3. pg. 3
1. Goals & Objectives
The focus of this guide will be to establish attention around the ECAC & the Division III Football
Bowl Games. We will look to utilize the ECAC’s current status in social and digital media, as well
as creating programs / ideas to generate additional exposure for the ECAC.
Vision: Increase the awareness of the ECAC brand, logo and Value Proposition, its student-
athletes, members and the Championship football game.
Mission: To initiate, stimulate and improve Intercollegiate athletic programs student - athletes
and to promote and develop educational leadership thru athletics excellence and athletics
participation. Also to promote these aspects through earned media and current showcasing
what the ECAC and its members are doing.
Communications Goals:
Increase awareness of ECAC members to local and Regional constitutes.
300 Members expressing the communication for you.
Increase understanding of what the ECAC’s relationship is with schools and student
athletes.
Organizational Goal:
Assist and involve all constituents in developing and maintaining consistent, equitable
and competitive opportunities.
Post event with Highlights, Interviews and Top plays through media sourcing.
Post event with a strong brand presence towards our members.
High upside: With over 300 respective member schools in the ECAC, it has the ability to increase
its value proposition and strategically brand itself in the local, regional and national media.
2. Quick Facts:
Information via; ECACsports.com/archives/football/2013-2014
http://www.ecacsports.com/archives/champions/diii_football_champions
2013 - The Conference sponsored seven regional bowl games this fall for teams located in the
Northeast, Northwest, and North Central, North Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest and South
Atlantic sections of the ECAC footprint. The games were held at campus sites on Saturday, Nov.
23, 2013
- Network: not at this time
- Attendance: varies
4. pg. 4
- While there so many statistics available on member sites for ECAC Football, viewing audiences
can use games from member sites to see stats. With a positive start to the ECAC Football
season the championship game with proper alignment should grow expeditiously over time.
This comes from the fact that this is a weekend game, weekend games (we assume) last year
saw high viewership which should allow for larger audiences.
3. Social Media Channels (Data from sources)
The ECAC social media data shows the strengths of: YouTube (75,687 views/average of 15,137
views per year) Facebook (897 Likes) and Twitter (2,749 Followers) presence. A major weakness
is their Instagram presence with only 64 followers and no posts since March 2013.
The ECAC’s social presence does have significant growth opportunity with a renewed effort of
their Instagram account as well as tapping into the latest social craze, Snapchat. Another
opportunity to gain presence would be utilizing the host schools SID network to create a social
presence to reach a much larger social audience leading up to the event.
Twitter – Updated 11/12/14
@ECACSports - 4,463 tweets - 420 Following - 2749 Followers - Last Post: 1 hour ago (11/2014)
@ECACDIIIHockey - 1267 tweets - 76 Following - 762 Followers - Last Post: 1 hour ago 11/2014
@ECACLax - 1120 tweets - 44 Following – 333 Followers - Last Post: 1 hour ago 11/2014
@ECACDIIFH – 18 tweets - 8 Following – 19 Followers - Last Post: 1 hour ago 11/2014
Facebook - Updated 11/12/14
ECACSports – Likes 897
ECAC DIII Hockey – Likes 562
ECAC Lacrosse – Likes 351
ECAC DII Field Hockey – Likes 4
Instagram - Updated 11/12/14
ECACSports – Followers 65 – Following 12 – Last Post: March 7, 2013, IN THE RED ZONE
Youtube - Updated 11/12/14
ECACSports – Subscribers 73 – Views 75,687 since July 2010
Snapchat - No update 11/2014 – IN THE RED ZONE
5. pg. 5
4. Identify & Profile Target Audience
Audience:
Choosing our audience will depend on a few factors…
1. The volatility of their interaction. (Can they become a negative impact if handled
improperly and what is their positive potential impact?)
2. ECAC brand, how can the brand be positively impacted.
3. How much attention they require in order to fulfill measurable success
We will target:
The following are all audiences that we would like to target in some capacity when marketing
this event:
- Former Athletes & Alumni
- Member (Schools)
- Current Athletes
- General Public
5. Reaching Goals:
Tactics:
Seeing that we have such little time before the games kick off. I think we should create an ECAC
DIII Football Bowls “TAGLINE HERE” (related to our conference tagline of Home of Champions).
We should also look to utilize the promising media tools we have immediate access to such as
1. Promoting a Coaches Corner podcast series, then we should use social posts on
2. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. (Also have Instagram post to Facebook and twitter
in an attempt to boost Instagram presence through the use of other social assets.)
These are tools to keep us actively engaged with the current media source.
3. Develop content for our Youtube channel. Content and programming is key for
delivery of message. This could be a recap of last year’s Championship game, or focus
on teams and player’s invited to the game.
4. Create a 30 second trailer for garnering excitement for the upcoming Championship
game. Once this spot is shown several times before game time it will gain exciting
momentum for the Championship game.
5. Create a SnapChat account would be very instrumental in the visualization of
character of the game. As they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
6. pg. 6
What ECAC can do with SnapChat is work with member schools to display exclusive behind the
scenes footage/pictures of various athletic events member schools are participating in.
With 300 schools the content will continuously keep coming and once a presence is established
with students, alumni and fans of the universities following the account it will serve as an asset
for the Championship Game.
Creating a story surrounding a team or a player who has endured a hardship can be highlighted
in a short video. This direction stands to gain earned media.
In the future press releases should be sent out to member schools, this will enable schools to
promote the ECAC events. They should use social media to advertise about upcoming events at
their schools.
Member schools should send this release out as well as retweet and share our event content. If
this is done the collective effort will be stronger than the ECAC trying to promote these
member schools alone.
We want to create an emphasis on the fact that these schools stand to benefit if they work
together to promote ECAC events.
6. Messages
We will focus our social posts on recognizing the student athletes & honorees. Our human
interest piece will focus on the strength of our student athletes.
Our media pieces will focus on the unique value of the ECAC.
Our recaps will focus on the history of the Championship Game and the ECAC.
7. Implement Plan
1. When activating our plan we will focus on implementing our social aspects on a regular
schedule throughout the period leading up to the Championship Game.
2. We will immediately look to create video content on the history of the ECAC &
Championship Game.
3. We will immediately start analyzing student athletes for a human interest piece.
4. We will immediately look to create video content on the history of the ECAC &
Championship Game.
5. We will immediately start to include a mention of the Championship Game during the
player of the week and other similar announcements.
7. pg. 7
8. Monitor Outcome
Weekly we will monitor the outcome of the strategy and make any necessary adjustments.
9. Measure Success
Generated views of the different media sites will measure the success of the strategy and
extend the ECAC awareness through earned media.
