With Euro 2024 coming up, we got to thinking – a football team works in much the same way as your digital marketing.
Let us explain.
A football team needs to work as one cohesive unit to succeed – your marketing tactics need to work as one cohesive unit to succeed.
A football team requires varied specialised roles to excel in different areas – your marketing needs to be varied, with different tactics filling different important roles.
A football team needs every team member to be consistent to work towards a unified goal – your marketing needs every piece of messaging/comms to be consistent to work towards a unified goal.
We’ve even gone so far as to break down each area on a football pitch and liken them to marketing tactics (this isn’t mental, we promise – some thought has gone into this!).
A football team as digital marketing
Just like a football team, your digital marketing consists of multiple moving parts that are working together to deliver better results.
While you’re unlikely to be scoring goals at Wembley, you will be achieving your growth goals, which is basically the same thing.
Here’s a breakdown of how a football team relates to your digital marketing:
Your strikers are your website and your salespeople
Both your sales team and your website are scoring goals, sealing the deal and generating sales.
However, you don’t see Harry Kane scoring goals without his team feeding him opportunities – your strikers rely on the rest of the team to set them up and to defend.
Your website and sales team cannot convert without support from the rest of the team (or in this case, your digital marketing).
Your midfielders are your lead generation tactics
Your lead generation tactics act like the midfielders – lead generation moves prospects along the funnel just like midfielders move the ball down the field.
Your strikers (sales) are going to struggle to convert without the backing of a strong midfield lineup. In short: no midfield, no goals = no lead generation, no new business.
Your lead generation tactics will be a combination of:
- SEO (Search engine optimisation)
- PPC (Pay-per-click)
- Social ads
- Email marketing
- Account-based marketing
Your defenders are akin to your content/social strategy
No football team is complete without a great defensive back line.
In our ongoing analogy, your content and social strategy acts as your defensive line, as content sets a strong foundation for the rest of your lead generation tactics to succeed.
Content & social also helps to validate your business, ensuring that your sales team can focus on doing what they do best, safe in the knowledge that your defensive line is secure.
Blogs and other SEO content is fantastic to promote healthy organic growth, generating a steady stream of visitors to your website and helping to ensure that leads don’t dry up.
Case studies can be used as validation tools, instilling trust in your brand and establishing your business as trustworthy and able.
Video content is perfect for reaching a broad range of people, immediately engaging them with your message.
A complete content/social strategy ensures that you have a solid foundation to build on.
Your goalkeeper is your marketing manager
Your marketing manager needs to have safe hands when managing your account. They are also in the prime position to see the whole pitch and help organise the team from an attacking point of view (generating leads).
They act both as proactive organisers and the last line of defence if required. A good marketing manager is the difference between marketing success and embarrassing defeat; you need to be absolutely certain that you can rely on your marketing managers in an emergency.
Your tactics board – this is HubSpot
Every successful marketing strategy/football team needs a place to plan out strategies and ensure that the whole team are working together.
That’s why HubSpot is an essential component of many killer marketing strategies. Using HubSpot’s Marketing and Sales Hubs, you’re able to properly plan, schedule and execute your marketing strategy (in much the same way a football team uses the tactics board to ensure everyone’s working together to succeed).
Finally, your manager – this is Catalyst
A good football team operates as one entity – it doesn’t function as individuals or in silos, it brings the team together to work as one and push for greatness.
However, this doesn’t happen without a good manager. That’s where Catalyst come in.
We’re the Sir Alex Ferguson to your digital marketing strategy, bringing a broad team of digital marketing experts together to ensure you have a solid marketing strategy ready for the Euros and beyond.
Want to chat about your ongoing digital marketing strategy (or the Euros, we’re always up for a football chat!)? Get in touch with our specialist team by clicking the link below.
Speak to our marketing/football specialists
