If you build it, will they come? Not quite. But with our marketing expertise, we can help you build your i9 Sports franchise into a big draw for your community.
Whether you’re running a restaurant, a spa or a youth sports business, you can’t escape marketing. The nuts and bolts of day-to-day operations and the overall success of the business model are key, of course. But it doesn’t matter how good your business is if no one knows it’s there.
And even though some common-sense marketing tactics still apply, it takes more than a generic marketing plan to promote your youth sports league. At i9 Sports, we guide our franchisees through the time-tested specifics of alerting the community to your new business.
We’ve got a marketing blueprint that lays out for you how to get the word out about your business.
We’ve got a marketing blueprint that lays out for you how to get the word out about your business. We lay out for you what your marketing goals should be each week, with metrics to help guide you and your own Franchise Business Coach who will help you adjust your week-by-week plan as needed.
Marketing your youth sports business
Grassroots marketing is at the core of our plan. While some tactics vary by location, there are some commonalities that have been proven to be effective:
- Flyers
- In-person events
- Road signs
- Email campaigns
We hyper-focus our marketing to certain geographic areas that highlight the convenience that is part of our customer value proposition.
Part of the appeal of i9 Sports is that we hold practices and games on the same day at the same location, which makes it hassle-free for parents to enroll their kids.
“They look at the numbers and say, ‘Okay, we’re low here. What have you been doing? Let’s take a look at your marketing plan.’ And then they take a look at that and say, ‘Okay, maybe we can beef this up a little bit and do a little bit more marketing here so that we can increase your numbers there’,” says Marketing Manager Erica Duncan. “They will walk franchisees through whatever challenges they might be having and try to offer solutions to that. And if the franchisees need extra help and want to have a one-on-one conversation with one of the marketing experts in our department, then they’re able to do that as well.”
Partnering with local schools
As a youth sports business, building relationships with community schools is obviously a crucial part of our marketing strategy. We encourage franchisees to bring flyers to elementary and middle schools. Some franchises have pencils branded with i9 Sports logos that they’ll donate to schools around testing time, or they’ll donate old equipment to PE teachers to try to build and solidify those school relationships.
“Another way that they can work with schools is through the PTA or PTO. They can try and sponsor different meetings, come up with a handout, raffle an i9 Sports book bag with a free registration giveaway — just to kind of get the word out,” Duncan says. “Other ways that you can work with schools are doing some in-person events, like back-to-school events or family field day.”
As a franchisor, we’ve worked out best practices for our youth sports league marketing. We learned early on that trying to market in a broader territory area wasn’t netting the results we wanted. That’s when we focused in on venue-level marketing.
Own an i9 Sports franchise
Our youth sports franchise is different in many ways, from our focus on safety and fun to our omission of the fundraising and concession duty aspects found in so many youth sports leagues these days.
If you want to learn more about owning an i9 Sports franchise, fill out the form to download our free franchise report and continue exploring our youth sports franchise research pages. We look forward to hearing from you!
