Agility, strength, endurance, resistance, intelligence - these are skills every athlete must have in order to succeed no matter what sports they play, there’s no other way to survive the training routine players are put through. And yet there’s still one more skill that has recently become crucial to the career development of athletes: branding.
That’s right, you read it. Athletes that invest on branding early on - even during their amateur time - have more chances of finding success and establishing a solid career in professional sports. Why, you may ask? Because a well branded persona is more likely to be seen, found, remembered and recognized. This is how you stand out from your competition and make fans, clubs and the media aware of your presence in the industry.
The world of professional sports have relied on Marketing for many many years now. Clubs and Sportswear brands need marketing for everything: to get more fans and engaged, to sell more apparel, to sell tickets, to be featured on the media, etc. The entire industry was built using marketing as their core structure. But individual athletes only started worrying about their own branding very recently, when elite players decided to have their own merchandise and not only appear under their club or team name.
The boom of Social Media intensified this process. Now they had a platform to expose not only their training and game routines but also their lifestyle, family and friends. Elite athletes became more personal with fans and started to notice that having a strong and solid personal branding could offer them much more than just showing up to train and play.
Nowadays it’s not unusual to see players that are more valuable than their own club or league. Ronaldo, CR7, Tom Brady, Neymar, Lebron James…. Their name and brand are among the most valuable of all times. And it’s all about marketing yourself.
This is not a one time job, it’s an ongoing process that will make sure to follow your changes and development as a professional. It needs to be modern, well-strategized and consistent. That’s why you need highly trained professionals to make sure your brand speaks your truth, otherwise your plan could backfire and people could end up remembering you for all the wrong reasons. You do not want that, right?
So seek professional help. This is not a job for your little brother who “knows how to play with Adobe”. Branding is much more than a logo design, using different colours and fonts. It is a complex research and production process done by a professional team that works hard to find out what is it that you’re made of and how to represent it in symbols, colours, designs, photos and videos that will work together to create what we call your Brand.
Your brand should immediately tell people who you are and what they can expect from you without actually saying the words. What are your skills, strengths, beliefs? A solid and professionally developed Branding will answer those questions and make people remember you. It’s the legacy you’ll leave behind.
Don’t leave it to chance, have Microswift help you tell the world what you came for!
