You're a fan of men's football, let's say you support the French football club Paris Saint-Germain. Then the club tells you "here, look at this new team, the PSG women's squad. You'll love it, because you love the PSG men's squad". It's a promotional strategy that has been used by the WNBA, which is promoted as a companion league to the NBA, sharing cities, venues, uniform aesthetic, and player appearances at NBA All-Star weekends. It definitely builds awareness (we'll talk about some examples below) but does it connect with the future avid fans who are the target consumer of the women's game?
Let's take a look at the PSG example, as an ultra simplified case study.
The club PSG is using cross-advertising to promote it's women's squad, by placing promotions on its club's (ie. men's team) Facebook page. It made me curious to know how effective this cross-promotional strategy is for finding the avid fan of women's soccer. The search for the avid fan is a journey all clubs and leagues are on - the avid fan has the most potential for revenue generation (jersey sales, match tickets, media purchasing, etc). So I looked a little deeper.
Take a look at the number of "likes" on this image below, a post on the club's Facebook page. The post, which is promoting the PSG women's Facebook page, received almost 5,000 likes - pretty good activity. (To give some context, the posting on the MLS Portland Timbers FC Facebook page announcing the 2013 launch of the new women's pro team received a tad over 600 likes.) So obviously PSG has identified a benefit here in building awareness. Yet did all those 5,000 fans who "liked" the post click through to the PSG women's Facebook page and "like" that too?
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| Facebook post from the men's page promoting the PSG women's team account |
A visit to the page today shows the account has only tallied 3,304 likes total. This tells me that although 5,000 fans are moved enough to hit "like" on the post, only a small percentage are avid enough to actually follow the link and became a follower of the women's account. Translate this to the action of purchasing a match ticket and the percentage is even lower. Delivering the content to the right target group will increase the odds that the fan will act in a way that engages and generates revenue. For example, there is a good chance the engagement is likely to be higher when the message is posted where fans of women's football already exist, such as the French Women's National Team Facebook page.
Here below is an image (also pulled from the PSG men's Facebook page) promoting a special ticket price for the double-header weekend - fans turning out to the women's game who show their ticket to the men's match later that day receive special pricing at 80% off. The logic behind this strategy makes sense - it offers a fantastic sampling event at low cost to the fan, and could be lead generator for future fans. But what I'd like to better understand is are they targeting the right fan? If the goal of the club is to build a pipeline of interested fans long-term, increase the passion level of the fan base, and ultimately increase ticket sales then the sharper the club can get on finding the space where that avid fan lives, the better chance of success.
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| Facebook post from the women's team page promoting a double-header with the men's team, and a special ticket price for the women's match when presenting your men's match ticket. |
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| Pricing structure for PSG's match against Olympique Lyonnais, showing discounted ticket price (2 euros) for fans showing their ticket to the men's match later that day. |
Cross-promotional strategies can help build awareness by tapping into the club's existing fan base. But, a more targeted approach can drive identification of who is that avid women's soccer fan and ultimately engage the most valuable segment. I need to explore deeper to discover how PSG might be doing this. Stay tuned for future posts on how PSG and other clubs who partner with men's clubs are attacking this.
Source: PSG.
Related posts:
Thoughts on the Launch of the US Women's Pro League
PSG Transforms Highlights Clips into Music Video
Olympique Lyonnais - the North Star?
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