Marketing Like March Madness

Over three weekends every March, America catches a fever. March Madness is back, in full swing, and if the latest ratings are any indicator, fans are watching college basketball like never before. As marketing and sales professionals is there anything that we can learn from marketing like March Madness? 

Naturally, brands, marketers, and advertisers will seek opportunities to cash in on March Madness. Still, it is thousands of fans packing the stadiums where the real marketing lessons are taking shape. As David Kemp, Healthcare Marketing Lead at MarketScale, puts it, there are 30,000 fans in the stands creating content, spreading the word, and creating experiential opportunities that should make marketers take note. “They’re taking out their camera; they’re recording their experience,” Kemp said.
“They’re sharing about the awesome experience they’re having connected to a product they’re passionate about. So, in a way, those 30,000 fans have become 30,000 marketers for that school, the NCAA, and the entire March Madness ecosystem in B2B.”
Kemp raises a critical question for B2B marketers.
  • Are you taking full advantage of the potential companies’ customers, fans, prospects, and passionate evangelists they could bring to your brand?

  • Is there fantastic content waiting for creation beyond what a small marketing department can produce?

Need proof? Just ask the Savannah Bananas.

The Savannah Bananas is a minor-league professional baseball team with a major-league attitude regarding fan engagement and content creation. And it’s through their experiential marketing approach that’s won them global fandom and recognition.
Marketers can take a page from the Savannah Bananas and March Madness to generate customer loyalty in 2023 through content. Why have one Pied Piper leading the charge when a company could have many? Personalized content that’s valuable and engaging provides solutions to customer problems and helps them learn new things will keep them coming back for more.
Kemp says, “Unlock the voices of your best and brightest. In that small team of marketers, elevate them to conductors of the music, where they can request and unlock the voices of the experts, executives, partners, and fans, so that small marketing team now becomes a team of a few thousand, just like they’re doing with March Madness.”
Call it a hack for generating ROI and making a company’s marketing team more powerful. The fans do the marketing by turning everybody connected with one’s company into an evangelist. And boom, there goes the dynamite.

Article written by James Kent
Thought Leadership by David Kemp

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Latest

COS
Conversations from Shoptalk Europe: Retail Refined meets with Christoffer Sellin from COS
June 6, 2023

Shoptalk Europe 2023 brought the technologies and channels driving the future of retail into a clear perspective. This year’s annual event from May 9-11 in Barcelona allowed Retail Refined’s Melissa Gonzalez to sit down with key stakeholders making a difference in the market. COS (Collection of Style) is a European fashion brand doing innovative things […]

Read More
PGA Tour LIV Golf Merger
Why the Merger of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf is Great for Golf
June 6, 2023

The PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and DP World Tour have announced their merger, putting an end to the conflict that has dominated sports business news for the past 18 months. This merger is expected to bring more financial opportunities, increased accessibility for fans, and a variety of golf events. It is seen as a […]

Read More
Accessing the Cloud in the Clouds, Are We There Yet?
SmartSky Networks | Accessing the Cloud in the Clouds, Are We There Yet?
June 6, 2023

Within the world of business aviation, accessing the cloud in the clouds, Are We There Yet? To answer this question, Host Grant Harrell looks to SmartSky Networks, an industry-leading organization that has established a next-generation air-to-ground (ATG) network that provides an unmatched connected experience inflight for both cabin and crew. SmartSky Networks’ patented beam-forming […]

Read More