As part of a sport organization, you’re an expert in your sport and passionate about getting others to try it. You may not be a marketing expert, but that shouldn’t prevent you from maintaining engagement with your members and growing your organization. Due to these unprecedented times, sport organizations have had to operate under leaner budgets and less staff. But this doesn’t have to mean letting marketing — and your potential for growth — fall by the wayside.

In our effort to drive success at your sport organization, we searched for the best online resources to help boost your marketing efforts and compiled them here. The best part? They’re all free and simple to use.

Google Digital Garage

For marketing novices, a great place to start is Google Digital Garage — a suite of free online courses that teach the basics of Google Search, SEO, paid advertising, and more. If you’re more advanced, there are courses on SEP and coding that will help take your marketing efforts to the next level. In addition to marketing skills, there are courses on public speaking, time management, digital security, and conflict resolution that any leader at your organization can benefit from.

You can browse all courses, or check out these specific courses we think are ideal for sport organizations:

Promote a business with content: This course is an overview of the basics of video, social media, and content marketing. This is a beginner course that will take about three hours to complete, spread across four modules.
Promote a business with online advertising: This class will give you the know-how to create a marketing strategy, promote your sport organization online, and attract your target audience. This five-module beginner course takes about three hours.
Connect with customers over mobile: Learn how to grow your organization’s presence online and engage with new members via mobile phone. This is a quick, one-hour beginner course spread over two modules.
Fundamentals of digital marketing: This is a comprehensive, 40-hour course where you can learn all the basics of digital marketing for your sport business. Upon completion of all 26 modules, you’ll earn a certification by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) that demonstrates your grasp of fundamental marketing practices.

HubSpot Content Marketing Certification

This six-hour certification course will cover the fundamentals of content marketing, which is a subset of marketing that involves the written word. Each module will teach a different topic, such as the importance of storytelling, creating a content strategy for your website, and analyzing its performance over time.

For sport organizations, content marketing is an essential part of your overall marketing strategy. It allows you to create a narrative for your sport, grow a fan base, and build camaraderie within your specific sporting community. To understand the impact of storytelling in the sports world, consider how the Netflix show Cheer has affected public perception of cheerleading. The series shines a light on the rigorous nature of competitive cheerleading from the perspective of Texas’ Navarro College cheerleading team.

Shaping the narrative for your sport can attract new members that otherwise would never consider joining your organization.

HubSpot Instagram Marketing Training Course

Social media marketing can be daunting for beginners, but it is a major component of your sport organization’s marketing plan. Not only can you use social media to curate your own brand message, it also enables your members to spread your story for you. You don’t need a huge budget to run a successful suite of social media accounts — just a bit of education about how best to utilize each one. A good place to start is HubSpot’s Instagram Marketing Training Course, which covers the fundamentals of how to create good visual content, set up ads, and grow your following.

Social media also breaks down traditional barriers to entry. If a fan wants to attend a tournament, for example, they can easily find the relevant dates and times on your social media instead of scouring outdated or inaccurate websites. An eligible and interested athlete can discover your account while looking up a sports influencer on Instagram. Prospective members can view your content and interact with your online community before making the commitment to set foot at your facility.

With social media, your sport organization can reach people that you wouldn’t have necessarily reached through traditional channels like news articles and flyers.

Udemy Email Marketing for Beginners Course

Nearly everyone has an email address, so email marketing is a sure way to increase engagement with your organization. However, sending the same generic content to every subscriber is not the way to build a community around your sport. Effective email marketing depends on sending the right kind of content and segmenting your audience by membership type, age, and other categories. Tailored content helps increase open rates, conversion rates, and overall engagement with your sport.

Interpodia makes email marketing easy. If you use one of our platforms, you can integrate your data with any Mailchimp account, including free accounts. Keeping your email database synced across both platforms is the first step to an effective email marketing campaign. From there, learn about the five most important marketing emails you should be sending to your members.

To start learning the basics of email marketing, check out the free Email Marketing Made Easy for Beginners course on Udemy. This class will teach you how to write better emails to members and business partners, how to create a successful lead magnet, and the importance of upgrades and opt-ins.

Event Marketing Course from Eventbrite

As a sport organization, you will undoubtedly be planning and hosting various events to bring together members, staff, coaches, parents, and other community members. To attract as many participants as possible, learn the basics of event marketing. This course by Eventbrite will teach event-specific marketing strategies, covering social media, event discovery, paid advertising, website conversion, and more. Upon completion of the six-hour course, you will earn an event marketing certification.

We hope these free, comprehensive resources are helpful to your organization’s marketing efforts.

If you are in the market for a sport management technology to help streamline your processes, please contact us today!