For new and emerging athletes, building a strong personal brand is the first step to creating a long and successful career. Your personal brand is one of the most powerful tools for accessing your targeted market. It determines how your fans, sponsors, and the professional sports world perceive you, how they remember and recognize you.
Athlete branding is a complex area largely because there is a high level of competition. It can be hard for an up-and-coming athlete to stand out from the crowd. Additionally, there are numerous parts involved in building a personal brand. Everything from your logo, your persona and brand promise must be considered.
What is Athlete Marketing?
Athlete marketing is a subdivision of athlete branding that specifically focuses both on the promotion of athletes as well as sports events and teams. The goal is to provide the client with strategies to promote his athletically goals and create a brand around their sports career.
In this digital age, fan support through social media and the internet is huge. You probably follow some of your favorite sport athletes as well on Instagram, right? Fan support and attention are interlinked. Listening to an athlete’s podcast, reading a blog article or watching an athlete’s video on YouTube are all great ways to engage with your fans.
But why do all this effort? Shouldn’t an athlete focus more on his sports career rather than online marketing and branding? Yes of course, but you can’t neglect the power of branding. The more fan support and attention athletes can get and maximize, the more their athlete brand is worth to sport teams, sponsors and famous sports businesses like Adidas and Nike. These companies are well-known to give million dollar contracts to athletes with a huge following and fan base.
The Importance of Branding
In every industry, branding is extremely important (not only in the sports marketing industry). The reason why it’s absolutely necessary for every sports marketing agency and business in general, is the strong impact it will have on your company. A great brand will change how people perceive your personal brand in a positive manner and it will also increase brand awareness.
A good branding strategy can help you establish credibility with your audience, connect and communicate with your fans, attract potential sponsors, and more. It can even help you gain success and recognition that you can use to capitalize on for your current or future career endeavors, like starting a business after retirement.
How to Use a Website to Promote Your Brand
Once you’ve established your personal brand, or worked with an agency to establish your brand, the next step is to communicate it to the world. All too often, many athletes fail to recognize the importance of this step and their brand is either never recognized by the community or it gains a negative perception.
A website is very important for effective athlete branding and marketing. It’s a great way to help build your brand’s recognition. A website can help you interact and communicate with your fans, make you look like a more attractive investment to sponsors, help you tap into additional streams of revenue.
There is so much more to think about to promote your athlete brand. Social Media, SEO, staying active in the community and starting a blog are some great examples. All of these things are very time consuming, so it might be a great idea to work together with marketing and branding experts.
Why Work with a Personal Branding Expert?
As an athlete, all of this may seem confusing to you, but don’t worry; no one expects you to do it alone.
If you are familiar with some aspects of branding, like social media, you can definitely use your knowledge to leverage your brand.
But social media on its own is simply not sufficient enough to create a strong brand. It should be treated as one component of your branding strategy. Failing to realize the full potential of your brand could cause you to miss out major opportunities and/or potential revenue.
A personal branding expert can help you craft a powerful and memorable personal brand and develop a strategy for increasing its recognition.
Your goals, whatever they may be, are attainable. You just need to focus on the right strategies to get there.
7 Reasons to choose a personal branding coach
- Easier for your audience to remember you
- Differentiate your brand from the competition and stand out
- Stronger focus on creativity
- Your brand will be consistent and will portray a positive image
- Helping you emotionally connect with your audience
- Showcase your professionalism in the world of athletes and the sports industry
- Help grow your online presence
Schedule a Call to Discuss Branding Strategies
As the owner of a platform for the thoroughbred industry, branding is one of my favorite subjects. I have been doing this for many years and my team can talk hours going over effective sports marketing strategies and more! Want to start growing your athlete brand as well?
If you have questions about professional athlete branding or would like some assistance with building your brand, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our professional team would be more than happy to schedule a phone call to talk to you to answer your questions or discuss branding strategies.
Jutta Putz is an international personal branding expert and sports marketing influencer. In 2015, she founded Pro360thoroughbred a marketing platform for the thoroughbred industry to help owners, CEOs and industry leaders position their expertise to increase visibility and profitability. You can subscribe to her e-newsletter and follow her on Twitter.
