Working with social media influencers is a great way to augment your sporting goods company’s marketing plan. This type of marketing is great for expanding brand awareness, driving engagement, and growing your company’s bottom line. Whether you are an entrepreneur looking to get your sporting goods business off the ground or an established brand with high levels of awareness, working with influencers is a great business move.
Here are some of the best ways to work with influencers for your sporting good company’s bottom line.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Image via Flickr by National Assembly For Wales / Cynulliad Cymru
Working with influencers can help drive internet traffic by upping your SEO, or search engine optimization. Influencers can build a strong link profile, which is useful because search engines sort sites based on factors like the authority and quality of links to your site. Influencers can also help drive engagement and content reach, helping you to find new audiences and, therefore, potential customers.
Work With Sports Celebrities
Create partnerships with sports celebrities and players who are relevant to your sporting good products. Sporting goods campaigns with stars like Michael Jordan, Christiano Ronaldo, and Serena Williams have had a lasting impact on popular culture and a high return on investment, or ROI. With competitions, their team, and their league, many athletes have a built-in fan base and mechanism for increasing their influence organically.
Sports personalities often already have a wide following, and they can demonstrate and review your products for an audience that both trusts and admires them. In fact, marketing studies have found that many social media users trust influencers almost as much as their friends and neighbors. Many sports brands benefit from recruiting up-and-coming athletes and future stars.
Sponsor Athletes in Competitions
In addition to partnering with athletes on social media, sponsoring athletes is another great way to create excitement around a sporting goods brand. Send free samples of your products to athletes involved in local and regional competitions. In addition to using your product in competitions, these athletes may decide to write a review or post a picture of themselves using your product on their blog or on social media.
Additionally, you can take a partnership to the next level by sponsoring an athlete in exchange for their agreement to wear or use your sporting goods products exclusively.
Stay Ahead of the Rapidly Changing Game
The sporting goods market is evolving rapidly, and these changes can leave companies behind if they fail to keep up with the latest trends. For example, brands have evolved by incorporating other aspects of lifestyle, health, and beauty into their brand identity in response to the exploding demand for athleisure wear.
Working with social media influencers can ensure that your brand keeps up with the latest so you don’t look old-fashioned or passe, and you can continue reaching the right audience for your products.
Working with influencers is a great way to build recognition of and trust in your sporting goods brand.
