Practically every major professional sports league is in full swing for nine months of the year. During this time, you’re promoting daily content to fans that are constantly connected and engaging with your team.
Until off-season hits, and the excitement from the season inevitably dies down. While this brings on a new set of challenges, it also provides a unique opportunity for your team to keep fans engaged when many teams have given up. Here are some creative campaigns to consider that will help you maintain loyalty, stay top of mind and collect valuable fan data throughout the off-season:
1. "Which Type of Fan are You?"
Campaign: Personality Quiz
While you may have numerous fans, their degree of fandom could be vastly different. Are they die-hard fans that watch every game, or do they only tune in during playoffs? Are they casual supporters, or can they answer even the most obscure team trivia?
Engage your fans and get an insight into their fan behaviour by running a personality quiz campaign that determines which type of fan they are. You’ll gather valuable information and can provide a more personalized fan experience or even help fans understand what season ticket package works best for them.
2. Displaying Fan Pride
Campaign: Video or Photo Contest
Content doesn’t always have to be created from your social team. Fans can get in on the action too! Whether it’s through selfies or imaginative videos, let your fans do the promotion for you by running photo or video contests that invite them to send in their most creative content. Widen your reach and find fresh new content to include in your future marketing endeavors.
3. "Plays of the Year"
Campaign: Bracket Challenge
Nothing gets fans more pumped for next year than a rerun of the season's best moments! Create a bracket challenge with the year's most memorable highlights - be it game plays, funny moments, or roster management. Get a sense of the type of content your fans love seeing with this interactive campaign.
4. Draft Prediction
Campaign: Vote
The draft is a major off-season event that gets your fans buzzing with speculation and builds excitement for the season ahead. Get your fans thinking about your team before the season even begins by creating a campaign that lets them vote on their ideal draft picks.
5. Fan Appreciation
Campaign: Spin to Win
Spin to win is a simple and fun way to gather valuable fan data! Give your fans a chance to win a special prize by simply spinning the wheel. You can attract a large number of participants with ease and simultaneously gather important information that will help you reach a larger fan-base in the future.
6. Survivor Quiz
Campaign: Survivor Quiz
Bring out your fan’s competitive side with an interactive survivor quiz campaign. Find out who paid attention to the small details throughout the season and who is a verified super fan with a season-in-review or team trivia quiz. Who scored the first goal on opening night? Which rookie made his debut versus Los Angeles? Make it as easy or as difficult as you want!
7. Prediction Challenges
Campaign: Dream Team
While passionate fans will rep your team even through the toughest of seasons, they all have a dream team that they would love to see come to life.
Allow fans to create their dream starting lineup with our Dream Team campaign. Using both current and players from the past, fans will love the nostalgia and customizability of this dynamic activation. This is also a great campaign to run leading up to the season, allowing your fans to display who they want to start.
8. Prize Giveaways
Campaign: Entry Form
Giveaways have always been an effective way to engage fans en-masse, and, when used correctly, can be the backbone for your fan data collection.
Whether you want to co-produce a contest with a corporate partner or simply give away free tickets to your season opener, fans are bound to be buzzing about an exciting freebie! The set-up is easy and it’s a reliable way to capture valuable data, and integrate with your partners.
