Is Your Team/Brand in THEIR Calendar?

Are you currently exploring ways to have multiple touchpoints (daily/weekly) with your target fanbase? Are you looking for new tech-saavy ways to integrate corporate partners? Have you brainstormed different ways to get on your fans calendar?

Numerous teams/universities are now offering schedules on their websites that fans/donors/season ticket holders can easily import into their Outlook/Google Calendars. The University of Texas Athletics Department offers a benchmark example for teams/athletic departments to model if interested in implementing such an online service. On their athletics website, the Longhorns host fourteen (14) varsity teams' schedules in addition to future ('09) and past football schedules. Simply feature this offering under both the Schedules Tab and the Downloads Tab on your sports organization's website.

Is this just the start of a new way that teams will look to communicate with their fanbases? It is only a matter of time when teams use such offerings for promotional usage (offering all fans who download the schedule an exclusive meet-n-greet/autograph appearance, etc.). After all, teams that can effectively persuade fans/donors/season ticket holders to import their schedules into their daily Outlook calendars have found a cost-effective way (free!) to create new touchpoints with their targeted consumers. With people's lives becoming convoluted with various media channels, it is important that you can communicate directly with consumers to help them see/understand when your events are taking place (and how they can make their calendars work so they can attend).

Teams/athletic departments can integrate corporate partners by detailing promotional nights (mark the calendar event with a different color), integrating passcodes for calendar users to access when clicking on the schedule date to redeem online for exclusive prizes/VIP from supporting partners, and/or find new ways to tie-in advertising, etc.