It’s almost basketball season again, and if you’re a high school student, educator, or administrator, you know what an exciting time this is. There’s nothing more exhilarating than sports season, when the bleachers are supposed to be full of happy screams, everyone is encouraged to wear team colors, and those beloved athletes are able to finally show off what they’ve been practicing for.
The sad part, however, is that organizing a basketball tournament to be a success is a difficult task. How do you make sure those bleachers are full when students are busy with classwork, college applications, and lots of other activities? How do you make sure your athletes get the recognition they deserve? Well, you can start by picking out the right promotion strategies for your basketball tournament. This includes planning everything the right way, being active on social media, creating lots of fun basketball posters, and more.
If you’re worried about how much this promotion is going to affect your budget, don’t worry! Here are a few cost-effective ways to organize and promote your basketball tournament.
1) Recruit student volunteers to set up a capable team
The first part of organizing a basketball tournament is to have a good team to help you set things up. After all, there’s a lot to do when setting up and promoting a tournament. The best thing to do is to set up a volunteer program so that you can get students to help you out, pitch their ideas, and make valuable use out of their time.
A great way to set up a volunteer program is to plan out an incentive system, where you can see if students can receive a participation certificate and award for volunteering to set up for the tournament. High school students love adding an extra certification to their college apps, so this would be a win-win situation!
2) Leverage the power of hashtags
Yes, even high school sports events need a proper marketing plan. And what better way to reach out to teenagers than through an effective social media marketing campaign? One way to effectively utilize social media is to understand the use of hashtags.
Hashtags are a great way to catch attention, especially if your target audience is high school students and sports enthusiasts. They’re catchy, fun to use, and very easy to come up with. Create a unique and catchy tournament hashtag and encourage players, coaches, and fans to use it in all of the posts they publish before the big game. This not only creates a sense of unity among attendees but also makes it easier to track and engage user-generated content.
To encourage greater use, you can also start contests or giveaways for individuals using the hashtag, incentivizing them to spread the word. You can give away a set of team merchandise, or even a special prize to the person who uses the hashtag most creatively and gets a repost from your official basketball team social media page.
3) Use Instagram stories to your advantage
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms out there, especially with the audience you’re targeting. And there are a ton of ways in which you can use Instagram to promote your basketball tournament.
One such way is Instagram stories. Instagram stories are a great way to engage your audience through exciting, ever-changing content. Stories are usually more natural, less rehearsed, and more relatable than posts, and are usually more preferred by younger audiences. Here are a few ways you can use Instagram stories to promote your high school basketball tournament:
- Create exciting behind-the-scenes content: Behind-the-scenes content is always exciting. Not only do you get to post snippets of your players during practice sessions, training for the game, and more, but you get to show them in their natural state, and make them more relatable to their audience.
- Post player profiles: give your players the spotlight and post short videos of each of them introducing themselves, their position, and one fun fact about themselves.
- Put up stories of the set up: Bring your volunteer team into the picture as well. Showcase their marketing efforts on your Instagram stories to add a touch of relatability.
The best part about using Instagram stories is that you can customize each of these story ideas by adding them to PosterMyWall’s personalized Instagram story templates and making sure all your content is on brand.
4) Go old school with vibrant basketball posters
Sometimes, it’s good to add a touch of old school marketing to your high school basketball tournament promotion. And what better way to go about it than with basketball posters? After all, you can never go wrong with a good ol’ poster.
You can find a whole range of vibrant basketball posters on PosterMyWall, and you can customize them to fit your requirements. For the ideal basketball poster, here are a few things you should keep in mind:
- Make sure to add all relevant information. The timings of the matches, the location, and all other necessary details should be added in a noticeable font.
- Add suitable graphics. Of course, a big basketball at the center is the first thing that comes to mind, but you can do much more than that. Instead of one big graphic, how about using several smaller basketball stickers across the poster? You can add a hoop, and other relevant imagery and spread it evenly to make the poster exciting without cluttering it.
- Make it multipurpose. Once your poster is done, you can use it in a ton of ways. You can print it out, post it on social media, send it out on email, and more. So make sure your basketball poster contains enough information to be useful when resized to another format too.
5. Utilize influencer marketing
If you have any relevant basketball personalities in your neighborhood, use them to your advantage. Incorporating influencer partnerships can be a great way to promote your high school basketball tournament.
Sports influencers hold a substantial sway over their followers, making their endorsement a great tool.
Encourage cross-promotion by having relevant sports personalities like players, coaches, and recruiters share posts about your tournament on their profiles while featuring them on your official event pages. By offering influencers exclusive behind-the-scenes access, you provide them with engaging content that feels authentic and exclusive to their followers. This way, you’ll be getting access to their following, and they’ll be promoted through your event pages.
Get ready for high school sports season today!
We’ve given you a lot of tips on how to promote your high school basketball tournament in style. Now it’s your turn. Hop onto PosterMyWall to find the best tools, tips, and tricks to help you sail smoothly through high school sports season and have a full crowd at the bleachers every time.
