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22
Feature
“There are so many opportunities out there that
it is often hard to see through such a cluttered
marketplace, so we tend to focus on a few key
channels.”
Jonathan Simpson is the Digital Marketing Manager at the Essendon Football Club. He has been working
with the club for the past four years, but recently moved into this newly created role in November 2009. He
has qualifications in Sports Science, Physical Education, Media Arts, Copywriting and Digital Marketing
and has worked in a variety of organisations and roles over
the past 10 years – including overseas aid (photography and
documentary filmmaking), automotive engineering (graphic
design) and finally sports marketing. The Digital Marketing
role at Essendon involves digital strategy development, social
media activation, analytics, brand development and website
engagement.
Digital marketing –
should sport avoid or embrace it?
What is the importance of the digital media strategy for
Essendon FC and why did you introduce it?
Digital Marketing is of vital importance, and is only going to
become a more valuable part of our overall marketing mix. Our
mantra at Essendon is ‘content of choice, via platform of choice’
and this is why we introduced digital channels into our overall
marketing strategy. We want to engage and communicate with
our fans at a place and time that is convenient to them, through
platforms, tools and spaces that they use each and every day.
Our strategy is based upon building relationships with our
consumers, providing opportunities for them to engage with the
club and feel part of what we are trying to achieve (Premiership
success). In doing so we aim to develop and foster long term and
sustainable transactional relationships. We believe integrating
digital channels into our overall marketing strategy allows us to
build these relationships effectively and creatively, while providing
the opportunity to track and analyse everything we do - evolving
as we listen and learn.
Could you give us a brief outline of the
digital media channels that Essendon
FC uses?
There are so many opportunities out there
that it is often hard to see through such
a cluttered marketplace, so we tend to
focus on a few key channels. Our website
(
www.essendonfc.com.au
) is our primary
digital channel and plays an important
role in everything we do. We have a
mobile website (
www.essendonfc.com.au/
mobile
) and are developing mobile phone
applications for a variety of handsets
and operating systems. We also utilise
Facebook and Twitter, as well as SMS
and email.
Could you give us the brief pro’s and
cons of each of the channels?
Our website provides us with our best
‘mass’ marketing channel, and while this
is a strength it can also be said that one
size does not fit all with such a diverse
supporter base. We aim to provide unique content that members
and supporters cannot get anywhere else, while providing
the opportunity for people to get involved in the conversation.
Whether this be through news, behind-the-scenes video, player
information or competitions, we aim to allow fans to interact with
the club and one another. The website allows for discussion,
debate and ‘insider’ access across all components, as well as
the opportunity for user generated content (comments, images,
video). This tends to be the first port of call for the majority of our
fans online. In 2010 we developed a more sophisticated match
day centre where fans could get live scores, stats, commentary,
insider comments as well as the opportunity to chat live with an
injured player during matches. The next development phase is
video and mobile content.
Facebook is a completely different beast. At the moment we use
Facebook as part of our web traffic acquisition strategy (it
Digital marketing should be an essential element of the marketing mix for all businesses
today, including sports clubs and associations. But for many clubs who rely on volunteers
and who operate on tight budgets, is it worthwhile?
Touchline asked the digital marketing manager at Essenden FC, Jonathan Simpson,
to provide us with an insight as to how digital marketing can be used to good effect in
sport.
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