Answer Two Questions Before Hiring a Sports Marketing Agency
To kick things off, let’s get a grasp of sports design agencies to make the right decision when hiring one. You may hear they have won awards for their work; it is good for them. But even if an award-winning agency tells you so, they may not fit your company’s mission and vision. Read our recent blog entry about seven truths you should know before hiring a branding and design agency.
Branding? I thought you guys were discussing sports design agencies.
Yes, we are.
See, behind a sports design agency, there is —there should be— a multidisciplinary team integrated by branding experts, marketers, graphic designers, web developers, and even social scientists.
Really?
Yes. The point is to ensure you understand that some sports agencies may fail to fulfill your business needs. Let’s be honest: Many athletic-minded business owners go after a logo and sometimes prefer taking the quickest road to it. Down the road, on social media and websites, thousands of freelance graphic designers around the country —and even offshore— are willing to use their expertise to provide you with a great piece of art.
So why not just do that, Zack?
I’ll highlight these words as much as possible: From a branding and marketing standpoint, a logo is more than an eye-catching piece of art. It’s the graphic representation of your brand identity. Your visual identity requires strategic thinking.
Think outside the box: Marketing thought leaders claim we interact with around 5,000 logos daily.
So, how can you stand out from a crowd of competitors?
Branding is key to success. Branding can save your company tons of dollars to meet the right people: your target audience. Overall, your logo is the product of interviews and a rigorous brand-build process to determine your company’s core values, mission, and vision. Moreover, the main goal is to define your why, What you can offer? What makes you unique?
Remember those pipelines at night —maybe lying in bed—thinking obsessively about starting your life-changing business experience? Frankly, it’s one of the best feelings and excites a person can go through.
We all know it is deeper than money. If you are a natural-born leader, you want to impact your city, county, community — I don’t know, maybe the whole country—maybe you go a bit further and embrace a particular mission of one day impacting thousands of lives around the world.
So, how are you going to do it? Building brands takes time and effort. And it would be best to have an enthusiastic team working together to make it happen. They will not do it by themselves —you should not allow it—they will involve you in building the foundation of your brand.
1. What do you wish to accomplish?
Whether you are a college athlete looking for help building your brand or an athletic-minded business owner trying to connect with potential customers, you may wonder what the starting is, right?
You may have seen Youtube channels to kick off your particular journey. If so, you’re in the right way. At some point, you may wonder what comes next. You may wonder what’s the first thing to do, and that’s ok if you are committed to launching this new endeavor.
Ideally, your company’s mission and vision should contribute to what you want to accomplish. However, if it were easy, you probably wouldn’t need the assistance of branding and marketing teams on your journey.
We suggest setting up goals. A goal is what you want to accomplish within a timeframe. Some of the industry’s leading minds recommend creating plans that are S.M.A.R.T. You’ve probably heard about this before.
- Specific: Goals ought to be concise and precise in the content creation process
- Measurable: If the goals’ progress can be measured in a content strategy framework, you’ll know precisely when one has been accomplished or delayed.
- Attainable: Be realistic but challenging enough to keep you passionate about the content strategy process.
- Relevant: Content strategy goals must respond to your business objectives.
- Time-bound: You’ve got to achieve goals within a measured timeframe in any business model.
Determine the purpose of your company
The best way to do it is by going through several interviews with brand experts to understand your why. A sense of purpose comes along with your life experience. That’s why one of the most critical questions is, What motivates you to start a journey as a business owner, college athlete, or gym business owner?
It’s fair to say your journey may involve pivotal moments. As a branding agency, a sports design agency should grasp your pain points and business needs. How will they go over those pivotal moments? Most likely doing market research. Sometimes, you need market research to understand where you are in business and what direction to move forward.
Establish the timeline of your desired goal
Good communication is a must to meet timelines. Ensure you and your sports design agency set up timelines upfront for starting any project. This is important to avoid paying additional fees or rates when the agency still needs to complete a task.
2. Who is your primary market?
Positioning a good, service, or product in an overcrowded market may be challenging. Stop. Think. Then answer:
Who are my competitors?
Are there alternatives for the good or service I’m offering?
This is an excellent question if you are a fitness trainer, a gym coach, or a gym owner: How many people in your niche are as passionate about sports as you? What makes you different from others?
Prior research in your target audience
Is it crucial to comprehensively understand people? Do people matter?
YES.
Marketers have conducted research in the last decades. Some reveal eye-popping insights about people’s behavior and how they, for instance, purchase, consume ads, support brands, etc. And trust me, it involves time and commitment to grasp people’s choices and trends.
Make sure people are at the center of your marketing strategy. If you delight them, they’ll be loyal customers.
Make your business’s offering more straightforward.
An excellent way to achieve a brand message and brand voice is by setting up a successful marketing strategy for your product design. A memorable logo, a unique brand voice, a strong presence on social media, and other factors are just part of the whole brand strategy.
Make sure your brand identity aligns with your business goals to be effective. That way, people will listen whenever you have something to say, whether it is on T.V., the Internet, social media, marketing materials, etc.
Sharpen your brand messaging as finest as possible since you may lose your audience if your message needs to be more to the point. Remember: if you confuse them, you lose them.
Top Sports Design Agencies
Let’s jump in to meet the top sports design agencies.
Creatitive
Specialization: Digital Branding Agency
Location(s): Phoenix, AZ
Clients: Crunch Fitness, Phoenix Suns, Fitometry Health Club, Serfas, PFRPA, & Pinegear
Year Founded: 2015
Team Size: 11-50
Creatitive is a full-service branding and design agency that builds brand legacies beyond the game. It’s a squad of branding and marketing experts providing business solutions in a broad range of areas, such as branding —brand discovery, brand identity, brand positioning—, graphic design, web development, digital marketing —SEO marketing, Content marketing, P.P.C.—, and Social Media Management.
In addition, Creatitive connects top athletes, gym owners, and sports brands to their fanbases with tried-and-tested business marketing services. This sports agency helps athletic-minded leading brands —including top athletes and small companies— develop their personal brands to build public relations with their fan base.
Creatitive has worked across all independent sports and entertainment industries. They create content every week, and thanks to their strategic and robust relationships with former N.F.L. players, you can listen to their podcast to get information on endorsement deals — NIL deals—talent relations, and more ins and out of the sports industry.
Nogood
Specialization: Growth hacking agency
Location(s): New York
Clients: Jonas Paul, Southern Marsh, Steer, Exparel, Amazon, and Procter & Gamble
Year Founded: 2019
Team Size: 10-25
NoGood is one of those marketing agency companies combining creativity and data-driven research to help their clients grow. You’ll find iconic B2B brands and visionary start-ups in their portfolio. They use marketing strategist to help clients reach their potential customers at the right moment, whether on social media, entertainment industries, etc.
big league creative
Specialization: Media and Information Services
Location(s): Frisco, United States
Clients: Baseball Youth, Baseball Heaven & Grand park
Year Founded: 2012
Team Size: 5-10
Knowledge is vital for the modern B2B buyer, who can research your brand and reject it without getting in touch. Big League Creative is a full-service marketing agency that helps you avoid this with cutting-edge marketing campaigns to meet your audiences exactly where they are.
They work tirelessly to be the marketing company you choose over competitors. Other agencies don’t focus too much on student-athletes as much as this sports marketing agency.
summit athletics
Specialization: Branding, Graphic Design, Web Design
Location(s): Charlotte, NC
Clients: Orlando, Towson, S.J.U.
Year Founded: 1997
Team Size: 10-49
Whether you’re a one-of-a-kind athlete or an athletic-minded business owner, Summit Athletics is your creative marketing agency, helping you by bringing together the right insights, technology, and teamwork to create outstanding digital experiences for your brand. This sport design agency is all about strategic thinking.
one:nil
Specialization: Strategy, Campaign
Location(s): Amsterdam Netherlands
Clients: Take away, Toto, Ajax, Kpn
Year Founded: 2019
Team Size: 4-10
One:nil has been a creative artists agency in the sports industry for over four years. Their goal is to create talk-worthy and head-turning campaigns with outstanding results. Their tagline is: “Rockets for brands that dare to stand out. Nothing less.” Their client list includes sports and entertainment brands with thousands of fans worldwide. They have a proven track record of success in getting clients the most value for their sponsorship investments.
brandwave
Specialization: Sport Creative Agency
Location(s): Chichester, UK
Clients: Adidas, Arena, Alex Thomson, BMW
Year Founded: 2006
Team Size: 10
Speaking of top sports marketing agencies, Brandwave can boost your brand awareness by developing content marketing to get thousands of impressions and generate leads. They’ve created some of the best brands in the sports industry globally. Their clients chose them for their well-thought-out graphic designs and marketing strategies to rocket big organizations and even start-ups to success.
In an ever-evolving world of sports, they have a proven track record of success by working with sports and entertainment brands, such as Adidas, BMW, and Alex Thomson.
Summary
In summary, being a top sports marketing agency encompasses all the ins and out of the ever-changing marketing industry. Some other remarkable sports marketing agencies are Boras Corporation, Groove Jones, and Wasserman Media Group —is a sports marketing and talent management company based in Los Angeles— Roc Nation, Viral Nation, and other agencies who dig deeper into contract negotiations and other matters related to sports marketing agency companies.
If you want the ultimate sports design agency, meet with our top agent to start a new project and build brand legacies beyond the game.
