Major sports events present great oppor­tu­ni­ties for mar­keters. There are mil­lions of view­ers already tuned in. All you have to do is fig­ure out a way to con­nect with them. What can you learn, as a mar­keter, from the NFL’s inter­na­tion­al expan­sion? How can you cap­i­tal­ize on these trends in your mar­ket­ing efforts?

Expand­ing your brand’s glob­al reach is a huge con­trib­u­tor to brand recog­ni­tion and growth.

The Olympics and the World Cup are two exam­ples of major glob­al sports events that have pre­sent­ed mar­keters with a great plat­form for adver­tis­ing their prod­ucts and ser­vices to glob­al con­sumers.

Glob­al mar­keters can also learn a lot from the NFL’s recent inter­na­tion­al expan­sion. Through inter­na­tion­al games, the league has con­nect­ed with the ide­al audi­ence – glob­al sports fans.

Sports fans are engaged, social, and inter­ac­tive. Choos­ing the right dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels is essen­tial in mar­ket­ing. These inter­na­tion­al NFL games on for­eign soil pro­vide a great vehi­cle to dri­ve engage­ment and excite­ment about your brand.

The NFL and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al sports leagues are rec­og­nized brands. Their logos can be seen on appar­el worn all over the world. Posters of famous ath­letes hang on bed­room walls from Los Ange­les to Lon­don to Tokyo.

These sports brands have decid­ed to use the pow­er of glob­al­iza­tion to intro­duce them­selves and appeal to a wider glob­al audi­ence. Your brand can, too!

Tips For Advertising During A Global Sports Event

Think about the Super Bowl. Peo­ple either watch for the game, or the com­mer­cials.

Many of the com­mer­cials are foot­ball-cen­tric. Some ads may even include a pro­fes­sion­al ath­lete. But for many brands, a Super Bowl ad is too expen­sive.

Instead, here are four tips for con­nect­ing with fans dur­ing sports events.

1. Connect With A Theme

One of your goals as a mar­keter is to relate what you do to your tar­get audi­ence. To reach glob­al sports fans, try to con­nect your prod­uct to a sports-relat­ed theme.

Mar­ket­ing is all about evok­ing emo­tion, and sports are full of them. Your sports theme could be:

• Win­ning or tri­umph­ing.
• Over­com­ing an obsta­cle.
• The thrill of vic­to­ry.
• The agony of defeat.
• Cel­e­bra­tion.

Also, if your prod­uct or ser­vice can be used by ath­letes, demon­strate that! If your prod­uct or ser­vice can be used by fans on game day, high­light that!

These are just some of the pos­si­bil­i­ties.

2. Get Social

Sports fans are high­ly con­nect­ed. The advent of the Inter­net and social media has made the world a small­er place. Fans all around the world com­mu­ni­cate with one anoth­er and with ath­letes them­selves.

Social media pro­mo­tions can hap­pen in the events lead­ing up to, dur­ing, and after the game. Plan­ning is key.

It’s also impor­tant to pay atten­tion and watch the game in real time with your social media team. Plat­forms such as Twit­ter are imme­di­ate.

The 2015 Super Bowl gave us some great brand­ed tweets. A favorite was Chee­rios after New England’s Mal­colm But­ler picked off Seattle’s Rus­sell Wil­son to seal the game in dra­mat­ic fash­ion. The cere­al brand tweet­ed a zoomed in pho­to of their cir­cu­lar prod­uct with the text “Everyone’s mouth right now.”

Everyone’s mouth right now: pic.twitter.com/cZjfD42kgK

— Chee­rios (@cheerios) Feb­ru­ary 2, 2015

3. Make It Mobile

Glob­al smart­phone usage is on the rise. In fact, smart­phones are becom­ing the pre­ferred medi­um for access­ing the Inter­net.

Ear­li­er, we brought up dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels. Mobile is a key dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nel. Make sure your glob­al site is mobile friend­ly.

Why not try tar­get­ed adver­tis­ing through mobile apps whether you use in-app ads or native ads? You can try these lead­ing up to, before, and dur­ing the game.

4. Don’t Forget Language & Culture

When you think glob­al, you think lan­guage. Lan­guage is a big part of cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty.

The NFL chose Lon­don, most like­ly for two rea­sons: because Lon­don and the UK are an Eng­lish-speak­ing mar­ket and Lon­don can pro­vide a per­fect spring­board into the rest of Europe.

It’s impor­tant to decide whether you want to con­cen­trate on one mar­ket or mul­ti­ple mar­kets. It’s nev­er smart to spread your­self too thin. Do some research and mas­ter one mar­ket first.

Research the cul­ture and try to find ways to con­nect with that cul­ture. Decide if your mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als need to be trans­lat­ed, local­ized, or even tran­scre­at­ed to reach a new tar­get audi­ence.

Reach­ing new mar­kets is a goal of any brand. As you expand and look beyond domes­tic bor­ders, it is impor­tant to find the prop­er chan­nels to reach glob­al con­sumers. Learn from oth­er glob­al brands. Start ear­ly and study the mar­ket. Once you find a focus, in this case, sports, find a way to cre­ative­ly edu­cate your poten­tial new con­sumers on your brand and what it can offer them. Make sports fans a fan of your brand, too!