Big East Conference Best Practices: Rutgers Elevates Dance.

This blog is all about inspiration. We're going to spend 3 days elevating best practices from the squads that make up the Big East. You can tune in on this blog, or you can follow along on Facebook (linked here) or on Twitter -- I'm @pawlow34.

What makes something a best practice? This isn't about the most intricate experience. It's about looking at the world from your consumer's point of view and delivering something that hits it right smack on the head. In the case of colleges, I'm treating the primary consumer as that prospective student athlete.

Thus far we've checked out how U Conn directs recruits, here.

Let's keep moving.

When I clicked into the Rutgers home page, here, I was caught off guard. One of the most prominent site elements was Cheerleading & Dance? Then I thought about it. Cheerleading & Dance! A key to good marketing is knowing your target consumer and elevating what they most want to have. And I found it really interesting that Cheerleading & Dance was elevated to the prominent slot after Schedules & Multimedia. It was even easier for me to find this than the sport sections... Let's click in.

The Dance home page, here, gives us an image and information on the squad and, most importantly, access to the Roster.

Clicking into the roster shows us the full squad (by first names) and easy access to share this page, as shown in the upper right-hand corner of this image. There's something about only listing first names that makes it feel even more personal. As if the prospective student-athlete is already on first-name speaking terms with the dance team. Nice touch...

No section like this would be complete without a nice photo gallery, available here and pictured below.

I think the concept is brilliant. Dance squads are definitely a factor that plays into the teenage mindset. Both because boys are boys and because it's a reminder that you are now on the big stage. I like that this is done online and that it is done subtly. Well done.

How could this be better? This is a great start. Give us a little more info on the members of the squad -- like we would find on a basketball site. Where are they from? What is their favorite sport? Why do they love Rutgers? Find ways to really highlight this area, and it will help prospective student athletes feel like this is a place to play with a pro-like, high end atmosphere!

That's it for now. Tune in tomorrow as we share more inspiration from the Big East! And, don't forget, you can follow along on Facebook (here) or on Twitter: I'm @pawlow34.

Andy

Big East College Basketball Marketing: #9 Rutgers

Let's keep moving through the Big East Conference, looking at how programs market themselves. How they are communicating to young athletes online. It's our chance to see how coaches and programs in a power conference stack up against each other -- and how they share what they stand for.

Thus far our journey has shown us #16 DePaul, #15 Seton Hall, #14 U Conn, #13 Notre Dame, #12 Louisville, #11 Pitt, and #10 Cincinnati.

#9 Rutgers

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Super cool tour of their athletics facilities, locker room, and offices.

Weaknesses: Not much updated on this year's team.

Full Scouting Report:

As we dive into the Rutgers home page, here, you'll see a lot of powerful visuals and then a nice little set of icons in the upper right. Let's start there.



As you can now see, Rutgers hits you with a set of easy ways to follow their programs: Email, Facebook, Twitter, and a sweet Podcasts logo. Let's explore.

Clicking on Facebook (or Twitter) takes you to the same place, here, to a nice directory. This is great, as it gives you a simple list of ways to keep in touch.


On the Basketball front, Coach Fred Hill is on Twitter, here. He has 675 followers and is pretty solid at posting interesting observations -- he's just not doing it extremely often.





As you could see in Coach Hill's Twitter page above, he has his own site here, to funnel info on his camps. (And vice versa - he drives people from his Camp site to his Twitter site... Nice).



The Rutgers Athletics Twitter page is here, with over 1500 followers, some personality, and good coverage of all sports. The only thing a little weird here is the Scarlet Knights' mascot, but that's a topic for another day.



Moving ahead, the Scarlet Knights Facebook page is here - with just under 900 fans, albeit a not too active community from what I can tell.... and more mascot pictures.



Rutgers offers Podcasts across all sports. They don't allow you to subscribe by your sport, but they do regularly add new broadcasts. It looks like they have two weekly football programs, meaning their is a feel of predictability (in a good way). Tune in next week and you'll get two new programs.



Moving to the top of the home page, you'll see that there is a Multimedia Section that gives you access to Podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, and Archives of content. It's another way in to the connections we just saw. Solid.



The good news is Rutgers has a Recruiting Menu Item. The bad news is that the content beneath it is not deep, inspirational, or basketball-focused and that they called this Recruiting. Recruits would be more correct. And Be A Scarlet Knight is more impactful.



Here's the Welcome Page that greets potential student-athletes. It's a powerful visual, I just wish there was a way to pump the Basketball vision here as well!



So let's move to the Basketball home page, which at first glance feels very much like the home page. There's some power beneath this visual though, which we'll go through now.



The Rutgers Coaching Staff is shown below. But I could have chosen any page in the basketball section for this. Rutgers gives you the ability, in one click, to share the page you are looking at with your friends in about every way you could imagine... and that means way beyond Twitter, Facebook, or Email.



Rutgers does a couple of other simple things really well. First, they give you a look at their Final Four season -- from 1976. Recall we just went through Cincinnati and did not see anything about their 1992 Final Four. This is a big deal for many reasons -- but most important in my opinion is to paint the picture in the minds of a recruit that if you come here, greatness is possible.

The other big area Rutgers Basketball succeeds is here - a photographic tour of their facilities. This is something that is just surprising we don't see more often -- it's a look at a day in the life of your team. It's a visual cue for what you as a recruit will experience if or when you come here. And it's a strength of most Big East schools. So show it off!

Here's the Locker Room.




And their Film Viewing Room. Not a bad place to watch your game footage, huh?


And, finally, Rutgers offers a fully interactive tour of their spaces: Lounge, Locker Room, Practice and Game Facilities. The combination of these visuals and video is strong and effective as it creates a premium positioning at Rutgers!


That concludes the first half of our Big East programs. Come back tomorrow as we move into the upper division... the top 8 programs. Who's going to win this thing?

Andy