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Logan Paul.

Centre stage on WWE Monday Night Raw.

Beating up Dominik Mysterio.

It’s one of those “How did we get here?” moments.

But this is not a new wave of WWE.

This is what WWE does best!

Company Overview

Market Cap: $4.237 Billion (Source)

Revenue: $1 Billion (Source)

WWE is an American professional wrestling promotion and global entertainment company.

They are renowned for their ‘Monday Night Raw’, ‘WWW Smackdown’ and of course the world famous ‘WrestleMania’.

The company has been around for forever, yet the fan base continues to expand.

What’s their secret sauce?

Talent!

Breaking Down The Strategy

How does an entertainment company stick around for 70+ years and never lose its spark?

The answer: constant evolution.

That’s exactly what the WWE has done. They’ve taken their core competencies and adapted them to fit the changing of times.

WWE has always been renowned for its talent. I’m not talking about the ability of their performers. I’m talking about talent as in their roster of performers, that’s always been their biggest asset.

Think The Rock, The Undertaker, John Cena, Hulk Hogan - these are all household names. Not because of how great they are at wrestling, but because the WWE promoted them so well.

They are a PROMOTION company, that’s what they do best!

They take a highly skilled performer and make them a global superstar.

Or they did…

In the past, the WWE would focus on marketing their performers to the world. They’d nurture them, develop them and create an “influencer” (I hate that word) out of them.

But now they have begun taking a different approach.

Instead of taking a nobody and making them a somebody, they are talking huge stars and then bringing them to the WWE.

Why?

Because influencers, creators, megastars bring a huge cult like following with them. Not only does the WWE have a huge new face for their audience, but they also expand that audience too.

Take Logan Paul for example - the newest addition to the roster.

Upon the announcement that he would be joining The Miz to fight in a tag-team match at Wrestlemania 2022 the internet exploded!

• 1.3+ million people saw it happen live

• 740 “Prime Logan Paul” Twitter searches PER HOUR

• “Logan Paul” trending on Twitter

Not to mention the videos that were shared all over social media.

Just think about Logan’s tweet alone…

It exposed the WWE to his 6.3M Twitter followers within an instant.

That alone was probably worth the money they paid him to be involved.

Now, just think about the exposure they got from working with:

• Floyd Mayweather

• Hugh Jackman

• Ronda Rousey

• Brock Lesnar

These are all people who had millions of fans prior to the WWE. The WWE didn’t just sign them, they signed their audience.

If you still don’t believe that these huge stars have an effect on revenue for WWE, well here’s the nail in the coffin.

WWE 2K22 just announced that Machine Gun Kelly, Logan Paul, Mr T, Ronda Rousey and more would all be playable characters within the game.

The result:

• 86.7% subscriber growth for “WWE2K22” subreddit

• “Logan Paul” trending on Twitter due to DLC release

• Google searches for “WWE2K22” hit all time high

I don’t play the game.

I don’t watch WWE.

Yet the announcement of this was all over my Twitter feed.

That’s the power of influencers.

That’s the power of talent.

The WWE is their performers.

The performers make the WWE.

The WWE - one of the first ever influencer marketers!

How To Implement It

The simple answer with a lot of marketing strategies. Is take something done globally and do it locally.

This is the exact case with this one.

The WWE takes global superstars and brings them under their umbrella.

The easiest way to imitate this is to take a LOCAL superstar and bring them under your umbrella.

Can you get the local mayor to appear in your ad?

Can you get a famous figure from your area to appear on your social media?

Can you get a local football team to do a skit with your product?

Any of these will help give the exact same outcome as the WWE gets - just on a smaller scale!

You’ll have the publicity from working with the local star. But you’ll also get exposed to their audience at the same time!

This has been a breakdown of WWE’s talent marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy into your business!

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I’ll see you next Sunday!