Sales and Promotion in Sports: Case of the Staten Island Yankees - Term Paper Example

Marketing Introduction The world of sports is dominated by a lot of events, fanfare and other forms of activities that require a lot of co-ordination and awareness. In the process of undertaking these activities it is imperative for finances to be utilized. As a result, we have to undertake a lot of marketing and promotions for a sports event or team to achieve success. Successful sports teams utilize a lot of funds in the process of marketing and selling their teams or merchandise. This essay is going to undertake a study on a small New York based baseball team, the Staten Island Yankees. This team is an affiliate of the New York Yankees in the Short Season A classification. Sales & Promotional Strategy In the process of undertaking a sales and promotional strategy for the Staten Island Yankees team, we have to undertake a study of the team and market. Different teams and league have different ways of undertaking sales and promotional events based on the sport, location and purpose. Consequently sports teams usually consider their target audience and the ability of attracting these people in the process of selling and promoting the team’s activities. The following strategy processes are going to be adopted by the Staten Island Yankees in the process of conducting a sales and promotional study. a) Definition of objectives: Before a team starts conducting a sales and promotional strategy, it is important to define the objectives of the sales and promotional strategy. In this case, the team wants to increase it visibility and conduct sales especially within the greater New York area. Therefore, the team’s main objective would be to increase sales through use of promotions, events, advertising, sales and image of the team (Czinkota, 2007). These factors will guide in the implementation of the sales and promotional strategy. b) Definition of promotions: In the process of defining a sales and promotional strategy is to ensure that the promotions on target to be used are meant for certain purposes. For instance, promotions are meant for attracting audiences and creation of a positive image or identity for a team. The Staten Island Yankees is in need of attracting audiences for and creating a brand image just like its big team of the New York Yankees (Kurtz, 2010). c) Identification of role of PR: Public relations are important in the process of building the image of a team or product. In our case, the Staten Island Yankees is going to define the role that the PR team has in the implementation of a sales and promotional strategy. Once the roles and objectives of the team are listed, discussed and agreed upon it is now the process of undertaking the processes of conducting sales and promotional activities (Mullin, 2007). In the process of undertaking the sales and promotional activities of Staten Island Yankees, we are going to focus on these key areas: events, promotions, advertising and public relations. a) Events: Sports marketing is mainly focussed on undertaking events and therefore the team is going to make use of this platform to conduct its sales and promotional activities. Baseball is one of the biggest sports in the United States and this draws a lot of loyal fans to different teams such as the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. As a result, the Staten Island Yankees should organize a lot of events where they publicise the team and cultivate fan loyalty (Kurtz, 2010). Since the Staten Island Yankees is an affiliate of the famous New York Yankees franchise, the team should make use of this connection to ensure that they organize pre season games with a view of capturing some of the Yankees fans into its fans base. Moreover, the team officials should inculcate marketing in events whereby the big baseball games are organized within the New York area. Events such as school games, organising small concerts with the purpose of popularizing the team would be beneficial and part of the sales and promotional strategy. Consequently, organizing friendly games against well known baseball teams would assist the team in building its reputation and brand. One of the best ways of creating rapport between the team and the fans it creation of events that go way out in meeting the fans. Making use of such events end up popularising the team and creating loyalty among the fans. b) Advertising: This factor is core to the development of a sales and promotional strategy since advertising is used in popularising the team. The Staten Island Yankees should make use of advertising modes that reach to its target audience which in this case are New York residents across all ages. In the process of advertising, the team should adopt a cost effective method of advertising such as radio, online adverting through popular media such as Facebook and Twitter (Plummer, 2008). Radio stations around the area of Staten Island are suitable for conducting for conducting sales and promotional activities. Advertising should aim at selling team’s tickets and merchandising while at the same time popularising the team. Online adverting through ads in sports websites would be popular since these websites have a lot of fans and following. The Staten Island Yankees could in buy banner ads in popular sites such as ESPN and the New York Yankees. Online adverts should be conducted sparingly since it is not highly popular with sports fans. Although, online advertising reaches a lot individuals it is not flexible for Staten Island Yankees in this case (Desbordes, 2012). This is because this team is a community team and thus the best form of advertising would be the use of local radio stations in advertising and reaching out to different audiences. Making use of posters and other signage outside the Staten Island Yankees stadium would also draw the attention of fans and interested baseball fans. c) Promotions & Merchandise: In the world of sports marketing, it is important to ensure that a team or a brand makes money to sustain its activities and gain more following. The Staten Island Yankees is a team that should utilize its ties with New York Yankees to produce and sell it products. Some of the products they could produce include t-shirts, jerseys, caps and gift items such as dolls, mementos which bear the logos and colours of the team. There are several promotional activities that the team could conduct in the process of achieving its target in the sales and promotional items (Buhler, 2012). Teams such as New York Yankees rake in over $ 100 million through merchandising. One of the best methods of exciting customers is to entice customers to purchase tickets with the promise of winning awards. For instance, the Staten Island Yankees could sell its tickets with a promise of giving away some 5 New York Yankees opening season tickets in a raffle competition. As a result, fans of the team will purchase the tickets in anticipation of winning the suggested prizes. During games or season where there will be low attendance, the team could conduct coupon and ticket discounts so as to shore up support for the team (Kurtz, 2010). A combination of promotional events and use of adverting could create a buzz around the Staten Island Yankees teams leading to increased sales and brand recognition amongst its fans. d) Branding and Public Relations: In the process of marketing and building the networks it is imperative for a company or team to ensure that its brand is marketed in a proper manner. Public relations involve promoting the image of the team and communicating with the public and team members. As a result, in the process of branding it is imperative for the team to gain recognition and increase its presence in the competitive market. The Staten Island Yankees is a baseball team with logos and affiliation to New York Yankees but it is overshadowed by the popular team. As a result, the team should build its own brand and make sure that it easily recognisable and distinguished against other brands (Buhler, 2012). In this case, the best strategy to adopt in the process of building the brand is to create a room for people to be hired as communication officers in the process of branding the company. Public relations involve addressing concerns of fans and other people in the process of building a brand. The team should hire public relations officers who should be put responsible for building the brand of the company (Mullin, 2007). Moreover, these officers are supposed to undertake communication and watching out of any information concerning the team that could tarnish the name or brand of the team. As a result, they are going to maintain a good name for the team. The above strategies are supposed to be undertaken in the process of promoting and undertaking sales for the Staten Island Yankees. However, there are other prerequisite factors that need to be considered in the process of undertaking these strategies. Some of these activities include budgeting, training, hiring staff and fund raising. a) Promotional Budget: In the process of undertaking a sales and promotional campaign, it is necessary for a company to set aside and plan for a budget that ensures certain targets are met. In the case of the Staten Island Yankees, it is imperative to consider how much it is going to cost the team to undertake the different sales and promotional strategies that have been planned. It is important that a budget is set and maintained throughout the whole process of undertaking the sales and promotional activities. In the process of budgeting it is important to undertake a budget that is founded on the objectives and tasks that need to be completed on time (Webber, 2005). As a result, it would be prudent to have a realistic budget that adheres to the tasks set out in the program. In the scenario of Staten Island Yankees, it would be wise to undertake a process whereby budgeting is undertaken based on important needs or objectives up to a certain capped percentage of the sales. b) Training: In the process of undertaking a promotional event it is important for the sales and marketing team to train its staff on how to conduct sales based on training on issues concerning the team. Some of the pertinent issues include the sales target, audience and message that should be taken across to all prospective fan or customer of the Staten Island Yankees (Plummer, 2008). Training is important since it assures that everybody understands the objectives of the sales and promotional strategies and how to achieve these strategies. c) Hiring staff: The process of hiring staff is quite hectic but we must hire staffs that are well versed with conducting sales, promotional and public relations issues. Hiring the right staff ensures easy undertaking of the sales and promotional strategies. In this scenario, the Staten Island Yankees will hire staffs who were previously involved in the adverting and marketing industries (Schwarz, 2012). d) Fund raising: Apart from raising funds and revenue through its events, the Staten Island Yankees should have financial backing from corporate sponsors or local businesses since it is a local team. Getting endorsements and raising funds through corporate sponsors ensures that team sales and promotional activities can be achieved easily. Conclusion The process of marketing a team should be well thought and organised since it depends on these activities that a successful marketing operation can be conducted. Some of the factors that are considered in the process of coming up with a marketing strategy include advertising, the target audience, budgeting and costs. When we look at Staten Island Yankees, we notice a local team which is in need of a good sales and marketing campaign and thus the team has to undertake certain strategies. Some of these strategies include organizing events, conducting promotions and merchandising its good or items at good market prices. However, a good budget and other stuff such as marketing, training of staff has to be undertaken in a proper manner. Therefore, if the above strategies are implemented then the Staten Island Yankees will be successful in meeting its sales and promotional goals. References Buhler, A. & Gerd, N. (2012). Relationship Marketing in Sports. London: Sage. Czinkota, M. & Ronkainen, I. (2007). International Marketing. New York, NY: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Desbordes, M. & Richelieu A. (2012). Global Sport Marketing: Contemporary Issues and Practice. Chicago, IL: Edward Elgar Publishing. Kurtz, D. (2010). Contemporary Marketing. San Francisco, CA: Prentice Hall. Mullin, B., Hardy, S. & Sutton W. (2007). Sport Marketing. Chicago, IL: Routledge. Plummer, F. (2008). ‘The Evolution of Sports Marketing in the United States’. Journal of International Marketing, 24(1), 23-28. Schwarz, E. & Hunter, J. (2012). Advanced Theory and Practice in Sport Marketing. Boston, MA: John Wiley and Sons. Webber, G 2005, ‘The Role of Advertisers and Endorsements in Sports’, Journal of the Royal Marketing Institute, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 75-79. Read More