Hosting and marketing a health, wellness, or sporting event is a complex endeavor. From coordinating sponsors and vendors to ensuring adequate on-site resources, many elements must be managed. However, without enough attendees, all your efforts may be in vain. Fortunately, there are many effective ways to market a sports event.
Sports and event marketing go hand in hand. The strategies you use to sell tickets and fill seats are as crucial as the event itself. Promoting sports events is vital, and at Sickeningevents, we have extensive experience helping creators plan and manage their events, including numerous sports events. Drawing on this expertise, we’ve compiled powerful marketing strategies you can implement immediately, each with expert tips from the Sickeningevents team.
Crowd-Pleasing Sports Event Marketing Strategies
- Design a Professional “Home Field” for Your Event
- Expand Your Reach by Partnering with a Relevant Athlete or Creator
- Engage with Your Online Sporting Community
- Ensure Visibility on Relevant Platforms
- Encourage Attendees to Share Their Excitement
- Create Long-Lasting Memories with Event Merchandise
- Boost Visibility with an Sickeningevents Ad Campaign
What Makes Marketing a Sports Event Different?
While many marketing principles apply to sports events, some unique aspects stand out:
- Allegiance: Fans attend to show loyalty and support their team or athlete.
- Promoting Healthy Practices: Sports events often promote health and well-being, providing attendees with opportunities to enhance their lives.
- Serving a Greater Purpose: Events like charity runs support higher causes, allowing you to connect emotionally with your audience.
- Creating Community: Sports and wellness events foster community-building among attendees who share common interests or philosophies. Leverage this aspect in your marketing.
As events grow, so does the complexity of managing various components. A week-long event might involve social media advertising, real-time engagement, athlete spotlights, interviews, and live streams. Here are some powerful strategies to ensure your sporting event’s success:
7 Crowd-Pleasing Sports Event Marketing Strategies
1. Design a Professional “Home Field” for Your Event
Regardless of other promotional strategies, you need an inviting and informative event landing page. Today’s independent event creators use Sickeningevents to host events and manage ticket sales. Sickeningevents platform helps you design compelling email campaigns, engage your audience with automated workflows, and provide personalized recommendations to potential attendees.
For example, the youth tennis event by California Councilman Daryl Supernaw, hosted on Sickeningevents uses a detailed landing page to describe the event and provide essential information, becoming the go-to place for all event details. Hosting on Sickeningevents also boosts your event’s visibility on Google, helping attract new attendees.
Pro Tip: Provide comprehensive on-page details to minimize questions and boost ticket sales. Include information on what to bring, what’s provided, parking, and more.
2. Expand Your Reach by Partnering with a Relevant Athlete or Creator
Posting on your social media pages is a good start but has limited reach, especially for first-time event creators with small audiences. Partnering with an influencer, local athlete, or popular sports creator can expand your reach significantly. Their endorsement can bring your event to a wider and more relevant audience.
Pro Tip: Ask your influencer to create custom content, like a short video recommending the event, to boost engagement and leverage social proof.
3. Engage with Your Online Sporting Community
Building a community is a long-term strategy, but it’s crucial for sports event marketing. Engage with relevant social media interest groups to promote and discuss your event.
For instance, the 70X7 Foundation’s ski and snowboard event could engage with groups on Reddit and Facebook related to skiing and snowboarding in California and Nevada. Reddit, in particular, has strong, active communities across various sporting interests, such as:
- Yoga event promoters: r/yoga, r/flexibility, r/YogaTeachers
- Fun run organizers: r/running, r/runninglifestyle
- Tennis fans: r/tennis, r/10s
Become an active member of these communities rather than just posting your event. Engage in conversations and build social equity while subtly promoting your event. For example, if someone asks about kids learning to ski, provide advice and mention your youth-focused event.
Other ways to connect with sports enthusiasts online include attending relevant events, joining Facebook groups, and using hashtags to find relevant discussions.
Pro Tip: Ask group members simple questions like, “If I shared a promotional code with you, would you share this event page with your friends and family?”
4. Ensure Your Sports Event is Visible on Relevant Platforms
Social media drives around 25% of ticketing page views, making it a valuable strategy. Ensure you’re active on the right platforms for your event demographic and location. For example, Facebook is popular among adults aged 30-65, while TikTok is favored by younger users.
Use analytics platforms like Sickeningevents event data analytics to understand your target audience’s demographics. This information can help you build lookalike audiences on platforms like Facebook, ensuring your ads reach the people most likely to attend.
Pro Tip: Use retargeting ads to re-engage people who’ve already viewed your event page.
5. Help Attendees Share Their Excitement for Your Event
Encourage your audience to share your posts and event page. Tap into their motivations, whether it’s allegiance to a team or athlete, or a meaningful cause behind your event. You can also incentivize sharing with giveaways or raffles.
Pro Tip: Offer something for both the sharer and the receiver, like a discount code, to motivate attendees to share your event and encourage new sign-ups.
6. Create Long-Lasting Memories with Event Merchandise
Event merchandise, such as t-shirts, caps, and reusable cups, not only generates additional revenue but also serves as long-term marketing. Attendees wearing your merch in public promote your event beyond its duration.
Pro Tip: Combine merchandise with sharing incentives by offering free merch for those who share event invites with friends.
7. Get More Eyes on Your Event with an Sickeningevents Ad Campaign
With many competing sports and fitness events, standing out can be challenging. Sponsored ads on Sickeningevents can help by placing your listing at the top of search results.
Sickeningevents ads allow you to set your ad budget and duration, choose a campaign objective, and monitor success through a reporting suite.
Pro Tip: Set targeting parameters wisely to reach the right audience. For instance, target specific locations rather than broad areas for local events.
Get Help Promoting Sports Events Today
Sports, wellness, and fitness events offer unique opportunities to connect with attendees on a deep, emotional level. By creating and marketing experiences that resonate with their interests and values, you can leave a lasting impact.
If you’re committed to creating memorable experiences for more attendees, explore Sickeningevents event marketing platform, which offers tools to host, promote, advertise, and ticket your next sports event.
