So, maybe your team isn’t exactly Real Madrid, the L.A. Lakers, New Zealand All Blacks or Boston Red Socks.

That’s fine, not everyone has to be playing in the top leagues. Yet, that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve recognition and support.

After all, what is better than having people cheering you on at your games?
Or new players standing in line to try out for a place on the roster?
Better yet, sponsors who want you to wear their name or support you financially?

Unfortunately though, these things don’t materialize out of thin air. They require time, effort and putting yourself out there.
The good news, however, is that there are many ways to promote your sports team and technology made them affordable, sometimes even free.
So, in order to get your team the fame, support and fans it deserves, in this article we will take a look at different marketing ideas for sports teams on and off the web.

Online Promotion for Sports Teams If anyone hears your team’s name or wants to find out more about you, what is the first thing they will do? That’s right, hit up Google.

In times where everyone has a smartphone, the Internet is usually the first place people will go to find information on anything. Therefore, it is crucial that you make good use of available marketing channels on the net.

1. Get a Professional Website. In most cases, your team’s website will be the first stop for any information seekers, be it new fans, new players or members of the press.
It is probably also the first thing that potential sponsors will look at. For those reasons, it is important that you make a good first impression.
If you already have a website, you might want to check out our tips on how to improve your sports team’s website design.
In case you don’t have a web presence yet, don’t worry. Today it is quite easy to create a website, even if you are not a web designer or developer.

2. Set up Your Team Website with an All-in-one Solution If you do feel overwhelmed at the prospect of designing your own website, we might be able to help.
Here at HESN we try to create turnkey solutions for anyone wanting to set up a professional website for their team, club, or league.

Ok, now let’s look at additional marketing ideas for your sports team.

3. Build an Email Newsletter
Although a relatively old technology (in Internet years), email continues to be an important marketing channel.
Providers like MailChimp allow you to easily set up and manage professional email newsletters including list management, email template builders and more.
Plus, up to 2000 subscribers the service is completely free to use.
Email is a great tool to keep players, fans and volunteers informed about upcoming events, games and everything else that is going on.
It is also an effective channel to stay in touch with your most loyal fans, send them bonus material, thank you notes, exclusive content and other things that make them feel appreciated.
How do you know your closest fans are on the list?
Well, think about your own Internet usage. Do you give out your email address freely and without any afterthought or only to things you trust and are interested in?
Hopefully your answer was the latter.
Other people are the same. If they opt to sign up to your email list, this is a huge indicator of trust and interest and you should treat those people with the respect they deserve.

4. Be Present on Social Media
Today, almost everyone is a member of at least one platform. I mean, I’m friends with my mom on Facebook. That should really say it all. Besides their wide reach, what’s great about social networks is that pretty much all of them are free to use. As a consequence they present an inexpensive way for team promotion.
Social media platforms allow fans to have a direct connection to their favorite team, interact with players and club members as well as receive important news and updates.
Sound good? Then let’s go over some of the biggest networks and how you can use them for your sports team’s marketing.
Note: You don’t have to present on all social networks. In fact you probably shouldn’t, unless you have the resources to take care of all platforms properly. A good idea is to concentrate on one network and really master it before slowly branching out to others.
(That being said, feel free to open accounts on every platform from the start in order to save your user name.)
Facebook
​Facebook is by far the biggest social network out there. That means there is plenty of opportunity to create conversations around your club, promote events and publish news.
By establishing a dedicated Facebook team page you give fans and followers a way of interacting with you.

The platform also makes it easy for existing followers to like and share anything you post to your page, thereby increasing the reach of your content.
However, what can you share with your followers? Here are a few ideas:

• Game results, images and videos from competitions
• Questions, trivia and polls
• Behind-the-scenes updates
• Video messages from players
• Team or sports-related contests and giveaways

For professional looking visuals, check out Buffer’s 23 tools and resources for creating images for social media.
If you have upcoming competitions or other happenings, you can use Facebook events. They allow you to set up an event page with all necessary information, invite people to join and have them invite others.
This is an awesome to spread the news and raise awareness!
Plus, if it makes sense for your team, you can now even sell tickets, memberships, merchandise and more directly from Facebook. Apps like Ecwid make it possible.

Twitter
This microblogging platform is another great candidate for team promotion. However, unlike Facebook, this platform is much more about immediacy.
Twitter users are on the lookout for events and news that are happening right now. That makes the network the perfect tool to post live updates from games and competitions.
That way you can let the fans who didn’t make it know what is happening and make them feel involved no matter if they are at work or home on the couch.
When you use Twitter for your marketing, be sure to take advantage of hashtags. Attaching them to your messages will get them in front of anyone interested in the same topic as you. You can use Hashtagify.me to find hashtags related to your sport.
Apart from that, Twitter is also a great tool for networking. It allows you to join conversations and connect to others, like local journalists and news outlets.
By following them and tweeting at them, you might get some to pick up your stories and news items. Worth a try in any case.

YouTube
I’m sure I don’t have to explain YouTube to you. Chances are you already used it today to watch a cat video like millions of other people.
The video platform is another good opportunity for marketing sports teams.
Signing up to a YouTube account allows you share practice videos, club events, game highlights, goals, player interviews and other interesting tidbits.
For example, have you seen this goal celebration from an Icelandic football club?


Pretty cool, right? That video went viral and has been seen by millions of people around the world.
Here is a handy guide how to get the most of your account and create a professional presence on YouTube.
Anything uploaded here can of course also be shared on to your other social accounts. A win win situation if you ask me!


Offline Promotion Ideas for Sports Teams While there is a lot of merit in the ideas above, online isn’t everything. Good ol’ real-life promotion can also work to raise awareness of your team and its efforts.

5. Leverage Word of Mouth
Before getting all fancy with social media and websites, why not use one of the oldest means of communication known to man?
Depending on the size of your team, you have access to a large extended network of friends, families and acquaintances of your club members.
People you or others know personally are often happy to lend their support. Therefore, why not try to involve them?
It can be as simple way as asking players, club members and volunteers to spread the word about any upcoming games and events.

Yet, in order for this to work it’s crucial that you actually keep everyone informed. After all, your club members can only tell others of things they themselves know about.
The aforementioned mailing list is a great way to keep your inner circle in the loop and kindly ask them to inform others.
This kind of promotion can also easily go hand in hand with online marketing measures. For example, you can ask family members to invite their friends to Facebook events.

6. Use Posters and Flyers Yeah, I’m talking about good old paper. Promotion via print media has worked for decades and continues to do so even in our digital age.
Free services like Canva make it easy to design professionally-looking posters and flyers even for non-designers. No need to hire someone and spend extra money.
Of course, this is not suitable for every single game or competition, because it would result in overkill. However, if you have specials event coming up or a call for new players, print is a pretty good option.
Local businesses are often more than happy to let teams from the area advertise in their stores. You might even be able to win some as sponsors!
One thing: If you do go the paper route, don’t forget to include your online presences. You might even think about adding them in the form of QR codes that can easily be scanned with any smartphone.

7. Involve Local Media Getting your stories into local radio, newspapers and magazines is all about cultivating relationships.
Journalists and editors are constantly looking for new stories and material to fill their slots. If you can help them out with something interesting, they might even be grateful.
KissMetrics has a great article on how to get media coverage. While it is mainly aimed at business, the principles behind also apply to promoting sports teams, including:

• Build rapport with journalists before you need them
• Carefully prepare your story/pitch

To interact with the media, it’s also important you learn to write a proper press release.
By the way, this works just as well with local blogs and websites!

9. Give Back to The Community
As I mentioned before, a lot of backing will come from your local environment. The people you and others on your team know personally will most often be your first backers.
Therefore, why not give to your local community first?
What I mean by that is doing good deeds and talking about it.
Help a local project, clean up a park, have your team volunteer in an old-folks home, collect money for a good cause or anything that improves your local environment.
Not only will that win you the direct support of people who live close by, it also has a good chance to land you coverage in the media (see previous point).

Plus, images and news from community outreach events are prime fodder for any digital outlet!

Pro tip: When you do engage in such activities, make sure to wear your jerseys, uniform, team jackets or whatever you have that makes you recognizable as a team and brand.
Sports Team Marketing in a NutshellNo matter the size of your team or club, finding new members and supporters relies presenting your team well to the outside world.
That involves effort, no doubt. However, if done right, it can be absolutely worth it.
Fortunately, we live in a time and age where the Internet provides us with many low-cost promotion tools.
As you have seen above, you already use many of them on a daily basis as do your (potential) supporters. All you need to do is learn how to use those tools for your purpose.
However, promotion is not only about the digital space. “Old-fashioned” PR also has a place in promoting your sports team, especially if you are mostly active on the local level.
Word of mouth, print media, interacting with local press and giving back to the community are only a few of marketing ideas to get your started.
Once you get the ball rolling, you never know what other doors will open.
​
Do you have more marketing ideas for sports teams or events? Anything that has worked for you? Thoughts on the above? We would love to hear from you.

The official website of your sports team or club is an important piece of online real estate.
It represents your team or club to the outside world and will probably be the first place people visit to find out more about you.
Ideally, it keeps your fans informed, attracts new followers and contains the latest news on activities, wins, losses and other events.


Maybe you are thinking of starting a website for your team of club.
Or you already have one that could use a bit of an overhaul. Some technical updates, a bit of polish?
However, where to start?
Don’t worry, we got your back. Today we will look at nine ways to improve your sports team’s website design and functionality. So that your web presence represents your team in the best way possible.


Rules for a Great Sports Team Website Design
​Online users decide within seconds whether or not to stay on a website. As you can imagine, that’s not even enough time to digest any of the content, only a quick glance.
Here are a few tips to make the your site visually appealing and in tune with current web design trends.


1. SimplifyThere is definitely too much of a good thing when it comes to site elements.
While offering your visitors a lot of information is good, trying to impress them by adding every widget and gimmick imaginable can easily backfire and end in overwhelm.
Therefore, as a first step you need to think through every page of your site and what exactly each of them is supposed to accomplish. Then eliminate everything that is not needed for that goal.
Yes, everything. Widgets, text, images, all the things that are cluttering up your site without having a specific purpose.


The saying goes “as much as necessary, as little as possible”.
Same for the rest of your design. The trend is going toward a no-frills, flat design approach.
What does that mean? Well, look no further than your phone. Both Apple and Google are working with flat design in their mobile operating systems.
In concrete terms that means avoid textures, gradients and other pseudo-3D elements. It makes your sports team website’s design look much more elegant and streamlined.


2. Use Whitespace and a Large, Simple FontEspecially if you have a lot of long content on your page, e.g. news or a blog, you need to make sure it is easily digestible for your visitors.
The two key elements for this are:

• Whitespace
• Fonts

Whitespace is the name for the so-called negative space surrounding all content elements. 

Whitespace provides breathing room for the mind and relaxes the eyes. It allows your visitors to focus on what really matters, the content.
The second important element is font type and size. There is a number of interesting studies on which fonts are the best to use.


The verdict: Go for a simple typeface and make sure it is at least 14px in size, bigger if you can!
That way fans and team members alike can follow everything important about your team without having to break out their reading glasses or use the browser’s zoom function.

3. Preserve Your Team’s BrandingHere’s a question: What would happen if at your next match your team shows up wearing the opposing team’s jerseys?
Do you think your fans would just shrug it off, adjust and cheer for you anyway?
Of course not!
Your jersey, your colors is part of your team’s identity, it’s what makes your team a team and represents your club.
So, why should it be any different in your website? You want your loyal fans to instantly feel at home when they come around, don’t you?
For that reason, it’s crucial that you make your site recognizable not only in name but also in design.
The two main elements of your club’s “branding” are your colors and logo.
Luckily, with a little CSS knowledge WordPress makes it easy to change the color palette of any element and replace the header text with your logo image.
A few changes in style.css is all it takes.

• Alternatively you can inquire about an HESN premium sports themes that allow you to conveniently adjust colours without coding and add your logo via drag-and-drop.

4. Make your Website Mobile FriendlyIn times where traffic from mobile devices has surpassed that of desktop computers, it is crucial that your sports team website design looks great on any screen.
After all, you want the photos from your last victory celebration to look good on your fans phones and tablet as well, don’t you?


Plus, even search engines such as Google now factor mobile-friendliness into search rankings.
If your own site isn’t at the top of Google’s results when someone searches for your team name, that is just embarrassing.
So, making your site mobile compatible is a must.
There are several ways to achieve this. For example, there are special mobile themes and plugins to make this happen.
The best solution, however, is to make your main theme responsive. That means your website has a fluid design that automatically adapts to the size of the screen it is being viewed on.
For that, you will need the help of a seasoned developer. Coding responsive web design is no cakewalk.
Alternatively you can also opt for an HESN sports team website template that is responsive out of the box.


5. Use Professional PhotosYou have heard to old adage that “a picture says more than a thousand words”.
What is true in web design is that the quality of images on your team’s site do communicate a lot to the outside world.
In these days, visitors can easily sniff out generic stock photos.
If you use those, you will yourself come off as generic; the last thing you want to do when trying to get more fans.
Selfies also don’t cut it. You want to look professional, don’t you?
Plus, your fans like to see real pictures of their heroes and the people they cheer for, so don’t deprive them of that!
Consequently, don’t skimp on photos. Hire or find a parent who knows what they are doing. It will greatly improve your website.


Website Features For Champions
When designing your team’s site, not only is the overall look important, but also its features and functionality.
While the former makes sure all important stuff is delivered in a visually appealing way, the latter is the important stuff. That’s what we will get to now.


6. Display Upcoming MatchesImagine it’s game day and nobody shows up. Your side of the bleachers are empty, no cheers, no parents, no friends, family, nothing.
Pretty demotivating, isn’t it?
Why did nobody show up? Because they didn’t even know there was a match.
Knowing when there’s a game is one of the central news you will want to share with fans and followers (as well as the occasional clueless player).
HESN of course makes it easy to post this in the form of news on your blog.


You can also send out the info via newsletter (you are collecting subscribers, right?).
However, how about a countdown widget right there on your homepage that let’s every fan who is feverishly waiting for the next match know exactly when it will be?


This can be enhanced by a calendar widget with all upcoming matches. Good options for that:
With this combination, your part of the stadium will never be empty!


By the way, if you like the above features, you might want to check out HESN our free all-in-one plugin for managing sports team and club websites.

7. Contact Information and Social Profiles
True fans will naturally want to keep in contact with your team. Being able to easily connect with your club is also important for press inquiries, sponsoring offers and much more.
Thankfully, the Internet offers plenty of opportunity to do so.
As a first measure you should put your contact information on the website. This can easily be done via a dedicated contact page.
While you are at it, why not enhance it with a contact form? That way people can send you messages directly from the site.

 Also, don’t forget about social media! 

As a good Internet citizen you are probably already using Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to communicate with your fans and followers (upcoming matches, remember?).
So how about making it easy for them to find you there? After all, there is an abundance of plugins out there that allow you to add social icons to your WordPress website.

Just don’t let answering emails, tweets and Facebook messages cut into training time, ok?

8. Latest News Since we are talking about keeping in touch:
Club members and supporters alike will naturally want to get the latest scoop on your team.
Victories, losses, transfers — they will want to know about that.
Plus, don’t forget everything happening off the pitch. Giving fans, players and other interested parties a glimpse behind the scenes is a great way to connect with them.
Therefore, it is crucial to have a dedicated news section


That’s it. Now you can start publishing articles, images, videos and more to keep your fans up to date on everything happening in your club.

9. Player Profiles and Statistics
Once the season is under way, it doesn’t take long until discussions start who is the best athlete in the club.
Of course, everyone will argue for their own favourite player. If only there was an objective way to judge this.

Player statistics to the rescue!

One look at hard cold numbers will easily settle any debate. (At least in theory.)

Plus, you can combine this data with a profile for each team member where fans can learn more about their favourites.

Again, HESN has your back. We allows you to set up player profiles on a dedicated page and easily track each athlete’s performance throughout the season. Complete with individual statistics.

Small Design Changes With Big ResultsBuilding a professional sports team website with HESN  is not too difficult.
However, at the same time it is not something that should be taken lightly. After all, it is how you represent your team to the world.
For that reason, your site should represent your club or team in the best way possible. At the very least that means a clean, uncluttered interface, design congruent with your team’s branding and high-quality photos.
At the same time your sports team’s website needs to provide relevant information for all those interested in following, joining or learning more about it.

By paying attention to these guidelines you can make sure your website becomes a real asset for your team and information hub for your fans and followers.

What do you value on your own or your favorite team’s websites? Thoughts or additions? Let us know in the comments.