Most everyone enjoys watching sports as a pastime and why not? Seeing a group of people chase, throw, catch, hit or kick a ball around is generally considered a good time. But what happens when all this action is going on across different time zones? Where do you set up a home base – or should you? In this post we’ll look at how to tackle (sorry, had to use at least one sports puns) marketing a sporting event promotion successfully from sea to shining sea.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen is when the marketing team decides that wherever they are is the home base, so everything is planned and designed through that lens. Which is an understandable point of view, but let’s try to step back a bit and consider a few things before planting our flag in Mt. It’s All About Me.

Also for the purposes of this exercise, let’s say the Marketing Team is located in Portland, OR so we have a point of reference. But feel free to ad-libs style the questions below and swap in your city so it’s a more useful evaluation tool.

• Is Portland also where there’s a large customer base? Where the corporate office is located does not always equal a fruitful customer base so be careful with this one.
•• Ask for sales numbers at all of your companies locations (if you have brick and mortar storefronts) or pull analytics from social media and web to see if there are any concentration areas where a lot of your business is coming from. In the end I would still not recommend picking one singular place as a focal point, but if you do find there are some ‘hot spots’ across the country maybe consider adding something extra to the promotion in those areas.

• Are you working with an agency? If yes, then make sure you ask them to consider point #1. An agency could be located anywhere (near or far) from the corporate office much less any customer ‘hot spots’. Be sure you ask them about this and formulate a plan that will bring about the most success for the campaign, regardless of where the marketers are located.

• Getting back to the team in Portland (who’s also be rocking the Pacific Time Zone) keep in mind that you should be publicizing the times of the events in the most common way they are shared. Which not necessarily what makes sense for your own geography.
•• For example: NFL games. If you’re working on anything football related, you’ll notice that every game on the schedules is posted in Eastern Time. So if you’re going to create any collateral, I recommend doing the same. It’s one consistent message for your customers and if you provide any links back to NFL.com in any of your social campaigning, your customers will see information consistent with what you have shared with them regarding your promotion.

Now that we’ve covered all of that, and still using football as an example, another big miss for brick and mortar folks is navigating the ups and downs of opening early or staying open late. Because as much as we’d all like to have one national campaign, let’s be real, that’s not going to happen. So keep these things on your radar:

• To use Sunday Football as an example, the first games start at 1pm Eastern which is 10am Pacific. You think, great! But wait.
•• What time do your West Coast locations open normally on Sundays? If it’s not before 10am, can they?
•• Do you have the staffing and budget to support those extra hours?
•• Also how will you let your customers know that you are opening early so you get the business to support and validate opening early.

• Now let’s talk about the last game on Sunday’s which starts at 8:30pm Eastern, 5:30pm Pacific. This one is great for West but for anyone in the East, those games can go on until 11pm or later, so let’s ask a variation of the same questions from above.
•• Do you normally stay open that late? Do you want to?
•• Do you have the staff or budget in place to support it?
•• And most importantly, does your promotion even make sense for a game that runs late into a Sunday evening. For most of America that’s a “school night” and we all have to get up and go to work the next day. Does what you’re asking your customers to do justify them staying out later then they normally would? What’s the value proposition and reason for them to give up on some shut-eye to stay engaged with your brand?

Overall the biggest take-away is this: plan strategically and thoughtfully.

Think about where your customers are, what they want and what makes the most sense for them dependant upon day of the week, time of day and what your promotion is offering. If it makes sense, which I think it does, plot out a marketing plan per time zone.

And don’t be afraid to ask your customers for their feedback too! We all know how people love to share their opinion (yay interwebs) so ask them. The answers might surprise you and offer up alternatives or add-on’s to the promotion that you hadn’t considered before.

Hope this has been helpful and please share any of your own marketing experiences in the comments! #GameOn

Thank you worldatlas.com for the USA map outline!