Get your St. George’s Flag out of the cupboard and get ready for throngs of angry, jubilant, passionate, angry, screaming, singing and definitely, angry football fans to ruin every trip you’ll have to the pub for the rest of the summer: it’s international football time.
The postponed 2020 Euros are now in full swing, a festival of football with 24 countries playing 51 matches across 12 European cities.
I have no idea whether England will still be in the tournament when this blog is published. Regardless, I’ll be watching every gritty minute of their campaign while they’re still kickin’ (get it?)
In the meantime, to spare us from thinking too much about how inevitable it is for England to lose to Ukraine after decimating Germany, let’s talk about how successful the Euros marketing strategy has been. And, more importantly, what you can learn from it.
You need to make people aware of you
Realistically, the Euros doesn’t need marketing. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you simply can’t have missed the footy furore.
And that’s part of the genius – even if you don’t care about football, you could still probably name half the England squad. At the very least, you could passionately explain why Gareth Southgate leaving Jadon Sancho out the team is a horrible error (it really is.)
In the same way, you need to make prospects and leads aware of you. Have a presence and promote yourself so people know who you are.
You need to make your services clear
As well as making people know who you are, you need to tell them what it is that you actually do.
When you turn on ITV or BBC at 2 pm, 5 pm or 8 pm, you’re almost certainly being met with a banner that screams “UEFA EUROS 2020 LIVE”.
From the moment you change the channel, you know who’s playing, where they are, and, if you’re watching on ITV, what the latest odds on Betfair are. You’ll probably even find out who’s playing next.
Everything is clear and succinct. You can’t claim ignorance once you’ve seen any of it, because it signposts exactly what’s on offer.
Make your services clear and show your clients what you can do for them. Show them how you’re different from your competitors. Show them where you can add value.
You need to produce high-quality content
Aside from the sheer tribalism of it all, part of what makes international football so successful is that it puts the most talented footballers on display.
Other than the World Cup, there are few competitions where you get to see the greatest players from league football duke it out. And, unless you’re an England fan, it’s bloomin’ marvellous to watch.
Your content needs to be just like that. It needs to be Portugal vs Germany, enticing your clients to read with a blockbuster title. Even more so, it needs to deliver tangible, relevant information that offers them something and makes them see the importance of what you do.
High-quality content pulls audiences in. Have it form the basis of your marketing strategy.
You need to find the right audience
As Cristiano Ronaldo innocuously moved two bottles of Coca-Cola out of camera shot and replaced them with his bottle of water, it’s unlikely he knew that he was wiping $4.1 billion off the soft drink giant’s share price.
Admittedly, it’s now emerged that there were likely a variety of factors that influenced the drop, according to an oddly scathing Forbes article.
Either way, it was still an error to put two bottles of the world’s most famous fizzy drink in front of a man who values his physical health above almost all else.
I bet the Coke execs were sweating more than Mats Hummels trying to keep up with Raheem Sterling, as one of the best footballers on the planet snubbed their no-doubt expensive product placement.
The lesson for you is simple: market your services to the right people. Target the clients to who you can most add value, and then give them your message. There’s no point going for the ones that won’t gain anything from your work.
This extends to your content and your SEO strategy. Having great content is one thing, but you need to make sure the people who read it are the ones who will most benefit from it.
Want us on your team?
If you’d like to find out how we could help you take your marketing strategy from the group stages to the final, get in touch. Email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300.
