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Digital Strategy of the Boston Red Sox
- 1. DIGITAL STRATEGY OF THE BOSTON RED SOX A L E X A N D R A S C OT T
- 2. SUMMARY Professional baseball team Formed 1901 Play at Fenway Park Curse of the Bambino Historical use of advertising
- 3. SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Google+ Pinterest
- 5. ONLINE ADVERTISING Display Advertising Search Engine Marketing Social Media Advertising
- 7. INBOUND MARKETING AUDIENCE PERSONA CONTENT OFFERS BLOG EMAIL MARKETING
- 8. AUDIENCE PERSONA Robert C. , 45 Somerville, MA Management Analyst, Liberty Mutual Boston B.A. in Finance from Boston College Married with two children Likes & Dislikes
- 9. MOBILE Similar experience Responsive design Easy to read No app
- 10. THE BIG IDEA Share User Content User Interactivity/ Engagement Social Media Contest
Editor's Notes
- -The Boston Red Sox Digital Strategy
- -The Red Sox are a professional baseball team located in Boston, Massachusetts. -They were formed in 1901, allowing the team to establish themselves as a prominent brand over the years. -Fenway Park, which they have called home since 1911, is the oldest baseball stadium in America. -Throughout their 117-year existence, the Red Sox have used advertising to bring people to their games. Advertising became especially important during their 86-year dry spell, also known as the Curse of the Bambino. They mostly used advertising to sell tickets to their games, however a lot of their advertising was also in partnership with sponsors, which is something that has not changed. -Before television took off, they used print ads to announce games, as well as post-game statistics. They currently use all forms of advertising to reach their audience, including digital media
- -The Red Sox actively use 6 social media platforms as a form of communication to their fan base. -Facebook: With over 5 million followers, Facebook is the Red Sox’ most popular and frequently used form of social media platform. Facebook is the most versatile platform, especially for building a brand’s online presence, and the Red Sox have taken advantage of this fact. They post multiple times throughout the day: game recaps, final scores, partner/sponsor deals, game day line ups, as well as other events that have going on, for example community events hosted at Fenway Park. -Twitter: Twitter is another important platform of the Red Sox’ digital strategy as they have a following of 2.08 million users. Twitter is great to send out short pieces of information, as Twitter has a limit of 140 characters. They post a lot more videos and game recaps, as well as retweet tweets they have been mentioned in. -Instagram: Instagram is a platform that is still rising in popularity and the Red Sox boast 1.5 million followers. However, Instagram does not offer the same opportunities as Twitter and Instagram to get information out to followers, so the Red Sox use their Instagram account to post beautiful photos that their users can enjoy. They post a lot about players, photos of the ballpark, fans, etc. -YouTube: The Red Sox don’t utilize YouTube to its fullest potential. They only have 17,000 subscribers, which seems so few for a brand so well established. They post videos, but not as often as they could be, as there is a lot a really great content the Red Sox could be publishing on YouTube. -Google+: While the Red Sox have a Google+ page, they have not updated it in 2 years. Google+ never took off in popularity in the way that other platforms did, so it makes sense why the Red Sox would not want to put time into a platform that is dying. -Pinterest: Just like with Google+, the Red Sox have a Pinterest account, but that account is fairly inactive. With 11,000 followers, their Pinterest account is the least popular. -IMPROVEMENTS: Interactivity: The Red Sox do not much put much effort into interacting with their audience on their social media pages. Let go of the platforms that are not being updated – Google+ and Pinterest and focus all energy on the accounts that are doing well and have a larger number of followers.
- The website of the Boston Red Sox is designed be to be simple and easy to use. All information is very easy to find The website is designed with the team’s colors, red and blue so keep the branding consistent It is also the source of all the information regarding the Boston Red Sox Users can find information on: Latest news and updates Tickets Community events and initiatives Roster Game stats/recaps IMPROVEMENTS: Currently the homepage is an overload of information all at once. They should try to declutter the homepage and space the information out more. They can have the most important information at the time, and users can scroll to see the rest. Improve visibility of the search bar: The search bar is hidden at the top of the homepage and it is hard to spot, making the icon bigger or giving a label to the icon will make it easier for users to spot it and be able to use the search.
- -Online advertising is a great way to reach their audience that may not be on social media. -Display Ads: The Red Sox could use display advertising to market their team, but because they have such an immense social media following, it is not a necessity. If they decide to add display advertising to their digital strategy, they can utilize them to sell tickets, or advertise community events. For example, if the Red Sox’ goal is to sell more tickets, they could place display ads on re-sale ticket sites like Stub hub or Ticketmaster to encourage users to buy directly from the Red Sox rather than re-sale sites. The one downside to using this form is that people have become blind to display ads, not even noticing them on a page because they are on so many pages that people have learned to ignore them completely. -Search Engine: Having specific keywords is important to a successful search engine marketing strategy. However, because the Red Sox are such a unique brand, their keywords are just as unique. Simply searching the phrase, “Boston red sox” on any engine will bring up the Red Sox’ website, Twitter page, as well as other statistics about the team. -Social Media: As mentioned before, the Red Sox have a strong social media presence and have become well established across multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
- -There are two main audiences that the Red Sox are targeting -The (greater) Boston community and -Fans of the Red Sox as well as general
- -While the Boston Red Sox are already an established brand, using inbound marketing techniques can be helpful on reaching their audiences further and expanding their online presence. Audience Persona: This will be gone over in more detail in the next slide, but audience personas are very helpful in gaining insight into the audience and learning how to appeal to their interests and how to attract them to the brand. Taking seriously the process of creating audience personas can help the Red Sox can important insights into their audience and how to effectively appeal to them. -Content Offers: Content offers are a great way to entice users to learn more about a brand or to even complete a purchase – whatever the purpose is. -One example of a content offer the Red Sox could partake in is: -An all access virtual tour of Fenway Park, where users can interact and learn more about the park, its history, and learn about the team and game day behind the scenes. Users would be interested in this before few people have access to any other parts of the park other than the seating areas and concourse. The opportunity to see the field, the locker rooms, or even corporate boxes would be enough to entice users to sign up for the opportunity. -Blog: As for the blog, the Red Sox do not currently have one. The closest thing that they have to a blog is a news reel on their website. However, it is not necessary for the Red Sox to have a blog in order to be successful in their digital strategy. Their brand relies more on their news reel as well as game recaps rather than blog posts rather than to connect and engage their audience. -Email Marketing: One inbound marketing technique that the Red Sox actively use is email marketing. They send out newsletters often, letting their audience know about offers, deals, game recaps, etc. Emails are a great way to measure metrics and the success of a campaign on the brand.
- -As mentioned in the previous slide, audience personas are an important component to the successful execution of a digital strategy as the give key insights to the brand’s target audience. -In this case we are taking about people who are Boston community members and/or are fans of the team. In this case, they are both. -Name: Robert “Rob” C. -Age: 45 -Gender: Male -Hometown: Somerville, Massachusetts -Job: Management Analyst at Liberty Mutual in Boston, -He takes the T into the city every day’ -Makes $92,000 a year -Alma Mater: Boston College -Has a bachelor’s in finance with a co-concentration in business analytics -He partied all throughout college, but somehow maintained a 4.0 GPA -Marital Status: Married with 2 children -Has a wife named Monica – they have been married for 20 years -A 16-year old daughter named Abigail and -A 14-year old son named Christopher -Likes: Football and baseball – he played all 4 years of high school -The Red Sox – has been a life-long fan; even when they were cursed -Being on time to everything -Enjoying a good bear with his coworkers after work -Eating healthy and staying fit -Dislikes: when his coworkers don’t meet their deadlines -His children when they sneak out at night -The Yankees – a life-long hatred
- -The experience of using the Red Sox website on a mobile phone is similar, if not the same as using the site on a laptop/large screen. -It has a responsive design, so the site scales down as the screen gets smaller. -All the text on the mobile version is just as easy to read and understand, even on a smaller screen where it needs to be scaled down, so all the information can fit. -IMPROVEMENTS: One suggestion that could be made is that the Red Sox could develop an app with the specific purpose on browsing on a mobile device. Some people like having apps that they can go to and get the information they are looking for rather than searching for it on the internet. -Currently, there is an app for the MLB, which include all major league teams, bit if the Red Sox want to stand out, developing a mobile app is great way to do that as well as pique the interest among app users.
- -One of the best ways to improve the Red Sox digital strategy is to Integrate their audience into their strategy. -They can start sharing user generated content on their pages -This will make the audience feel more connected to the Red Sox and improve their visibility on social media -Share this content on Facebook or retweet on Twitter -The Red Sox could also develop social media contests, to engage their audiences and attract them to these social media platforms -This can help a lot with creating new fans of the Red Sox, as well as grow their fan base and generate more interactivity on social media.