When people are looking for a sport to learn, they usually try to find something that isn’t too expensive. As much as possible, they want to never spend a dime on the sports they love. A basketball is good enough because there’s always a basketball court somewhere where you can throw hoops and practice your skills. The same goes for soccer, football, and baseball. All you need is the right space for it.
That is why sport-based businesses have always tried to stay away from selling expensive sports equipment. For them, the market is too small to penetrate. For them, it is so much better to sell baseball bats and caps since most kids and teenagers can afford them. But is this the best way to grow your sporting goods business? Is distancing your business from expensive sports equipment the only way for you to address what your market demands?
Sports should never be restricting. It shouldn’t be something that only the rich can afford. There is a way to sell traditionally expensive sports equipment without feeling like you’re robbing customers of their hard-earned money. There are strategic methods to reach customers who otherwise wouldn’t think that these sports tools and equipment are for them.
Develop Apps
Studies showed that businesses with mobile apps experience an increase in mobile transactions that represent around 65% of all transactions. So if you sell mini golf carts, it’s important to have an app that will market it to its intended audience. Through the app, you can share information and details about your business line of products and services. It can also showcase your inventory management and in-store assistance.
Most apps provide personalized fitness advice for customers who do not have the financial capacity to hire a personal trainer and coach anymore. They instead depend on the after-sales services they can get from the company where they got their sports equipment. One of the many benefits of developing an app for your business is its capacity to collect data and learn from the customers. It also retargets audiences, bringing them back to the app—and the business—when they lapsed in their subscriptions and purchases.
Personalize Strategies
Your marketing campaign should be based on personalization—both in understanding your customer preferences and targeting the right audience. A sporting goods business has a particular market. By learning more about them, you will be able to develop a campaign that targets all their needs and wants. However, businesses have to work harder to understand the ever-changing market of sporting goods. This is why you should use the proper tools to measure customer engagement and personalize call-to-action strategies for every market group.
Personalization will also retarget customers who haven’t been transacting with your business for a while. Similar to other businesses, the purpose of collecting this information from customers is to increase conversions through tackling abandoned carts issues and the time spent shopping on your e-commerce site. The strategy alone can increase sales by 70%, both in physical and e-commerce stores.
Expensive sports equipment is a bit harder to market because of their sticker price. Personalized and well-targeted marketing campaigns, however, will ensure that you are reaching the audience who needs the items you are selling. By understanding what’s expensive and not expensive to them, you have a better chance of being at the top of your game.
Use Videos
More than 80% of Internet traffic is now video-based. Generation Z is streaming more than 23 hours of videos per week. These two details alone should emphasize to you the importance of using videos in the business. No other medium in the world can be used by sporting goods stores to showcase their action-packed adventure by buying sporting equipment than videos. If there’s only one marketing material you can use for your business, it would have to be a video.
Remember to create short clips (around 20-seconds-long only) so viewers will remember what your video is all about. Videos are also being used for retargeting and retaining customers. You have to keep producing these short videos so that customers will be reminded of the quality of products and services you can deliver.
Data is at the cornerstone of every strategy to market one’s business. Should it matter if the products you are selling target only a particular audience? It should not even be an issue. The marketing strategies for cheap, affordable, practical, or expensive products are all the same; what is important is to understand who benefits from your products and services.
