Atlantic 10 Conference Basketball Marketing: 3 things we can learn from #14 St Joseph's

It all started with a breakdown of the A-10 Conference's Basketball Footprint (here), and we followed up by creating the Ultimate Mashup of Atlantic 10 Basketball Marketing efforts (here).

But I wanted to take that mashup a step further. To adapt.

You see the reason I love writing this blog is because I'm a believer that we can find inspiration everywhere. There's something (or things) that every program does a fantastic job of that we can learn from. In anything you do, if you can find the good in what someone does and do more of that and then avoid what you find to be less effective, you'll end up in a better place.

So while I'll give you my overall conference marketing ranking, I'm going to steer the focus of each post more into the zone of what's inspiring about each team. I hope you dig it.

#14 St Joseph's

What the program is known for? If you're selling St Joseph's, what specifically are you hyping? Success. The program has been to the dance 19 times, including 4 times in the past 10 years. One of those years, 2003-4, they went undefeated in the regular season - en route to a 1-seed and an eventual 30-2 record after a tough loss in the Elite 8. Jameer Nelson led that squad. Wow. Coach Phil Martelli is selling that season as an example of the powerhouse the Hawks are.

Why are they 14th? You wouldn't know that history if you hit the St Joe's website. And you really won't find it easy to follow this year's program either. With tradition and a great coach, there's a lot of marketing opportunities that many programs would die for!

What inspired me about St Joseph's? (linked here)

1. The ability to customize results by sport.

If you look at the top of the St Joseph's home page (or at the image above), you'll notice that you have the ability to select the sports you would like to see on the ticker in the St Joseph's site. Interesting. For now, all this does is customize the schedule and the results that appear at the top of the page. But I think the idea of customization is just beginning.

Let's ponder that. What if we could take that starting point and add to it. So that now all of your St Joseph's home page preferences would revolve around basketball. Feeds of St Joseph's from the media. Fan comments. Pictures. Twitter comments about those sports only. And of course scores and schedules. Powerful sounding. And if you wanted both Men's and Women's Basketball, fine. You get it all.

2. Listen to Hawks Games Live. Just one Click Away.

The St Joseph's Men's Basketball section has a right hand navigation (shown above) that gives you a listing of the upcoming matchups. I like having this at my disposal on a site, as it saves you a click. Note I wish that I could immediately sign up from this image to get updates from St Joseph's. Reminders to my cell phone that is, so that I know when the game is starting. (Seems like I'm always forgetting game times when I live a couple time zones away from my alma matter). Now that we have that, let's look at this in a little more depth.

I like the instant access to listen live and get a game tracker. That's cool. I don't have to do a search to find out where I can listen to the team online. Nice.

What if the game was automatically streaming from this site if you logged in during a game? So you never had to click "listen live"? Same thing with Coach Martelli's shows. Wouldn't that create an amazing experience for a fan? And you start to create that behavior -- go online during our games. And listen live with other fans from the St Joe's athletics site!

3. The Phil Martelli Story.

Several coaches put their insights into book form. The image above is a tout from the St Joseph's Men's Basketball page. Clicking on the tout takes you here, to the Coach Martelli book description (shown below - though I'm sure it's too small to read!). So I'll paste a small excerpt here:

"This unpretentious tone pervades Don't Call Me Coach--as distinctively different from most life-lessons books as Martelli's spontaneous HawkTalk is from other coaches' tightly scripted TV shows. Martelli's experiences within his own extended family--often funny, sometimes poignant, and always instructive--form a warmly personal background to everything he spells out in his book. Having turned down far more lucrative offers to coach at mega-universities, Martelli enters another new season at the helm of the storied men's basketball program at Philadelphia's Saint Joseph's University. As he puts it, "You have to know where your heart is."

Why did this inspire me? Well first of all it is a chance for me to learn more about Coach Martelli as a person. It's a full on look into how he views life. Nice. (I've met Coach Martelli and now may want to buy this book, but that's for another day!)

Now what would I do to maximize this? First, what if Coach didn't charge for his book on this site? (what?) I know that may sound crazy. But what if he said simply pay what you think it is worth and offered you the ability to download it, much like Radiohead did with their Rainbows CD. (Story here).

Is that too bold? Well, what if there were his favorite chapters for free here?

Why am I suggesting this? Because I don't think it would do anything but help the Hawks program. If more and more recruits (and their families) could read this (and I see the price as a barrier), more and more people would feel connected to this man and his love for the program. That's what it is all about.

Tune in tomorrow as we continue our Atlantic 10 journey.

Andy