Digital Marketing Strategy for the Pittsburgh RiverHounds
Written by Anna Hadzinski
Who are the Pittsburgh Riverhounds?
The Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC, founded in 1998, is a professional soccer team that plays at Pittsburgh’s own Highmark Stadium. The founder, Paul Heasley, had the idea for the team after seeing his son begin playing at a higher level. After Heasley sold the team in 2004, they went under several different ownerships and sponsorships before the current owner, Tuffy Shallenberger, eventually bought the team.
What are the “Goals” outside the field?
The team has a variety of different goals when they are playing. However, when they are not playing, they have even more goals. Having support and a crowd while playing is one of the biggest factors in having a good game, some would say. That being said, one of their biggest goals outside the field is getting more fans out to games, specifically those who typically stay home and are within 50 miles of the Highmark Stadium. Doing so will create a more fun and engaging fan section at home games. Also, it can spread the word about the team and its successes! The team has decided to conquer this goal through digital marketing. Some of the strategies they will pursue are…
Engaging with local communities:
Local communities are one of the most important qualities of a fanbase. When it comes to Pittsburgh, sports a a big deal even if you are not from this city. Since the Pittsburgh Riverhounds are not quite as big as the Steelers or Pirates, they need help engaging locals and bringing them into their fan culture. There are a dozen ways to do this, but one popular way would be to market themselves by doing community service with local grade schools.
Community service is a great way to get involved with your community. By having the team go to local grade schools, they can market themselves while doing something beneficial for the community. They could even offer free tickets for the kids and their families to go to a home game. Sometimes, in order to reach that target market, you have to be ok with losing some ticket sales. In the end, you will get more kids out to support and see what going to the game looks like. The end goal essentially would be to get those kids to want to get tickets to another game.
Recently, the team celebrated a big win against the Columbus Crew. They posted a video showing the winning moment and it perfectly captured the sense of community and engagement their fans bring to their games!
Partnerships:
Partnerships are essential to any form of business. Without any support from any partnership, a brand/company may struggle to stay afloat. According to an article from Forbes, written by Kate Vitasek, titled “Data Shows Business Partnerships Are A Good Idea” mentions, “Regardless of the partnership type, there is plenty of data proving that partnerships can lead to significantly enhanced results for the business – including boosting revenue, creating new opportunities and fueling innovation”, (Vitasek, 2). The Pittsburgh Riverhounds will utilize as many partnerships as they can retain. One of them is a student rush ticket system. Like many of the other Pittsburgh sports teams, the Riverhounds will create student rush ticket partnerships.
What this will look like:
The team will partner with individual schools such as Duquesne University, University of Pittsburgh, Point Park, etc. During the Pittsburgh Riverhounds season, students will receive an email that lets them sign up for a student rush ticket lottery. Every day there is a home game, students will receive a text (through SMS Marketing) hours leading up to the game with a link to buy discounted tickets. This does a variety of things. First, this will boost ticket sales, even though they are at a discounted price. Second, this will create a better fan environment and could lead to packed bleachers. Schools like Point Park do not get to have the feeling of their school having a team playing at a big field, which means the Pittsburgh Riverhounds could be the next best thing!
This is an example of what their Student Rush tickets could be advertised as.
Targeted social media posts:
Without social media, marketing today would be even more challenging than it already is. Different platforms such as Instagram and Facebook are now used a great deal to help brands/companies market themselves to a specific target audience. Using the free tools that both Instagram and Facebook have to offer, the Pittsburgh riverhounds can set specific targeted goals that they intend their account to reach. By posting reels, photos, and collaborative posts, they can gain more of a following and connect with interpersonal fans.
Another way to stay connected on social media is by having an active account. This means having a social media manager who keeps track of the accounts and monitors the comments and likes throughout the day. This also means replying to comments and reposting images from other teams. Adobe recently released an article called, “15 Benefits of Social Media Marketing”, which touches on why you need to utilize it to have a strong and successful business today.
Click Here to Purchase Tickets Today!
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Click Here to Purchase Tickets Today! 〰️
Where should they go from here:
After taking into consideration the new digital marketing practices mentioned above, such as engaging with local communities, creating partnerships, and targeting social media posts, the team has plenty to work on. While on their off-season, they should take time to decide on different community service tasks they would like to partake in. Also, keep in mind which brands or companies they would like to create partnerships with. When doing this, they need to keep in mind their target audience and think about how the partnership will support and benefit the team. Lastly, the Pittsburgh Riverhounds should start to utilize different social media tools to reach out to a larger target market. Their posts need to be engaging and should make their followers want to see more posts.