Creative Funding Doesn’t Require Creative Accounting

College athletic programs are constantly competing on and off the field for wins, honors, recruits, and recognition. That makes raising your program’s profile – and funding – job one and two every day. With school budget cuts looming and universities cutting athletic programs due to lack of funding, creative funding programs must rise in response. To achieve your program’s funding goals doesn’t require creative accounting practices, but instead requires tapping into creative sources and channels. Below are 8 ways to identify new revenue streams, create more content, and fund your athletic program.

1. Scale Your Fundraising Efforts: Leverage funding tools developed to be completely customized to your program’s unique needs and remove any hurdles to getting started. Incorporate multi-channel tools like branded websites, hosting services, social media graphics, email, and the administration of donations through a secure online platform. Highlight facilities, projects, and other initiatives to catalyze alumni donations.

2. Optimize Your Digital Real Estate: Maximize merchandising and alumni contributions with customized and branded web architecture. Develop an online marketplace for a user-friendly shopping experience. Pump up sponsors, advertisers, and your campaigns with easy control of marketing splash pages. Encourage camp registration and participation.

3. Empower with Data: Enhance digital advertising real estate with a clearer understanding of impressions and return through improved Google Analytics capabilities. Drive revenue with native sponsor placements, merchandise and concessions, and other promotions. Collect fan insights to develop more engagement, increase sales, and drive more value for sponsors.

4. Always Connect Through Your Team App: Create unique user experiences in your app, like integrated video. Streamline all kinds of purchases, ticketing, and more. Because you’re collecting data specific to your fans and programs, you can build loyalty programs, collect fan data, and create sponsorship opportunities tailored to your audience. That enables you to fine-tune your engagement, drive revenue, and grow your program.

5. Reimagine Commercial Advertising: Drive revenue with commercials, creating commercial breaks on the fly or before the broadcast begins and fire with one click. Utilize pre-roll for ad placement that will guarantee impressions.

6. Don’t Discount Digital Ticketing: While ticketing will remain the cornerstone of revenue generation for most, new ways to monetize value-added products and services simply and efficiently in a consistent digital journey experience, will be explored more through technology. This can be seen through customized fan packaging and monthly subscription-based offers designed to engage differently with local and remote audiences alike.

7. Think Like a Media Producer: Enhanced targeting, content creation, and performance analytics will allow your athletic department to fund their programs while connecting your fans to the content and offers that are most relevant to them.

8. Monetize your photos with an integrated Online Photo Store: Post photos to your galleries and offer them for sale instantly with ‘Buy Now’ functionality. You’ll collect customer information captured in your CMS (Content Management System) and receive revenue checks directly every month.

The pressure is on for many athletic programs, but by optimizing existing channels and leveraging available tools and resources, you can quickly stimulate revenue growth through your fan experience channels.

Are you leaving potential revenue streams untapped? Get a professional consultation to see what you’re missing.

 

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