MVC College Basketball Marketing: #5 Missouri State

We'll keep moving through the Missouri Valley Conference, looking at how programs are communicating to young athletes (or fans) from a digital point of view. Websites and digital marketing are the great equalizer -- a place where every program can share what they stand for. And I'd argue all of this is even more critical for the Mid Majors out there. Smart marketing can help build that connection that gets you the athlete you need.

Thus far our journey has shown us #10 Creighton,#9 Evansville, #8 Indiana State , #7 Drake, and #6 Northern Iowa.

Let's keep moving.

#5 Missouri State

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Nice bold home page callouts for ways to follow the Bears

Weaknesses: Once you hit the Hoops section, things tail off quickly...

Full Scouting Report:
Having grown up in Springfield, I was pretty excited to head to the Missouri State website (link here). It's one of those times when the visit makes you think about the way technology has changed since I was in high school. The site is impressive at first pop. You have very easy access into ways of following the program of your choice. Let's look around.



First, as you'd guess, I love that upper right box. Let's take a look at all the ways of following the Bears.


The Bears Blog (here) has a great set up for success - pulling in stories across multiple sports into this central feed. The downside is there really aren't any men's hoops posts yet.



Missouri State's Facebook presence, here, is home to around 4,700 pretty passionate fans. This covers all sports and focuses on game updates. It's alright, but could definitely use an infusion of original content to ignite this fan base.



MSU puts together a weekly podcast of all things Bears Athletics. You can download individual episodes or subscribe inside iTunes. I like the predictability of this - each and every week we know what to expect. That's solid. Now I want to add in custom programming for hoops.



The Missouri State Athletics Twitter page, here, has just under 1,000 followers. The site covers updates across all teams and shares updates on the programs. I'm not a fan of seeing them follow other teams in the Valley though, as I don't think it's good practice to have a prospective athlete on your site see a link to the 'enemy'. Of note, the MSU Twitter button only goes here, even though there are other Bear Twitter sites which we'll go through now...



I kind of like the Missouri State Madness (student section) on Twitter. Visible here, they have only 88 followers but you have to love the potential of a Twitter site around a student section... Marquette Superfans anyone?



And, Coach Cuonzo Martin is also up on Twitter, here. With just north of 400 followers, he does a nice job - sharing some personality and a little insight. Worth a follow.



Moving to the basketball section you'll notice the latest news as video (or still images) is pumped into the main window...


Scrolling down the page gives you a cool tout for Podcasts - I really liked this as a way to bring fans and recruits closer to the Bears. Solid.


MSU also offers a Gameday Guide that allows you to (at any point in the season) check in on future or past games and get complete access on how to plan a trip to support the Bears. I like this as it makes it easy to support your team... but would love to see them add in tips and advice from fans. If you are heading up to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where should you stay or eat?


And, MSU adds their media guide, referred to as a Basketball Guide. I liked the name much better, but would love to see a lot more depth on the squad, the vision of the coaches, their new arena, and the city of Springfield. Lots of this is likely a big unknown to the potential athlete and I believe MSU needs to deliver this.


That's it. We're down to our final 4 - Bradley, Illinois State, Southern Illinois, and Wichita State. Who's it going to be?

Come back tomorrow as we keep rolling.