will nearly always get you points, and lots of them. But, nearly every single one of your competitors will be doing the same thing. This means you’re not getting ahead but simply staying level with the pack.
To get ahead of your rivals you need to dare to be different. Captain someone different when everyone captains Haaland. You’re the one who will be laughing when Ivan Toney grabs a hat trick against Leeds and you’re the only one in the league with him as your captain.
The similar can be said for your marketing.
Yes, you can do the same old marketing that everyone else is doing. Why not, if it gathers good results? But, if you do something different, you’re likely to stand out from the crowd, be noticed and most importantly, be remembered.
Take, for example, blogs on your website. Yes, there needs to be important and relevant information on there. But, we often see some of the best-performing blogs for our clients have very little to do (directly at least) with what they do. For example, one of our performing guides to date was all about gardening!
We know that being different can sometimes feel like a gamble, but it’s these risks that can take you to the next level.
A funny name
Ok, there’s a slight chance this is only relevant to fantasy football. But what good is a fantasy football team without a good name?
Get in touch
If you want to help set your marketing apart from the crowd, with a website or unique content, we can help. Get in touch with us at hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300.
