The Expert Methods For Reaching the Luxury Customer
When you think of a luxury consumer, what comes to mind? Is it a young tech millionaire? A wealthy housewife? Someone living off of a family trust fund? At our Orlando marketing agency, we believe that if you’re dealing in luxury goods or services, it’s important to have a deep understanding of your customers – and, perhaps more importantly, how they behave in both the world and in the digital space. This is particularly true with higher-end consumers, as their discriminating taste means they have higher expectations than a typical consumer. For this reason, it’s critically important to employ expert methods to reach your ideal luxury customer. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that the number of luxury goods purchasers increased to 330 million in 2013, and could be as high as 500 million by 2030. The article attributes this growth to rising wealth in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. And, more than half of these purchasers are age 49 or older. Just 13% are between ages 13 and 33. Contrary to what one might think, an article in Forbes points out that luxury consumers love to shop at Costco, which is a far from glamorous experience. However, alongside the rows upon rows of bulk toilet paper and paper towels, Costco also sells things like vacation packages, high-quality electronics and expensive watches. It’s not exactly what you might picture the luxury shopper doing, but it’s important to understand this mindset and behavior. The reality is that even when these consumers are spending a lot of money, they’re still also always looking for a deal. Many luxury consumers don’t even leave their homes to shop. According to Luxury Daily, in Q4 of 2014, 92% of affluent shoppers made a purchase online. Think With Google reports that in mature markets such as the United States, 69% of all luxury customers searched online before making a purchase, and in newer markets like China, Brazil and Russia, 92% of luxury consumers went online to search before making a purchase. Knowing that the market is rising and that people are using the Internet to guide their purchases and, in many cases, to actually make purchases, it’s increasingly important for luxury marketers to realize that their digital presence is a reflection of who they are as brands. Every time a person has a bad experience with your website or can’t read your email because your business’s emails aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re putting up a figurative wall between your brand and your customer. [quote]Particularly when dealing in luxury goods, the experience is part of the decision-making process.[/quote] It’s hard to convince someone you’re a luxury retailer if your website looks like something you could have designed with clipart on Geocities in 2004. It’s also becoming more and more important for luxury marketers to engage their communities online. If they’re not actively sharing content and jumping into the conversation, they may be costing themselves thousands of dollars in sales each year. The Internet is full of rich data as to how people are using their luxury products and services, and conducting a social media listening audit is typically much less expensive than a focus group. If you’re a luxury retailer and you’ve decided it’s time to finally take your digital presence to the next level, let the passionate folks at our Orlando ad agency help you! From business planning to branding to execution, we’re here to help you revamp your marketing plan, or can even build it from the ground up! Contact us today!
4 Ways to Use Google Analytics to Improve Your Website Experience
For business owners who have never used Google Analytics, the breadth of customer data available can seem overwhelming. However, Google Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. It allows marketers an in-depth perspective of how people are using a company’s website, which can lead to much broader implications for branding, SEO strategies, Google AdWords strategies and homepage insights. I recently had a client who was interested in a homepage redesign. From the outset, it was clear to me that his business’s marketing team didn’t fully understand the relationship between marketing and website development. After looking at his webpage analytics, I realized a homepage redesign would be crucial to his business’s success. His site was not optimized for mobile, even though 50% of his website visitors came from mobile devices. The site experience was very targeted for the male viewer, even though nearly half of his page viewers were female. And, perhaps most shockingly, his page loading speed was 12 seconds, far higher than the 2-3 seconds it should take to access a page for the first time. That offered a terrific insight as to why his page bounce rate was over 86 percent, in spite of the interesting, relevant content posted on a daily basis. Armed with this knowledge, we knew what steps to take in creating a website that would result in a better user experience. [quote]If you want to know whether your webpage is effective, Google Analytics is quite simply the best place to start.[/quote]While there are entire webinars dedicated to successfully using Google Analytics (I suggest checking out Google Analytics Academy), the team at our advertising agency in Orlando can suggest a few things to check immediately to help garner insights about your business’s performance. 1. Bounce Rate The bounce rate indicates any time a site visitor looks at only one page before leaving the site. If your business’s homepage is experiencing a high bounce rate, it’s important to try to figure out why. It might be that your site isn’t optimized for the mobile or tablet experience, or that you aren’t offering clear calls to action that would encourage people to continue exploring the site. A web tool called Optimizely allows businesses to quickly and easily test homepage elements to try to improve these metrics. 2. Average Visit Duration Again, if people are coming to your page but not staying on very long, there may be a problem with your landing page experience. However, it may also be that there is a mismatch between the content that is driving people to your site and audience’s actual interests. For example, a “clickbait”headline will succeed in getting more people to your site, but people will leave quickly if the headline isn’t supported by interesting content. 3. Conversion Rate Conversion rate metrics offer insight into the number people who visit your website, against the number of people who actually “convert.”Conversions typically apply to e-commerce purchases, but can also measure the number of people who sign up for your email blasts or the number of people who book a reservation using the website. If these numbers are low, you may wish to test the effectiveness of various calls to action, play with the visual imagery or experiment with different types of content marketing. 4. Behavior Flow Report The behavior flow report presents a visualization of how website users navigate from one page or event to the next. This report provides insights into the content on your site that’s driving engagement, and also helps identify potential content issues. Use the segment drop down to segment traffic and better understand how those segments flow through the site. You’ll see how search traffic (for example) flows differently through your site than mobile traffic. The dimensions drop down allows you to narrow results by referral source or medium, and even shows flow from specific keywords. This feature can help identify how visitors from a particular keyword engage with and convert on your site. Data geeks unite around the behavior flow report – it’s a gem. In need of some expert Google Analytics expertise to ensure both an increase in website traffic – and an overwhelmingly positive user experience? Contact us today for a consultation!
How to Kiss Long Strategic Findings Documents Goodbye
In doing the work that I do as a strategist, it can be difficult to take long and complex research sets and narrow them down into short, concise documents. I tend to think every little insight I discover is groundbreaking and should be carefully perused by everyone at every level at a company, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that nearly no one wants to read a long document full of analytic data. For some of these folks, looking at a long document full of important strategic findings is just about as interesting as reading your tax returns for the last ten years. However, I’ve luckily found numerous ways to keep clients, as well as the team at our Florida ad agency, satisfied through presenting data in a much clearer and more engaging manner. The goal is to rely on an often-used phrase, “Keep it simple, stupid!” I promise I’m not calling anyone stupid, it’s just a great way to remember to simplify in every aspect of business where possible — including writing research reports. Here are some of the tips I’ve employed to keep people interested in the content so my memos don’t have to keep competing with stacks of other boring documents. Summarize If you must write a long research report, offer a clear summary of findings on the first page of the report. For many people, and especially high-level executives, this will be the only part of the report they will actually read. If it’s a Brief, Keep it Brief There’s a reason they call it a brief, you know. Keeping it under two pages will make it more likely that people will read the entire thing, ensuring they won’t miss any important items. Use Images Almost any type of image will add more interest to a page of text. A chart or graph can make for an excellent storytelling device, and a photo can offer a visual description of the content or inspire ideation. If nothing else, take a quote from the report, add some white space around it and highlight it, making it stand out on the page. Use Humor This may not be appropriate in all circumstances, but where it is, use it to your advantage. In presenting material using humor, you are more likely to keep the reader interested in the content, plus funny lines or quips will help them better remember the material. Even inserting a funny image of a LOLCat can help make an otherwise stale collection of data into something more interesting, which will also make you look like a star when people can’t stop talking about it in the break room. [quote]Remember, your content doesn’t have to be boring and stale, and in fact, making it more interesting will help people to better remember the content.[/quote] I’ve already shared these tips with the team at our Orlando marketing agency, so I thought there was no better time than now to allow you to rip a few pages from our playbook. Contact us today for more information, and to unlock your own strategic approach!
Top seven Tips to Stretch a Small Marketing Budget
It’s been said that limitations are the key to creativity. If you have millions of dollars to throw around with marketing, chances are, you’re going to end up spending a fair bit of it on things that don’t actually work…that’s precisely why small marketing budgets can be a blessing in disguise. If you’re working at or own a business, but have only a limited marketing budget, have no fear, our Florida ad agency is here to help you grow, one dollar at a time with the following seven tips: 1. Make a plan: A marketing budget, no matter how small, will go much further if you have a set of concrete goals to apply your funds. Even something as small as $500 will go a lot further if you have measurable goals in mind. 2. Know that your biggest investment is time: If you have time, you have a distinct advantage over businesses that have large marketing budgets but limited time to implement strategies. Allocate your time wisely, and apply it strategically to help get the most value for your dollar. 3. Look for growth hacking ideas: Growth hacking means finding small and inexpensive ways to seed awareness of your product or service. 4. Start a company blog: This can help you establish credibility as a leader in your field, and can also be great in terms of search engine optimization. The more articles you post, the more ways potential clients or customers will be able to find your site. 5. Consider a handwritten note or gift: Even a small token of appreciation to your early customers can go a long way in influencer marketing and repeat purchasers. Include some stickers, and invite your customers to Instagram photos of where they’ve put them. Create a specific hashtag specifically for this purpose. 6. Create how-to videos: At this point, most people in the media business agree that people will forgive moderate video production quality for grassroots and growing businesses as long as the content itself is good. No one is expecting a Stephen Spielberg-esque production; just set aside time to record some how-to videos pertaining to your product, service or field, and use that to leverage even more credibility and to increase your following on YouTube.[quote]Repurpose the content by linking out to the videos on your social accounts as well.[/quote] 7. Send a newsletter: Weekly or monthly newsletters provide easy ways for businesses to grow their marketing base and get repeat customers. Provide interesting content in a visually appealing way. Once you have the template set, the biggest task is the time it takes to draft and send the email. If possible, experiment with subject lines, copy length and calls to action to determine what works best for you. And for a bonus tip — Make it easy for your customers to share their experiences! This includes making sure there are easy-to-find social share icons on your website, and simple templates for feedback and customer service. Remember that customer service and marketing aren’t as attenuated as once previously thought, as happy customers can serve as your brand’s biggest influencers. The team at our Florida marketing agency encourages you to follow these tips to help grow your business, without breaking the bank. For more tips, contact us for a consultation to learn how we can help you grow your business on any budget!
A Few Simple Steps for Effective Content Optimization
What do you think of when I say “optimization?” I’m willing to bet most of you think in terms of search engine optimization, the art of getting your website and web content into the highest placement on related search engine searches. That tricky thing called SEO is as much of an art as it is a science. Try to cheat, and you risk making your website completely invisible on search. [quote]Optimization isn’t limited to SEO.[/quote] In marketing, there are a variety of ways you can optimize your homepage, email marketing and app experience, under a cluster of what some people call conversion optimization. If you’re aren’t taking care to make sure you’ve implemented optimal design, then you might be making it more difficult than necessary for people to find your site, navigate your homepage and email marketing, and ultimately, convert. Below is an overview of each from the team at our Florida marketing agency, as well as some information as to what steps you can take to optimize your content. Search Engine Optimization I opted to start with content optimization or SEO when it comes to “optimization” because it tends to be the most familiar, and because it can be so helpful in driving customers to your site. Essentially, search engine indexing systems rely on a series of algorithms in order to make sure the most relevant content appears first when a person keys in a search term. Content creators can capitalize on this by figuring out a few relevant keywords and posting content that relates to those subjects. Unfortunately, the average blogger can’t possibly understand all the factors at play in good SEO. However, website tools such as those offered by Moz can help ensure the blog experience is optimized for search, even giving content creators an optimization score per post. These types of tools can be highly valuable in making your site searchable within the clutter. Additionally, other areas for search engine optimization include site static content (such as the “about” page or the introductory copy on the homepage of the site) and page headlines. Look carefully at what search terms are most valuable to your brand. A shoe retailer may not be able to optimize on the word “shoes” against corporate giants like Nike and Adidas, but may have more success with something more specific, like “beach shoes” or “summer sandals.” The Google Keyword AdWords Tool is a great way to figure out search viability for specific keywords, and then structure your content as to feature those words. Conversion Optimization This type of optimization strives to improve the visitor’s experience, with the goal of ultimately leading to the most conversions. Optimizing a website means making sure it’s designed responsively. It means making sure that people can understand the content whether viewing it on mobile, tablet or desktop. It also means making sure that you page loads very quickly, that information on the page is easy to navigate, and that the code used to make the page is strong. It means making sure links work and that there are no broken links. People interested in knowing how their site adds up for website optimization purposes can use check use optimize.ly to run tests. It also means running tests to make sure the calls to action are clear, and for ecommerce sites, it means checking to make sure the checkout process is as seamless as possible. Conversion optimization also applies to email marketing. Experimenting with email length, subject lines and email template design is a great way to improve the effectiveness of the email marketing, resulting in more conversions. If you’re not optimizing, you’re missing out on serious opportunities to increase your conversion metrics. For more information on how to keep people coming back to your site again and again, contact the team at our BIGEYE ad agency for a free consultation.
Hyper Targeted Advertising in a Spike Jonze World
Recently, I had a chance to see Her, the Spike Jonze-directed film about a man who falls in love with a human-like operating system. It is a wonderful film, and certainly is deserving of its place as an Academy Award-nominated film this awards season. However, plot details aside, watching the film led me to think about about marketing and advertising in a new way, and to consider whether the current landscape push towards trends such as personalization and geolocation is actually a good thing. How do we address hyper targeted advertising in a Spike Jonze world – of sorts. These days, companies are striving to give us each personalized experiences on our cell phones, tablets and laptop computers. Every day, more and more services spring up, trying to give you insights into the world around you. Many of these businesses purport to clear the noise by offering personalized recommendations as to where to eat breakfast, or which gym to join. But, often times all they do is cause more clutter. The question that one might ask is, “Is hyper targeted advertising actually bad for us?” In the movie, it’s not clear – there are both plusses and minuses to such a hyper specific system that clearly understands the users thoughts, feelings and emotions. But, alas, that’s just a movie, written, shot and performed in a such a way as to help explore our deepest sense of what it means to be human. In the real world, it seems that the answers are much clearer. For example, society hasn’t yet reached a place where artificial intelligence is a reality — just ask anyone from our Florida advertising agency who’s ever tried to get an answer from Siri and has been repeatedly given incorrect results, sometimes to the point of absurdity. We’re a long way from living in a world where machines can fulfill our deepest emotional needs. Rather, it is the content therein that often fulfills us. For example, reading your favorite blog encourages you to be more proactive about your health or your career. When you’re bored, services like Meetup and Eventbrite can inspire a person to take action, to partake in the events going on in the world around them.[quote]Even looking at pictures of food on a friend’s Instagram account can inspire a feeling of positivity and comfort.[/quote] In a lot of ways, the hyper-targeting based on our personal wants and needs seems to be helping us fulfill those internal desires to connect with others. And, with the added convenience of being able to do these things on the fly, one can make a strong argument that our constant connectivity brings us closer together. Of course, that’s sometimes harder to believe when an acquaintance spends a full five minutes browsing the internet while you’re out to dinner together. Still, it seems to me and the team at our Orlando ad agency that being able to receive personalized recommendations based on your location, age, gender, preferences and a host of other factors seems to be the best way to receive and digest information. Until we reach the day where artificial intelligence can seriously impede our need to communicate socially as human beings, then I believe we can live in a world where our connectedness can continue to bring us closer together. For more on hyper targeted advertising strategies, contact our team of experts today to make a new connection!
7 resort marketing tips to help your bookings skyrocket
In the era of the internet, it’s easy for the most amazing resort experiences to get lost in the endless stream of advertising and digital content. With so many resort options, resort marketers who truly want to break through the noise have a variety of tools in their arsenal to help them make the most of their advertising dollars by helping them recruit the customers — often times customers who become repeat visitors, coming back again and again, year after year. Here are seven resort advertising tips – courtesy of your friends at BIGEYE – to help your bookings skyrocket. 1. Invest in search engine optimization In a highly competitive space like the resort industry, it is important to ensure people can actually find your business in the midst of all the other websites out there. In this industry in particular, tailoring your website’s content to make sure your site appears in organic search is a great way to attract attention to your site. 2. Experiment with Google AdWords and Facebook advertising AdWords is a great way to give your business an extra boost in terms of search. Marketers can set their own rates and can also bid on keywords. By using such a service, marketers can experiment with images, call to actions and landing pages when testing on Google AdWords. This type of advertising can sometimes takes a little experimentation to get it just right, but, if it makes sense for your business to try it, AdWords users often experience excellent results. Similarly, Facebook Ads allows users to select keywords and set rates for their campaigns. Facebook also offers hyper-targeted approaches, offering ads targeted directly at users based on their interests (i.e., travel, leisure) and location. 3. Optimize your webpage If you’re still working with the website someone designed for you in 1996, chances are your page isn’t optimized for the web. In terms of optimization, there are numerous approaches. One is to design the site for SEO purposes, so that it appears highly-ranked in organic web searches, but sometimes this isn’t the most visually-pleasing approach, and may result in high bounce rates. Therefore, experimenting and testing items such as the placement of a call to action, the page aesthetic, and placement of keywords and phrases can help you nail down what works best for your site visitors. Also, be sure to optimize your site for mobile and tablet experiences using responsive design. In doing so, you can create an easy-to-use site that looks good no matter what platform. 4. Collect email addresses, front and center on your homepage Email marketing is here to stay, mainly because people who use it see results. They’ve found they’re able to reach their users directly in their inboxes, which is a great way to keep users up to date about deals and happenings at the resort. Implementing an easy email collection box is a great way to increase the number of people who see your email blasts. 5. Optimize your emails Optimizing your email experience will improve the number of people who click through the email to the site. Even factors such as the subject line and the time of day they receive the email can have a major effect on whether people take the time to look at them. Then, once they do open the email, what do they see? If the content isn’t optimized for mobile and tablet devices, users could decide not to view the email if it takes too long to load or looks garbled. 6. Invest in customer service In the digital age, customer service and marketing are inextricably linked. A happy customer is the best marketing tool your resort can have, as that customer is likely to share their experience with their friends or on social information sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. Make it easy for the user to provide feedback and to talk to a real person when they have questions or suggestions for improvement. 7. Try ad retargeting Once a person does visit your page, they may be interested initially but could get distracted from the ultimate goal of purchase as they move on to other items. A relatively new technology called retargeting uses the viewer’s browsing habits to store information, allowing brands to position their ads in front of the user at a later date on a completely different website. The idea is that the person may be inspired at that later time to purchase the good or service they’d only thought about before. Resorts can capitalize on this, as it often takes people some time to decide they want to book a vacation, and retargeting can help put the experience right in front of them, over and over again. Taken together, these resort marketing factors can ensure more visitors come to your site and spend more time there, which will inevitably result in more bookings. The team at our Orlando marketing agency thinks that resort marketers that are already taking these steps to improve the booking experience are at a distinct advantage, as is reflected in higher booking numbers. Contact us today and we can help you implement a number of these helpful tips for your resort!
Marketing Tools Our BIGEYE Teams Gives Thanks For
Happy Thanksgiving! In a world growing more complex on a daily basis, the team at BIGEYE gives thanks for a few marketing tools that help make our lives easier–and give us more time to spend the holidays with our families. Google Analytics: Google Analytics is an all-around excellent tool. It offers numerous ways to allow people to monitor their websites, such as allowing them to measure bounce rates, time spent on particular pages, and website behaviors as a person navigates the page.[quote]For ecommerce companies, the tool also allows people to measure conversions and the amount each purchaser spends.[/quote] It even allows the user to set goals and manage the actuals against those goals. Facebook Page Insights: At the most basic levels, Facebook Page Insights for brands allow users to track page views and engagement with posts. It allows page administrators to measure page likes, total reach, post clicks and engagement. It also allows quick links to help promote big posts, and to easily create and manage Facebook ads. Optimizely: Though more of a user experience tool, Optimizely is a great resource for digital marketers working alongside their product teams. It offers easy website optimization to help marketers determine whether their website home pages are easy to navigate. Using A/B tests, it helps determine whether different layouts might be more helpful to your business. MailChimp: MailChimp is a leading tool for email marketing. It helps businesses of any size keep track of their email marketing strategies by allowing companies that use it to track email open rates, click rates and subscriber numbers. Therefore, it allows marketers to implement testing strategies to help optimize their emails, and allows them to consider both the frequency of the emails and the content therein. Alexa: As a free tool, Alexa helps marketers keep tabs on their competition. It helps marketers determine who their competitors are, and what those sites’ traffic and activity looks like. And, all it takes it knowledge of a competitors’ website; it helps determine global rank, rank within the U.S. and where people are finding the site. This can help marketers figure out what working–and what’s not. SocialMention: SocialMention easily allows people to conduct social listening, allowing them to pull from a multitude of sources to figure out what people are saying about a given product or trend. Using just a keyword, it can help users learn what people are saying about the given keyword, pulling from sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Ask Jeeves. BrandWatch: SocialMention is a great tool for figuring out what people are saying about a given keyword, but BrandWatch is a great tool for learning how social media users are talking about brands. While there may be some overlap between the two services, BrandWatch is much more involved, offering visual interpretations of data and helping brands figure out larger patterns. Without these types of tools, our jobs as marketers would be much more difficult and far less efficient. The team at our Florida ad agency gives thanks for these uber-helpful marketing tools, all of which continually help us produce the best marketing strategies for brands of any size. In search of more info? Contact us today for a consultation – after you’ve enjoyed your turkey and all the trimmings!
How to Make a Comeback! Our Team’s dos and don’ts
Just a few months back, a rumor started circulating on the internet that ‘NSYNC would be joining forces to reunite for the first time in a decade. First, it was just a few murmurs, and then, as the buzz grew, fueled by a few leaks from publicity sources, the truth was out there for the world to witness: ‘NSYNC would indeed be joining Justin Timberlake at the 2013 VMAs. While for some, this reunion may seem to have come from nowhere, it was actually a perfectly calculated stunt to help seed excitement for Justin Timberlake’s performance and garner publicity for the VMAs. And, Miley Cyrus’s twerk fiasco aside, the ‘NSYNC reunion was the biggest newsworthy piece of the entire event. In the age of Twitter, Facebook, Intagram and at-your-fingertips celebrity journalism, news of ‘NSYNC’s members getting together to perform at the VMAs spread like wildfire. But time and again, other 90’s bands and groups that reunite do so to little fanfare. Why is it that some comebacks are a raging success, while others mark a permanent fall from glory? Here are a few tips that the team at our Orlando marketing agency has compiled to help you make a comeback that will have people’s tongues wagging for years to come: Have something worth a comeback: There are certain things in this world that wouldn’t make it through a resurgence: Beanie Babies, Pogs and slap bracelets. But when 98 Degrees went on tour with Boyz II Men and New Kids on the Block, it was a rousing success.[quote]People often find themselves emotionally attached to nostalgia, which is why comebacks that speak to a previous era can be extremely successful.[/quote] Offer something new: It’s easy to forget the days when Apple was dominated by its number one competitor, Microsoft. But when Apple took inventory of peoples’ complaints and created computers that alleviated the pains of owning a PC, they also created something that would revolutionize the way people used their computers. Offering something new and unique is a great way for businesses to stage a comeback when products are getting stale. Make necessary changes: Is your product or image in need of an overhaul? It’s important to be able to keep up with the times, and make any necessary changes to your product’s image. After a major scandal, Tiger Woods’s success in recent years can be attributed to the changes in his behavior. Create momentum: By creating momentum for your comeback, you also create hope and excitement for your audience. It takes work, but by seeding information on Twitter, posting updates in real-time on Facebook and Instagram, and keeping the press notified of your comeback, businesses can generate and maintain momentum leading up to the event. Make it a big event: When Paula Deen made her first public appearance since the racism scandal that captured the nation, she opted to do so in Texas, to massive fanfare. Good publicists are masters of coming up with stunts that help guarantee attention. Be it a massive goodwill initiative or an epic stage show, make sure your comeback offers a memorable experience for everyone who sees it. Follow up: A comeback doesn’t end with the big showcase. By following up with your audience, businesses and brands can keep the attention of potential customers in an ADD society. Do this by offering follow-up coverage of the event during the weeks following the big comeback, and piggybacking this onto future campaigns. Whether you’re Tiger Woods, Paula Deen or ‘NSYNC at the VMAs, a well-executed comeback can leave a lasting impression. Contact our Florida advertising agency to help stage your big comeback!
Why Sports Marketers Should Target Influencers For Their Brand
Nearly every professional sports team has at least a few die-hard fans, the types of fans who hold season tickets and will tell you that they haven’t missed a game in over two years. These are the fans who are happy and relieved when their teams win, but become physically angry when their teams lose. Regardless, they’ll stick by their teams through thick and thin, based on deep-seated loyalty that may go back generations. Unfortunately, most sports fans are not like that. Many will express undying love for their favorite teams, only to stop watching when their teams are having a rough season. Others are fair weather fans, fans who only seem to care about sports when their local team makes it into the playoffs. For sports marketers, it may be tempting to go after the moderate fans, and direct efforts toward people who are not already coming to games and showing support for their teams. The die-hard fans are already going to the games, spending money, and showing support, so it makes sense that they’d be a low priority…. right? Perhaps that was the case back before social media became integral to our everyday lives. But these days, your die-hard fans can also be your biggest brand ambassadors. A sports franchise doesn’t need to unload its entire marketing budget on getting fair weather fans to invest in sports…their die hard fans can do it for them! Take, for example, the MLB Fan Cave, located at 4th Street and Broadway in New York City. Through an online contest that involved Facebook sharing, tweeting and voting, a handful of baseball super fans won the opportunity to spend baseball season in the MLB Fan Cave. There, they’ll watch every single baseball game while tweeting and sharing their thoughts to their followers. They’ll also have the opportunity to meet celebrities, watch in-store performances, and to otherwise have the once-in-a-lifetime experience of being a brand ambassador to the MLB. The MLB Fan Cave Twitter account has a quarter million followers, and looks to only amass more as the season continues. These super fans are also creating content for their own Twitter, Instagam and Facebook accounts, as well as contributing to the MLB Fan Cave blog, writing about a range of subjects, such as MLB Tattoos. These super fans are valuable to MLB because of their status as influencers. The genius marketers at the MLB knew that by choosing people through a series of online votes, they’d effectively choose people who already had strong social networks, paired with the ability to effectively market themselves. Sites like Klout are designed to realize the importance of influencer behavior to marketers, a field which will only continue to grow. Marketers have long known that word-of-mouth marketing is the best form of marketing, and a program like the MLB Fan Cave is an excellent way for a big brand to garner publicity while letting its franchise fans do the work for them. So, for sports marketers who think that marketing to the super fan isn’t the right consumer tier in order to help grow the business, it’s important to remember that the these super fans can be your biggest advocates. It looks like team that created the MLB Fan Cave have hit a home run. For more sports marketing and advertising ideas, contact the team at our Florida advertising agency, who can help you design a campaign that meets your company’s needs – and, your budget!