FOX SPORTS: USING TWITTER AS A TEASER TRAILER

Morning!

This week has been a manic one and my body keeps reminding me that burnout is a real thing. Who knew, I thought it was just something people shouted about on LinkedIn.

Thankfully, as the brain fog has swooped in and taken away any creative edge I once had, the World Cup has come to the rescue. Because if I can't do any work, well... at least I can watch the football.

And this email is going to be right in line with that topic.

Bare with me here, you may not give a fuck about FOX Sports and honestly me neither. But this strategy is a banger and one that I am currently implementing with Ratcliffe Brothers. In other words, read the whole thing - it'll be worth it.

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Breaking Down The Strategy

Everyone's watching the World Cup right now. If you're not, well, like, what are you doing? It happens once every 4 years - watch it.

But figuring out what channel each game is on is a nightmare.

If you're in the UK it's merely flicking from ITV to BBC, but in the U.S. (where I am currently) it's a toss-up between the 1 million and 1 sports channels they have.

I had no idea where to turn and I was not about to pay bonkers money for these channels to find out they aren't streaming the World Cup. But then I logged onto Twitter and my feed was flooded with FOX Soccer Tweets.

They covered my whole feed.

• World Cup BTS videos

• Highlights

• Goals

Everything I'd ever want to know or see about the World Cup games was covered on their Twitter feed.

It's a genius bit of marketing.

Yes, the content is great. But this isn't a genius move because of the content, it's genius because of where and WHY the content is on my Twitter feed.

Let me explain:

Firstly, you have to understand FOX Sports' intentions here. They bought the rights to the World Cup games for one reason: To get more eyes on FOX Sports and in turn make more money.

But that's not as easy as it sounds, as FOX has one big problem...Most Americans don't watch football (they don't even call it the right thing).

Essentially, demand is few and far between.

A VERY bad issue to have when you've just spent millions on the rights to the games. So FOX had to figure out a way to get around it... and they did it with a simple method that does 3 things:

1. Answer the question

The people who want to watch the World Cup in the U.S. have only one question: "Where can I watch it?" So what FOX had to do before anything else was make sure the demand they had was serviced.

FOX answered the question by making it loud and clear on Twitter that the World Cup was on FOX. They had:- Organic content: They made their Twitter page the go-to place for World Cup content.- Twitter ads: They boosted that content with paid ads to capture any football fans who didn't come across their page.- Featured on explore: They struck a deal with Twitter so their highlights would be shown on the explore page (see below).

2. The trailer

At this point, they'd serviced the football fans of America but still, the demand to watch the games would probably still be low. So, they had to go out and generate that demand.

How did they do it?

They created FOMO in their content.

No one wants to miss out on a major event that it seems like EVERYONE is watching. So FOX made sure to make the most out of the exciting parts of the World Cup in their content - prime example is this Tweet from yesterday:

Everyone knows Messi, so they've tied a bunch of highlights of him celebrating together and made it look like the Argentina game was the game of the century. Truth be told, the first 75 minutes were as exciting as the world knitting championships.

Yet, everyone who watched this video is off running to buy FOX sports so they don't miss out on the next Messi masterclass.

Now, they have a bunch more people wanting to watch the World Cup and all of them knowing exactly where to head to watch it.

And if you're wondering if it worked... it did, just have a gander at this:

Crazy right?

Don't lose me here though, because I'm about to tell you how I think this is SO easily replicable in most businesses.

What FOX did was marketing 101 and something we can all easily do, you just have to follow the exact same process they did (but for your industry). Just look:1. Place yourself where they're looking

Twitter is THE space for sports news. So FOX plonked all their content right there where every sports fan is.

For you, the platform is probably LinkedIn but it all depends on who you're targeting.

2. Flash the good stuff

FOX flashed the best bits of the World Cup.

But you can flash some value that people would get from what you do. For Ratcliffe Brothers, I could give away a free 5-email drip campaign.

Key note: If you flash something shit, it makes your company look shit. So make sure it's the best you've got.

3. Boost your reach

FOX did this through their Twitter deal + paid ads, but you can do this in a bunch of different ways:- Organic posts linking back to "The Good Stuff"- Links in comments to it- Of course, paid LinkedIn ads

This tactic is about giving your target audience exactly what they want and ensuring they know exactly where to go if they want more of the same.

For FOX, they give people what they want: To watch the World Cup. Then let them know exactly where to go if they want more of the same: FOX Sports.

Now you should go and do the exact same.

And that's all for today!

But before your go, drop me a reply with who you think is going to win the World Cup - I'm interested to see what everyone is thinking!

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of FOX Sports' marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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