NCAA Tournament Basketball Marketing: What we can learn from #1 Seed Duke

We continue our evaluation of this year's NCAA Tournament field, from a marketing point of view. We're in search of inspiration- things that all of us can take and apply into our worlds. And, for fans, of each team, that's a look into what makes you special.

It's time to check out the South Region.

Up first, top seeded (and National Champ) Duke. Note, I previously profiled the Blue Devils, ranking them the best in the ACC (here).

South #1 Seed Duke (links here, here, and here)

What Inspires me about the Duke Blue Devils Athletics Marketing?

Duke Athletics Home

Coach K.com

Duke Blue Planet

As you can gather from the 3 links and images above, it's tough to take a program like Duke and boil it down to just three things that inspired me. So I've chosen to elevate my favorite thing in each of the 3 Duke sites, which I'll discuss here.

1. Duke Blue Planet Live (link here)

This is one of my favorite features, anywhere. I'm going to spend a little time talking about this here, because there's a lot we can learn from here. And, you really need to check out Duke Blue Planet (here), as I could do a top 10 list of features here. (one day!)

OK. So if you click into Duke Blue Planet Live, you come to the image below. Duke has done a lot amazing here. First, they are aggregating all "Insiders" here. And insiders are coaches, current players, former players, and Duke official sites. That's hot. Seriously, it is everything as a Duke fan you might want. I don't know why you'd go anywhere else!

Now, if you look closer (I zoomed in below), you see that Duke has made it very easy to retweet or reply to any of the comments. Wow. So now you the Insider get more love for your comments because Duke has made it easy. Fantastic.

But it doesn't stop here. Click on "Our Fans" and you are able to see all the chatter from people on Twitter who have identified themselves as a Blue Devil fan. Again, the easy retweet and reply buttons are here. You'll also notice in the upper right the ability to grab the Duke Twitter widget. So you can take this content and put it into your blog -- meaning Duke fans can now take all of this with them, to their site. Crazy.

Finally, the image below shows how easy they make it to share links on the squad. (nothing below, but I'm sure that changes in the heart of the season). I also like the call to action on the right -- Are you a Tweeting Duke fan? Sign up to appear on our Fans page. Hot.

So how could we make this better? That's a tough one. But I have 2 thoughts.

• I think finding a way to elevate bloggers or sports beat writers who cover the squad could be interesting. Maybe that's a way to make the Links page a bit more relevant? That way we could include links to every post bloggers and journalists are writing on the team in one spot, much like the Tweets have been aggregated. Make them easy to Tweet and share via Facebook + email. That'd be incredible!
• Could we make it easy to follow any of the insiders on Twitter? (either as a list or individually?) I'd love to see a simple "subscribe" button that allows me to get access to all of these insiders!

2. Twitter Hits the Athletics Site

This is fantastic. Duke does a great job on Twitter (link here), and I find it shocking they "only" have 3,500 followers. But they take the Twitter feed and pump it right into the basketball home page (shown below). This is great, as they take the basketball action and bring it right to the fan (or recruit) who is looking for it.

How do we make it better? I'd love to see the Insiders from Duke Blue Planet infiltrate this site. Find a way to elevate the Duke MBB Twitter as the "hero" or host of this content, but bring everything together. That way you elevate not just one Twitter feed but all the great stuff. And then, come game day, you have a stream of content hitting fans who are ready for it!

3. Coach K's Quotes

Coach K. He's a legend, I wanted to add this one to show that you don't have to go to big extremes to make a big impact. Every coach has quotes that define their philosophy of basketball, player development, relationships, and life. And through Coach K's site, those are all elevated in one spot, linked here. You can't read these without getting a better feel for who Coach is as a teacher and a leader.

How could this be better? Let us sign up for a quote of the day. (or week) That'd be incredible - to have an easy way to get motivated and inspired from a legend. And it would connect us deeper to Duke in the process.

That's it. Come back tomorrow as we keep moving!

Andy