3 Marketing Strategies that Can Help You Take Home the Gold During the 2014 Sochi Olympics

With more than 26 million viewers worldwide, the Sochi Olympics offer a ton of potential to advertisers. Unfortunately, many businesses fail to take advantage of this marketing opportunity, mostly because a high-priced TV ad would put them in bankruptcy. However, you don’t need to spend millions to benefit from the Olympics.

This article will highlight three digital marketing strategies than can provide big wins without breaking the bank. Whether you run a small mom-and-pop restaurant or a big-box retail store, these tips can enhance your brand and generate more sales during the 2014 Olympics season.

1. Publish Videos on Social Networks
When NBC announced that Facebook would be hosting online coverage of the Sochi Olympics, ad costs on the social network giant jumped considerably. However, paid advertisements aren’t the only way to access Facebook’s billion-plus users; social-media videos are free to post and are far more engaging than text-only ads.

The world’s biggest companies, including Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper and Dunkin’ Donuts, are proving that utilizing social media video marketing tools is an extremely effective and profitable marketing strategy. Since 2006, online videos have generated more than 365 billion views, according to Unruly Media.

The Olympics will stir up activity on social media sites like Facebook, so you’ll want to associate your marketing campaign with the event, an athlete or a team. You can’t necessarily say that an athlete endorses your product or that you’re the “official (product) of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.” However, you can use your business profile to post exciting, memorable video clips to people’s newsfeeds. This is particularly effective in real-time. You don’t need much video-editing knowledge to create a share-worthy video, and posting is simple.

This is an easy way to establish an association between your brand and the Olympics. According to Simply Measured, visual content such as videos can increase engagement by up to 65 percent. This all comes at nothing spent but some time.

2. Optimize Your Website
It’s no secret that organic search-engine optimization (SEO) can be one of the most rewarding digital marketing strategies. There are a few key steps to ranking for keywords. The most important is publishing new, useful content that relates to those keywords. All content should be unique and useful to your readers.

Publish articles that target the keywords on your website or blog and promote the articles on your social network pages (Google+, Twitter and Facebook). This will generate unique visits and enhance your social media presence, both of which can increase your Google rank for target keywords.

For example, if you own a video production company and you want to target the keyword “Olympics video production,” you might write and publish articles about the recording equipment at the Olympics. You could also write about how Olympic broadcasting has changed over the years.

By increasing your website’s search engine rank for trending keywords, you attract more visits. You can convert visits into sales by mentioning your product in blog posts. Try to be as non-sales oriented as possible. In the video-production company example, they might discuss how their techniques and equipment compare to those used by Olympics broadcasters. Remember to end the article with a call-to-action that encourages an email, phone call or method of continuing their engagement with your brand.

3. Tie Olympics to Email Marketing Campaigns
There are countless strategies to increase the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign, but it always helps to associate your business with current, popular events. An email that ties to the 2014 Sochi Olympics is far more intriguing than a run-of-the-mill promotional ad.

Assuming that your company has a list of customer emails ready to go, the next step is writing and formatting your email. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Grammar errors can make your business look unprofessional, so be sure to proofread.
• Keep the subject line short. Short subject lines have been shown to have higher open rates. Also, keep your subject line current by relating it to the Olympics.
• Write something that you would be willing to read yourself.
• Keep the email short and concise.
• Include a single call-to-action.

With so much action, drama and memorable moments, there are plenty of ways to relate the Olympics to your company’s products or services.

Thanks to smartphones, tablets and laptops, people have more opportunities to not only watch the Olympics, but also engage about topics, events and performances as well. With the right digital marketing strategy, this celebrated event can boost your company’s image and ultimately increase traffic and revenue.

For more information, reach out to Rise.