Oregon State University Facebook Promotion – Baseball “Diamond” Giveaway

Are you looking for ways to increase corporate sponsorship revenue? Well take a look at this example from Oregon State University with their Baseball “Diamond” Giveaway. I thought this particular promotion was worth noting for three reasons:

– Social Media integration. In order to view and sign-up for the promotion, you’d have to be a fan or “Like” their page. This means more engagement with fans in the social space that rewards encouraged behavior.

– Sponsorship activation other than football. This piece works particularly well for OSU because of how well their baseball games are attended in addition to giving one of their sponsors a unique engagement opportunity in a diversified list of offerings. With a moderate capacity stadium and a team that performs well on an annual basis, their attendance figures are some of the highest in the Pac-12 Conference; this translates to a high likelihood of impact, especially with exposure during a time of year that sponsor might not otherwise be in front of OSU’s fans.

– Long-term buzz and game day excitement – Assuming OSU has a game day integration plan, this could turn into one of those season long promotions where the winner is announced at the end of the season and makes for a big splash. If the media gets involved and if you happen to have a really excited winner, this could make for a great celebration. Diving further into this particular element, the team could interview the winner in the Omaha Room and perhaps get some video of them shopping in the store. The sponsor could probably use this more than the team, but the team ought to be able to leverage their connection to encourage renewal of the deal.

I am a big fan of clever “play on words” games as it pertains to special events and giveaways and this sponsorship element really hits it out of the park. It’s a seamless correlation between what the company offers and the sport being profiled that really caught my attention on Facebook. Something I tend to talk about a lot with our staff is the imaginary “tool box” of options we have at our disposal to help us do our jobs. This promotion is one of those “tools” that can help us as sport administrators meet some of our financials goals while at the same time creating a buzz in the community. Keep this idea in your “tool box” and consider how you could apply the same principles to perhaps another team of yours that does well in terms of attendance.

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Go Forth!