Influencer Marketing in Sports Industry: Benefits and Strategies

The most iconic moment of Influencer Marketing in Sports Industry was when Nike signed Micheal Jordan. In 1984, Nike had a 15% market share and was the 3rd largest Sports shoe manufacturer. Consecutively, Nike rolled out Air Jordans which became synonyms to performance, fashion, and cultural influence.

In 1985 with the roll out of Air Jordan 1S, Nike spent $1M on advertising and garnered revenue of $100 M, only in their first year. As years progressed by 1987 it occupied 43% market share and in 2019 it had 86% of Performance basketball market share. Air Jordan still to this day remains one of the most popular shoes brands.

Sports Influencer Marketing is still a highly sought after advertising channel and numerous moments like Puma’s Let There Be Sports campaign, TataAIA’s Har Waqt ke liye taiyaar, etc. has utilised the associated influence of world renowned players and athletes.

In a country like India, where sports and games are so ingrained in people’s lives that we can see people worshipping Sachin Tendulkar, Dewdi Mandir in Ranchi became synonymous with “Dhoni ka Mandir”. The scope and impact will only rise. The question that must be asked is, “How can sports brands leverage this opportunity?”

Sports brands who want to garner surviving metrics like awareness, interaction, positive engagement, and high conversions must prefer influencer marketing for sports brands at once. It's a field which cannot be limited by sheet quantifiable results. The impact and association is what pervades beyond socio-economic boundaries and helps sports brands build an abode in people’s subconsciousness.

Let’s delve deep into the psychoanalysis and customer behaviour, market functioning, and growth related aspects of Sports Industry Partnerships with sports influencers.

The Power of Sports and Athlete Influencer Endorsement Campaigns

The realm of sports isn't always just about opposition and physical prowess; it's a robust narrative that shapes cultures and economies. Athlete influencer endorsement campaigns wield an extensive impact on harnessing the huge enchantment of sports icons to captivate audiences and bolster diverse initiatives. These campaigns merge the adrenaline of sports with the charisma of athletes, growing a ripple impact of the concept throughout the country.

Given the dynamics and pragmatic ideas and schemes at play like GOI’s Khelo India Programme, Fit India Movement, Target Olympic Podium Scheme, Sports Talent Searches, etc. an inexhaustible list. India is targeting to change the entire persona of the country by integrating Sports and emerge as Sports heaven in the world. GOI as well as Sports brands have undertaken numerous influencer endorsement campaigns. GOI wanted to raise awareness and visibility about Sports and athletics to far corners of our country. Let’s see one of their campaign strategies.

One of the campaign was Khelo India “#5MinuteAur” where sports youth icons Mary Kom, Sushil Kumar, Manu Bhaker, and Neeraj Chopra among others were integrated in TVC to raise awareness. They also integrated various social media sports influencers. Salman Khan endorsed the campaign on his Instagram platform and garnered 3.4 Million views, Rajyawardhan Rathore garnered 120K views, Pooja Bishnoi brought 63K views,and many more athletes and sport influencers created a massive visibility for the campaign and ensured its success.

The decisions are going to transform the citizen consciousness and align their interest with growing sports momentum. Similarly, you can associate with Sports Influencer Marketing and garner your relevant key performance indicators for the growth of your sports brand. If you aspire to become one of the major sports brands then our Sports influencer Marketing Strategies can help you achieve it.

To understand it better, let's understand what this much awaited opportunity and dynamic can do for sports brands and how they can utilise it for their brand’s growth.

Sports Influencer Marketing Strategies

An effective sport brand influencer marketing is composed of various strategies. The strategies prepared with the help of an influencer marketing agency can target multiple approaches and can invoke numerous sensations in the target audience. Lets see some of sports influencer collaborations strategies:

1. Sports Influencer Engagement through Promotional posts: Invoke excitement, Create desire:

Collaborating with sports social media influencers directly brings various key performance indicators like huge visibility, increased engagement, and reinvigorated growth. With a right campaign around your product or brand on the latest Sports Sponsorship Trends can create the necessary social chatter, better ROIs, and increased ROAS which is synonymous with growth.

2. How-to Videos with Athlete Branding in Sports: Cross Channel and Cross Influence

How-To videos are a great way to showcase different products and its benefits. Marketing in contemporary world conditions necessarily demands presence and penetration on various social media platforms. You can cater to multiple C2B questions and doubts with videos and influence them to become an integral element with your brand. Influencers like athletes, hikers, extreme sportspeople, automobiles influencers, etc. can share their experiences and relatable content on different social media platforms.

3. Integrating UGC and Sports Influencer Activation

The craze and stature of influencers have only increased in recent times. Moreover, the user generated content is high on authenticity, transparency, and trust scale. You can integrate UGC videos for sports brand testimonials, product reviews, explainer videos, etc.

Sports social media influencers have a presence on multiple social platforms. They can be integrated for shop inauguration, store visits, product endorsements, first hand experience, etc. On the sunny side, it is directly increasing Sports Brand Visibility and increasing its social awareness.

4. Create documentaries and deepen the relationship

Sports influencers and athletes go through a hardship which demands huge grit, dedication, and determination. You can integrate all the associated attributes with your brand by showcasing the influencer journey in a documentary. For Instance, to keep himself fit, Virat Kohli completely banished any Junk Food from his diet. He reoriented his life and completely shifted to a healthy and balanced diet. You can integrate it with your brand.

5. Festive and Special offers : Sports Marketing ROI

Who doesn't love to save some bucks. Offers allow and strengthen customers ‘will to buy’. For those who are boundary line cases of conversion can be easily converted into loyal customers. But given the tendency of most business houses offering discounts, you can make a stand out persona by making Sports Industry Partnerships an integral element to your brand.

6. Social chatter and Memes : Sports Influencer Content

Memes are predominantly a major and rich source of entertainment. This cookie byte sized content delivery mechanism very subtly infuses the concept of Brand, context, Product, or special offers; sometimes all through a single post. Memes are also known for their high shareability and are mostly viral-worthy. When seen from a bird’s eye view it will be increasing social chatter around your brand.

We understood a few strategies that you can easily integrate. But the undeniable fact is, Influencer marketing for sports brands is a bend of calculations and creativity. An arena where logic and emotions melt in each other arms to birth a colourful era of growth.

Does Sports brand influencer marketing really give your brand growth? Let’s understand how it benefits your brand.

Benefits of Influencer Marketing in Sports Industry

Influencer marketing expertise lies in multiple avenues and stratas. These avenues are campaign ideation, influencer selection, content formulation, strategy creation, result measurement, campaign management and an inexhaustible list of services. Leveraging the services the following benefits can be availed:

1. Wide Reach

Sports Influencer Identification is very important in order to establish harmony in content, thoughts, and future trends of influencer and sports brands. Latest influencer marketing trends inform us that a lasting relationship leads to much more invigorated converting decisions.

The sports social media influencer has an already established base of followers which are very much inclined to convert. A product endorsement under Sports Influencer Marketing by a peer of the followers will only infuse the urge to have the product.

2. Brand Awareness

Influencers are much more capable of creating the necessary social chatter than anyone else. A state-of-the-art marketing mechanism, Influencer Marketing ROI in Sports is still the highest when compared to traditional or digital marketing methodologies.

3. Engagement

The delivery of product or brand information is not the only measure of the success of the campaign. The Sports Influencer Engagement is the next step of the ladder. Engagement can be better understood as the ‘affection towards the product has increased and now want more information which will lead to conversion’.

4. Brand reputation

Reputation determines the genuinity of a brand. Synonym of its quality, service, and trust. Sports social media Influencers directly help brands increase their reputation by letting brands associate their loyalty to the customer, authority over decision influencing, and authenticity of content.

5. Trust and Transparency

Sports Celebrity Endorsements allow the customers to have all the necessary details in depth. An informed buyer has a high and somewhat impulsive tendency to get converted. Transparency furthermore transforms into reliability and grows in affinity Whatever we have talked is completely textual. To satiate your imaginations let's take a sneak peak into Sports Industry Influencer Insights through case studies which can also help you truly determine the effectiveness of influencer marketing campaigns.

Sports Influencer Marketing Examples: Case Study

1. Yonex X Saina Nehwal

Saina Nehwal is the beating sensation of the Badminton world. She has won numerous accolades and awards for the country. Yonex approached her to endorse the latest batch of products like badminton, badminton court shoes, etc. around FlipKart’s ‘The Big Billion Days’.

Sania Nehwal has more than 1.5 Million followers. Most of the followers are one way or another integrated into Badminton. The post garnered huge viewership and high engagement for Yonex as well as Flipkart.

2. Wellman X Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli is the world's third most followed person on Instagram. He is a very dynamic player who is popular for various reasons and One of the major reasons is ‘Fitness and Health’. He never intake anything that is harmful for his fitness health and this fact is well known to everyone.

FMCG brand Wellman approached Virat Kohli and launched “Heroes also needs help” campaign. Virat kohli strategically spoke around the brand and its products. Wellman directly leverages the influence and trust that Virat enjoys into their brand.

Way Forward

Not only in India but all over the world, from time immemorial, sports is credited to unite people and establish fraternity. In the contemporary world scenario, the fact is still highly evident. It is high time if your brand wants to integrate with factors like trust, credibility, reliability, and loyalty.

Sports influencer marketing is the growing craze. Even our PM Narendra Modi couldn't resist its temptation to integrate with Sports Influencer Platforms. He collaborated with Ankit Baiyanpuria to elevate the Fit India Campaign.

If your brand wants to grow by leaps and bounds and make social chatter like raining cats and dogs, it is highly suggested to partner with the best influencer Marketing agency in India. GryNow Media is undoubtedly the best to curate solutions in and around your brands while integrating relevant influencers.