5 Differences Between Marketing Women's & Men's Sport
Cookie Cutter Marketing Approach Is Undercooking Women’s Sport
When it comes to women’s sport marketing, organisations and sponsors are applying a cookie cutter approach, simply replicating men’s sport and missing opportunities to capture new fans and revenue.
While men and women’s sport of course share many of the same values like connection, passion, community, inspiration and wellbeing, they are different products with different audiences, values, history and opportunities.
Women’s sport needs to be marketed in its own unique way to grow fans and revenue. Here’s 5 key differences when marketing women’s sport:
5 differences for a winning women’s sport marketing recipe
1. Overshare
Sport is all about connection and when fans feel a part of it, they are more likely to attend, watch, follow, talk about, play and support.
Due to a historical lack of media attention, women’s sport doesn’t have the luxury that men’s sport has of people being as familiar with athlete’s names, faces, team quirks or triumphs.
NWSL club FC Kansas City include details like Emina Ekic’s name and that she was1st pick in the draft alongside her image to help form deeper fan connections.
This means it’s even more important for women’s sport to provide context, backstories and showcase personalities and stories to strengthen connection.
a) Context example:
When producing a video or outdoor campaign that includes players, ensure that their name appears alongside their image so people can start to familiarise themselves with these athletes.
b) Backstory example:
When announcing a player transfer on social media, include additional details to give the story more meaning and allow fans to fill in the gaps i.e. instead of “OL Reign have acquired Sally Pearson for this season” use “OL Reign have acquired striker, Sally Pearson from Houston Dash”.
c) Personality and personal story example:
Instead of jumping straight into live coverage at kick-off, share short-form content in a pre-game build up so fans can learn more about the athletes journeys i.e. Women’s Six Nations Rugby created a powerful 6-part ‘My Rugby Life’ video series in the lead-up to the tournament that showcased stories of a player from each team. Check out my favourite one; ‘Welsh Suit of Armour’ featuring Siwan Lillicap.
Note:
Content showing athletes in action is 12% more likely to drive interest (compared to lifestyle or entertainment settings) so while human interest stories can be a powerful tool in women’s sport, create compelling narratives by telling personal stories in the context of sport and elite athletes.
2. Social Media Ka-Pow
While of course men’s sport relies heavily on social media, women’s sport is disproportionately impacted by the power and influence of social media. Here’s why:
a) Social media origins
Many women’s sports have their origins in social media given the historical lack of media coverage with more than 54% of active women’s sport fans consuming sport digitally. Social media is often the only place that fans can get up-to-date information like squad announcements and live scores and it often acts as the first port-of-call for fans.
It’s also often been the only place female athletes have been able to get exposure so many have become social media gurus. Sport organisations and brands need to leverage savvy athletes to further build affinity with their teams, leagues, brand and sport.
b) Creative flexibility
The women’s game often has less restrictive media rights enabling social media to be used in a more powerful way. For example, live competition footage, real-time clips, highlights or even off-field action can often be aired on social media and used to engage fans in a way that men’s sport can’t due to rights issues.
Social media is a great place for women’s sport to innovate and engage fans in a way that men’s sport may not be able to so get creative.
c) Growth opportunity via Casual Fans
Social media plays a crucial part in women’s sport growth as we see the proliferation of fandom and the emergence of more ‘casual fans’ (thanks to technology) who are more fickle with how they engage in sport. Only 25% of women’s sport fans are active fans with the remaining 75% of fans engaging when they come across it or have time. As people scroll through content, social media can play a key role in capturing these ‘casual fans’.
Given the disproportionate impact that social media plays in women’s sport, it needs to be viewed as importantly as any broadcast channels and should be a core part of your marketing strategy and not just as an after-thought left to the intern.
Women’s Six Nations executed a creative campaign on social media that presented players as super heroes and gave fans insight into their traits like England’s Jess Breach’s pace.
3. Unique audience and values
Your fan’s will vary depending on geography, sport code, culture, behaviour, history and more but as a general rule women’s sport has a different audience and brand to men’s sport:
OL Reign have teamed up with the Black Future Co-Op Fund and Allinwa to address social injustice
More even gender split - 51%/49% male to female fans
25% of women’s sport fans are active fans while 75% consume when they come across it or have time
Stronger emotional connection
More inspiring and progressive
Cleaner and less money driven
More family orientated
Social activism / Equality
You need to delve into the specifics of your own women’s sport fans and brand and ensure you are making decisions based around those unique behaviours and values rather than simply maintaining initiatives based on your male sport fans.
a) Match day example:
Based on the above general women’s sport fan statistics, instead of a pie + beer combo at a 7pm kick-off time that you may offer to men’s sport fans, offer picnic sets with an afternoon kick-off and a family zone with ticketing for 2 adults and 2 kids.
b) Social activism brand value example:
National Women’s Soccer League are embracing their player’s strong voice on social injustice by allowing players to wear in-competition shirts with social equality messages and kneeling before games. Starbucks have become a sponsor of OL Reign citing action on social issues as a reason for the partnership and the team support the likes of Black Co-op Fund and Allinwa to help tackle social injustice.
Leverage women’s sport's unique audience and values to attract sponsors, engage fans and players to ensure strong marketing campaigns that increase stakeholder results while growing the whole ecosystem.
4. Trade in your success measures
Women’s sport should be evaluated using a holistic approach that considers it’s unique values, access to and engagement with specific audiences, growth opportunities, flexibility, relatable and accessible personalities, a less cluttered environment and more. It’s price, value or success should not be solely focused around broadcast reach which has historically played a key role in measuring the ROI or commercial viability of men’s sport.
A key opportunity for women’s sport success lies within the ‘Consideration’ and ‘Action’ segments of the marketing funnel by aligning with the brand values and personalities as opposed to the top-of-funnel ‘Awareness’ function.
According to True North Research, fans have more emotional connection to women’s sport teams than men’s and women’s teams drive higher consideration and usage of their sponsors which can in fact lead to stronger commercial outcomes when using the formula below.
Stronger sponsor outcomes + lower cost = greater ROI
The key is throwing out the old notion that ROI and success is all about broadcast Reach. Sport bodies, right’s holders, athletes and sponsors should work collaboratively to define specific measures of success that are tailored to women’s sport, not some historical hang-over from men’s sport.
5. Budget somersault
It’s no secret that men’s sport properties and athletes can set you back multi-millions when securing even the most basic sponsor rights which can chew up a huge proportion of your total marketing budget.
Women’s sport on the other hand can offer lower entry points and strong value for money, especially when it comes to increasing sponsor consideration and usage (as per point 4 above).
The marketing school of thought often uses a marketing budget ratio of 60% being allocated to brand building campaigns (like that of sponsorship) vs 40% being spent on short term campaigns (activation budgets in the case of sponsorship). Obviously it all depends on specific objectives, goals and the industry and while this may be a good ratio to use as a guide when it comes to men’s sport given the higher sponsorship fee and the often wider reach of men’s sport, I would recommend flipping this for women’s sport sponsorship.
Women’s sport provides a powerful platform to tell captivating stories and by ensuring you have at least 60% of your budget allocated to leverage it, it means you can extend Reach via the likes of ‘paid media’ and ensure people see and are affected by your sponsorship. The often lower sponsor fee also means that you may only need to allocate a smaller 40% total budget to obtaining sponsor rights.
Matilda’s footballer, Sam Kerr celebrates with a back flip. Photo by Nike.
The Gist
Next time you are writing a women’s sport sponsorship proposal, creating a social media calendar, planning your ad campaign, social media activation or match-day experience, take the time to understand and create marketing that is based on the unique attributes, audience and opportunities of women’s sport rather than applying a drag and drop of men’s sport marketing that will undercook your success.
Consider these 5 differences when marketing women’s sport:
1. Overshare to build connection by showcasing personality, personal journey’s, context and backstory
2. Social media ka-pow due to social media origins, creative freedom and capturing ‘casual fans’
3. Unique audience and values
4. Ditch the spreadsheet and trade in your success metrics
5. Do a sponsorship budget somersault
I’ve created a ‘Women’s Sport Marketing Action Plan’ HERE with easy actions you can take to create a winning women’s sport marketing recipe.
Please share this with any Marketers that you think may benefit and if you aren’t already, subscribe HERE for my monthly newsletter.
*Research references include: True North Benchmark Insights 2021, Women’s Sports Trust and Two Circles Closing the Visibility Gap 2021 and Nielsen Rise of Women’s Sport 2019