The Detroit Pistons aim to continue engaging fans across various social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Their website needs updates like removing old merchandise and adding social media contests to encourage fan engagement. Content offerings will include blogs for basketball fans and email marketing providing season updates. The mobile site and app need to translate well and keep kids engaged with games. Online advertising will target sport apparel sites and use social media posts. A big idea is using virtual reality to let fans experience playing against the Pistons, with a $3,000 budget to purchase headsets.
2. • Continue to use visual heavy
sites like Instagram and Youtube
• Create more user engagement
on Instagram
• Make text heavy sites work for
them, like Twitter and Facebook
• Ex: Facebook live
games/highlights
• Respond to Twitter followers
SOCIAL MEDIA
3. • Home base for the brand
• Create subsections for pages to combat over concentration of info
• Need home button
• Continue to target the active audience
• Adding to the toolbar to welcome new fans
PISTONS WEBSITE
4. • Get rid of old merchandise
• Make room for new merchandise that sells
• Create social media contests to encourage engagement
• Dunk contest
• Post picture
• Hash tag
CONTENT OFFER
5. • Blogs
• Bring new fans to the brand
• General blog for all basketball fans
• Email Marketing
• Links in emails to website
• Don’t overload emails to subscriber
• Provide updates through the season
INBOUND MARKETING
6. • Continue to be user friendly
• Beware of users data and phone lags
• Keep only crucial content on mobile
site
• Over load of information on mobile site
is terrible
• Keep in mind small phone screens and
the frustration that can cause the
viewer
MOBILE SITE
7. • Continue to be user friendly
• Translates well from
website
• Add games to keep kids
engaged
MOBILE APP
8. • Banner ads
• Grocery store sites
• Sport apparel sites
• Sporting good sites
• Social media advertising
• Instagram posts
• Twitter posts
• Sponsored Instagram posts
ONLINE ADVERTISING
9. • Virtual reality and the sports industry
• Practice tool for athletes
• Provide an interactive experience for fans
• Post videos of people using the virtual reality headsets to spread the word
BIG IDEA
10. • Best Buy sells them for up to $1200
• Purchase a few to get the campaign started
• Make the person feel like they are playing with the Pistons against the team that is currently
playing
• Budget of $3000
• Will require staff supervision
BIG IDEA
Editor's Notes
My name is Kimberly Arnold and the brand I chose to follow throughout the semester was the Detroit Pistons and this is the digital strategy I created for them.
The Detroit Pistons are a visual brand and should continue to use visual heavy social media sites like Instagram. The Pistons should try to encourage more user engagement on their Instagram page. For example, create posts that ask questions that encourage followers to respond, and then engage in the conversation that was created. Even though visual heavy sites are best for the brand, they still need exposure on text heavy sites, like Twitter and Facebook. The Pistons can make social media apps like these work for them by utilizing their visual features. For example, putting the entire basketball game or highlights on Facebook live will allow followers to easily watch the game. Twitter is a great communication tool. It is the easiest way to contact and brand and quickly get a response if the runner of the page is doing as they should. Twitter allows communication with the brand that makes the brand more personal. Responding to tweets on Twitter is a great way to interact and engage with your followers. It is also simple, as it only takes a few seconds to respond to a tweet.
The Pistons website is their way to welcome their fans and new fans to the brand. The website is very user friendly and should remain that way. Something the Pistons need to work on with their website is the amount of information is overwhelming. An overload of information will make the user think too heard, which might make them leave the website. The Pistons should make subsections for each page so that it is more organized and concise. The extensive tool search bar goes to waste if the pages on the site are not well organized. The Pistons also need to create a home button for their site instead of having viewers click the Detroit Pistons logo to get back to the home page. Older users or first time visitors might not know that that is the button you use to get home. This could cause frustration, and frustration can always cause people to leave and not return. The website does a good job at targeting the Pistons fans. In order to make their potentially active audience feel special and want to return to the site, the Pistons could create a “Hey New Fans” button on the toolbar that gives all basic Pistons info that any new fan would come to the site for.
The Pistons should implement a content offer with their merchandise. They should collaborate with the sales department to see what merchandise isn’t selling and get right of that product. The Pistons can create content that will make viewers want to interact with the Pistons. For example, if a viewer is on the site streaming a game, a pop up would pop up. This pop up could prompt the viewer to do something in order to win free merchandise such as a social media contest that requires the viewer to use a hash tag or requires them to post a picture with some type of Pistons gear on or make a video dunk contest that requires people to post videos of them doing insane dunks with some type of hash tag. You will be able to tell if this content offer is working because people will be posting the hash tag, pictures, or dunk videos, whichever avenue the Pistons take.
The Pistons mobile app is very user friendly. The toolbar and menu on the mobile app is just as extensive as the one you would find on the Pistons website, so there is good translation between the two. The Pistons mobile app is where they can try to make the brand more engaging. Because apps are meant to be on your phone, they are always more organized and easier to deal with from a mobile device. The Pistons could add more games to their app to get kids engaged, because we all know the new babysitter is a game or an app on a phone. The number of games you can add to the app are endless, which makes opportunities endless as well.