Video Marketing your Athletic Organization

Video marketing for sports:

Athletics are one of the hardest industries to market digitally.

Why? Because it’s an industry that has survived, and even thrived, for so long without really needing the aid of video marketing. Ironically, it’s also one of the best industries for engaging video creation.

If you’re involved with an athletic organization and you want to expand your marketing efforts to include video, where should you start?

The Allure of Athletics

We’ve all watched sports highlights. Even the most apathetic sports fan can appreciate a slick goal, a towering homerun, a full-field touchdown, or an Olympian earning their gold medal. Sports may be an athletic contest on the outside, but at their core, they’re a highly visual medium; the sparring of modern gladiators augmented, globally decentralized, dramatized, and refined by the simple addition of video cameras. The introduction of the camera invited us in to be spectators, participants, and commentators, and changed the face of global athletics forever – and the industry behind it.

Sports events (especially international events like the World Cup and Olympics) are one of the most highly broadcasted, highly watched tv mediums to ever exist. Of course, what you see onscreen is just the tip of the iceberg: most people only care deeply about professional sports, but there are thousands of sports teams and organizations out there who need marketing help. Strangely, very few of them have tapped into the powerful marketing potential of video.

If you want to get started on video marketing to get a leg up on your competitors, but aren’t sure where to start, here are some tips for you (based on what organization you’re running).

Sports School or Academy

If you’re with a sports academy, you may be looking for an edge over your competitors in the field of recruitment. How do you make your school seem more attractive to prospective student athletes? A compelling video that lets students know what they can expect at their school could be a huge advantage in improving enrolment.

Pro-tip: when you’re marketing a school, don’t just try to sell potential students on your athletic programs. Share what other benefits your school might offer – socially, academically, and geographically – in order to add broad appeal to parents and youth and give you a potential edge over competitors when utilizing video marketing for sports.

Tourism/Municipal Organization

If you work for a municipality and you’re hoping to promote your sports programs, your best bet is to focus your efforts on video promotion through your website and social media channels. Municipal websites tend to get lots of organic traffic, so pairing your site with video will help people see that your programs look professional. In the meantime, having high-quality videos that showcase the breadth and variety of your recreation programming on your social media channels will generate visibility and excitement in viewers.

Amateur Sports Team

Even nearing the college or professional level, those who run sports teams need a way to stand out from their counterparts in the field of recruitment. Whether you’re a small team or internationally known, recruitment videos go a long way in video marketing for sports, and so do team highlight reels. By using good equipment and editing software, you can capture good slo-mos and high-quality clips that will make your organization look amazing.

The Self-Marketing Machine

Because sports are largely self-marketing, it requires a little extra creativity to really stand out. Sports material is inherently engaging, but you’ll struggle to gain truly engaged followers unless you create video that stands far above your typical highlight reel. This is where a video production company really comes in handy. A good video production company not only has the technical tools, skills, and know-how to make standout video content and commercials, they also have the experience and insight to frame it into a story – one that makes your company stand miles above the rest.