10% of all TV watched in the US is sports. You could argue it’s probably higher since a lot of news involves sports highlights too. That being said, it’s no wonder that video and sports go hand in hand. Sporting events are an experience. You go to make memories, be united with your common fans, and hope for the taste of victory. With something so visual, you’d expect the entire business to embrace video. Well, it’s definitely starting to…
When most people think of selling, they think of selling a product or service, not sports tickets. However, selling tickets, corporate sponsorships, premium seating, etc. is BIG business and every sports team and arena sells them. Personally, I think they have a leg up because they sell more than a ticket, they sell an experience to something fun, exciting and captivating. Many of their buyers are raised growing up watching their players, coaches, victories, and defeats…there’s a very strong connection out of the gate. But, how do you present that experience when selling? Email…Phone? Nope. Go with what they are already consuming…Video!
When we start working with teams like Sacramento Kings, SF 49ers, Oakland A’s, Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rapids, Miami Marlins, NY Jets, and more, we stumbled upon a great industry to bring something new, like video selling, to something engaging: sports! But with any big change, you need to take a step back and think about your approach to make sure you can see tangible success. Here are the 4 recommendations when leveraging video selling with sports.
1) Embrace change
Like any technology purchase, most of the effort is change management and enabling your organization to adopt new ways. Video is no different, and definitely requires a “lead by example” approach. This should start from the top with executives and management fully embracing the need to leverage video as a way to outreach to clients. I even recommend leaders use video to update and communicate to their team, especially if distributed. If reps see their leaders sending videos, reps will follow suit.
2) Leverage your brand
As mentioned before, sports is already a captivating past time. Leverage this in your videos. Seeing a video from a rep is one thing; seeing the same rep record a video but include the team logo, or the team arena, or maybe even include some of the team players/coaches, that’s takes your video game to a whole new level. Imagine receiving a video that included behind the scenes rooms/lounges in the arena, or included a player/coach asking you to attend an upcoming game, that will definitely elicit a response.
3) Start small
You may think video for reps is easy to rollout, because most of them are already recording videos today. They are sending videos to their family and friends using platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, WhatApps, etc. However, the moment you ask them to use video in a business setting, things change. That’s OK. Change is good, but it’s best overcome in small steps.
I recommend start small and pick a specific use case. Perhaps you have an upcoming event and you want to drive attendance, start with that. Rally the team around this one use case, discuss the video you’d like the reps to record, have a script prepared to help with recording, add content and call to actions on the page to accompany the video, and give your reps enough time and motivation to try this first campaign. We already know sending a video in an email increases click through rates by 96%, so now you’ll be able to see those benefits as well.
4) Measure and iterate
Finally, take the first use case you decided to start with and measure the results. Explore the analytics to understand what worked. Was the video too long? Did you elicit the response you expected? Was you supporting content engaged? All of these questions will help you create better videos, content and pages going forward. Remember, if make a phone call and no one picks up, that doesn’t mean you give up on phone calls. The same is true with video. Experiment, analyze and iterate to find the perfect use cases for your team. Happy video selling!
You can see a demo and numerous examples of how sports leverage video to help sell the experience here. 
