More Than Words
I just received one of many text messages - this time it was Amelie, from TikTok’s HR Department - offering me a job.
One I can do in my spare – yeah, right – time and get paid daily. Working in football that last bit sounded quite appealing, as sometimes getting paid annually can be quite the challenge.
But I resisted. I know they are a scam. I’m not really sure who these messages are from, and because I don’t respond, I don’t suppose I ever will. We all seem to get a lot of these messages and even if they were legit, I doubt they’d work because they don’t exactly sell TikTok for me.
They are just words. And I need more than words.
And I like words. But I also know their limitations. And they don’t work with younger people in the way they do with my generation. Yet it struck me that a lot of clubs rely on words in a similar way. I’m not one for naming names but when creating 400+ fan experience reports every season for clubs, I see a lot of words and a LOT of clubs that completely undersell what they have to offer.
Some clubs – not many – add pictures, which can say a thousand words, but even then it’s not what football fans are used to. And if a picture says a thousand words, a video can say an awful lot more than that.
Murphy’s Law
That’s what makes the ‘TikTok’ job offer stand out. One of the world’s biggest shortform video platforms offers a job using…a plain old text message. Why not offer me the job in a highly-personalised 20-second video accompanied by video and song? I’d hope the real TikTok would do that.
It doesn’t quite make sense that moving images aren’t more widespread. Football is, after all, a very visual experience in every way. A still image of a game tells us very little besides what the weather was like and the kits the teams were wearing. If we watch highlights or just a brief clip of the action, this tells us far more. It is engaging, engrossing and what we have spent almost sixty-years absorbing.
Imagine if Match Of The Day was a series of still shots from the game with Danny Murphy talking over them. We see a photo of Phil Foden squaring up to his opponent, while Murphy adds ‘and then Foden nutmegged the defender and crossed for Haaland to score’.’
Not quite the same is it?
Storytelling
I’ve seen some examples where a club describes it’s match day experience entirely using words. This doesn’t sell it or even undersell it. It actually puts fans off or at least helps to. It’s forcing the reader to work hard to visualise what they are describing. And unless the club has hired Virginia Wolfe or Ernest Hemingway to write their website or fan guide copy, it might not tell the story they want to portray in the best possible way.
In a world where the majority of clubs still need to attract more fans (and have you seen the number of empty seats in some of the highlight packages recently?) then the current processes are underwhelming at best, and just plain ineffective at worst.
To really attract and engage with potential new fans, and especially a younger audience, then a web page or fan guide – however useful as a source of info – aren’t going to cut through. A new fan will only really go to the club’s official site AFTER they’ve been won over and decided to buy a ticket. To reach that stage, fans need to be wowed. They need to see what’s on offer, and what they might be missing by not being there.
But most clubs are trapped in the traditional marketing cycle. I see lots of social media posts and emails every day trying to flog tickets. They have a picture of a player and a button to click in order to buy said ticket(s), but not a lot else.
Rarely – if ever - do they give me a reason why I should buy one. They don’t make the decision a very easy ‘I can’t afford to miss this’ one. Yet very often that club has a fantastic story to tell and just aren’t telling it well enough.
In 2024/25, The Fan Experience Company recommended the use of video as a format for telling fans about the experience to more than forty clubs in the EFL alone. Six clubs, we noted, were using it, but not that effectively or as a way of attracting new people to their stadiums. But at least they had seen the benefits. A guide to travelling to the ground, for instance, was great to see, but again focusses on fans who’ve already made the decision to go and not on getting them there in the first place.
I expect we’ll be delivering a similar message this season. Not because clubs don’t think it’s a good idea because they do (and more on that later) and rather because it’s hard to know where to start or how to do it effectively.
Whether it’s people on the club’s database who are ‘fans’ but don’t attend games, or ones that do and the club want to push new things like hospitality packages their way, a video is the most obvious and impactful way of saying ‘here’s what we offer.’ It’s a don’t just take our word - see for yourself.
Talking Pictures
I’ve been working with Cooksey Technology since the end of last season, and their new Sports in Video offer is a game changer when it comes to bringing the club’s offer to life, very much in the way they’ve already used the medium to transform the way that vehicles and leisure venues are promoted and sold.
It’s already being used by some clubs in England and Scotland, and the number of enquires each week continues to grow. But even then, the response they often get is ‘we really like this, but how can we best utilise it?’
That’s not as hard to answer as they think. The videos help clubs showcase their match day experience, promote the hospitality, thank sponsors in a really personal way, and even thank fans who go for attending. All of these are really effective ways to using video to reach the fans in a whole new – and much more satisfying - way.
The message and video the fan receives is personalised, and features the club branding so it makes the fan feel a part of it – in a way a text from Amelie never can – and above all, it means something.
If you are a parent and see a clip of hundreds of families enjoying themselves at the club on matchdays, that’s persuasive. A paragraph that says ‘we have a range of activities for younger fans, and they can meet the mascot too’ is never going to make the pulse race as much as seeing kids playing table football, getting their face painted and high-fiving the mascot – all with a beaming smile on their face.
In the same way, a sponsor who gets a personalised video message from a player is infinitely more likely to renew than one that doesn’t get acknowledged or does, but in some dreary and instantly forgettable way.
ROI
Of course, for all the smiles and warm feelings, this is football so there has to be return on investment. And that’s actually the best part. The numbers coming from clubs so far show open rates and calls to action that are massively bigger and better than anything an email or social post can do – as anyone who’s tried to communicate by email or social will have no doubt found out themselves. People barely read their emails these days, much less take any notice of them. And social is great for sharing, but not as good at getting people to act.
The world has moved on. Video is now such a ubiquitous part of our daily lives and one of the key ways we consume information. And for younger people – the next generation of fans – it’s possibly the only way they will consume information in the future; at least until something else comes along but we are probably still a year or three away from augmented reality holograms jumping out of bus shelters.
In the short-term, the key is to reach people – existing fans, potential new fans, casual fans, sponsors etc – in a way that resonates and that speaks to them. A ticket doesn’t speak to people, neither does a bunch of words while a picture can only do so much.
Video can tell your story quickly and get much better results. I’m definitely a convert.
Actually I might see if that TikTok offer is still open.
