Unplugged: Thinking Different is the Key to Digital Success in College Sports

Today I'm going to take a little different approach. As you no doubt know, I've been spending a ridiculous amount of time checking out digital and social media best practices across the college sports landscape. I do it to help and to inspire (and hopefully I do!)

So today I'm not going to highlight a single best practice but rather I'm going to talk more philosophically. I'm going to put myself in your shoes and talk a bit about the digital landscape and how I would try to approach things if it was up to me. By doing this, I'll no doubt be dead on about some things with your program and way off on other things. And you know what? I'm cool with that. I simply hope this challenges you, makes you think, and gives you confidence or inspiration to try something new.

Today I'm not going to dive into Social Media -- don't worry, there will be time for this over the next few weeks. I'm instead turning attention to the topic of your website...

1. Don't make your sponsors an equal focus to your consumer. Focus relentlessly on about your brand. This is a tough dynamic to get to. I understand that many of you earn a good share of revenue by offering banners on your sites for partners. But I ask you to step back a second. Step back and ask yourself, "Is this really valuable for our sponsor?" My take is that, no, it's not. If a consumer hits your website it's not highly likely that they suddenly will feel the urge to get a car insurance quote. Sure, you may have some metrics that show a certain number of eyeballs that see an advertisement is worth a certain amount. But I would challenge you to get rid of all advertising on the site. Make it 100% about your brand, about driving people into an experience. Car Insurance companies invest with you because they want to identify with your brand. So build that brand and make them want to align even closer. Then work on ways to smartly connect them to content you create.

2. Simplify your focus to one word: Access. The content you create is about access. As the marketing team, you have more access to the squads, the coaches, the campus, the gyms, and the stories. Don't lose your focus on this point, as it is the #1 thing you can control and the #1 thing that builds your brand in the eyes of your consumer, whether you consider your consumer the High School kid thinking about your program, an alum, a current student, a booster, or a sponsor. Now Access doesn't mean you go overboard and you take away privacy for your teams. It simply means that when you go after content, go after content that only you could create. Content that reinforces who you are, what you stand for, and why you win.

3. Throw away the Media Guide. Stop doing things that expire and aren't hitting your target consumer. I was sitting in a media room of an NCAA Game a few years ago talking to an SID. He was worn out, and I talked to him about the landscape. The trouble is, he had started out as a traditional guy, working on media guides when the internet came about. Now he was both a traditional guy and a digital guy with the same expectations on one side and new ones on the other. He had no additional budget and no additional help. No wonder he was jammed!

So that got me thinking on Let's start with a simple question: Why do you create a media guide? Please don't let the answer be that we've always done this or everyone else does this. Those are my favorite times in life to shine. When everyone else does one thing, think differently.

I see lots of challenges as it relates to media guides. They don't really hit your target consumer. Sure they have information inside it that benefits reporters covering a game. Check. But that information is often expired by the time game two comes. More importantly, they take serious investments in time & sometimes money to create. I'm definitely a believer that marketing is about choices. We can't do everything. So that means if I'm in your shoes we aren't doing a media guide. We are going to create a content strategy and roll it out through the year. And I bet you we get more coverage for this than we currently get for our traditional guide.

4. Ask the team what do you want to be famous for? I talked to a commissioner of a D-1 Conference who told me that they knew fans came to their site first and foremost for the standings and schedule. Thus, that needed to be the most prominent feature. I would ask us all this question: Do you really want to be famous for the schedule and scores? Anyone can deliver this information, and do it as well as we can and maybe even faster as the competition for coverage includes the likes of ESPN and CBS Sports. Think differently. Rather than thinking about a schedule, think about what your school's point of view on what a schedule really is. I'd much rather see quick blog entries, photo galleries, or interviews around a practice report preparing for a game rather than the calendar itself. Meanwhile, I would make the calendar easy to download to the mobiles of our fan base. (It's much, much better to look at your mobile and see when teams play than it is to go to a website and hunt for a schedule). This isn't to say that I would not offer the schedule on the site. It is to say that isn't my top priority in building our brand.

5. Be a bulletin board. Express emotion, rather than reporting news. Let the AP wire report the news. From a college perspective, having a system that lets us upload a powerful, emotional image (or lots of them) with a bold headline draws people in and often times gets them to share your message socially. Reporting the facts simply gives them information. I don't mean a bulletin board from the standpoint of belittling anyone or antagonizing an opponent. I do mean it from being personal, emotional, and expressing your positive energy on your program. Don't be afraid to show love!

Thanks for hanging with me today. As always, you can follow along on Twitter (I'm @andypawlowski, here)... or on Facebook (here).

Talk soon.

Andy