By Carson Reider '15
This week's Marketing Monday features has a Q&A with Jim Hagen '80, Marketing Manager at University of Waterloo Athletics. Jim discusses some of his marketing challenges, best practices, and the benefits of the Ohio Sports Admin alumni network.
1. What is your day-to-day role as the Marketing Manager at the University of Waterloo?
My day-to-day role really has evolved into a mentoring role. Over the years, at Waterloo, I have learned to empower marketing staff, student coops and student volunteers. With staff and students that are eager to learn and take on responsibility, it leaves me to advise, monitor, problem solve and access the execution of our plan and start to plan for the future.
2. How do you aim to differentiate marketing efforts for Waterloo from other Ontario University Athletics members?
We tend to be different from other athletic departments in the OUA based on our funding model. We are currently funded via Student Services, thus our marketing plan is based on the student body being our primary target market. Our plan is structured around strategies and tactics to build student engagement. The majority of OUA Athletic Departments are focused on community support, corporate sponsorship, while at Waterloo our prime target is student engagement, not only in varsity support, but involvement in Recreation, Fitness & Wellness, along with Intramurals and athletic club competition.
3. What would you say is the biggest marketing challenge you face today? What have you and your team thought about to fix it?
Our biggest marketing challenge has been keeping up with the trends of our target market – our students. Social media has become our number one marketing tool. Adjusting our traditional strategies and selling our plans to our administration is a daily challenge. We have been able to adopt to the trends by adjusting staff job descriptions, lots of professional development and utilizing our students to drive and monitor our efforts.
3. What was the importance of the Ohio Sports Administration program in your career and personal development?
I have found that the alumni have always been the strength of the program. On many occasions I have utilized the directory to call on an alumnus for support or networking. One year, on my way to a conference I decided to drive rather than fly. This allowed me to take staff along and visit OU alumni along the way. We stopped at Duke. North Carolina, Carolina State, East Carolina, Johns Hopkins and of course OU for the Symposium. Best professional development trip ever. Every single OU alum spent their time to answer our questions and show us their programs. No question… the alumni group is very special.
4. What is the biggest piece of advice that you could offer someone trying to find a career in marketing?
The thing I always pass on to the students, I work with is, that if sports marketing is your passion…..follow your dream. It’s all about hard work, networking, and sales.
5. What is the coolest thing you've seen lately in marketing in sports, particularly in intercollegiate sports in Canada?
With all the social media happening over the past couple years, we have become video editors. Video has become a large part of our marketing plan supporting our social media programs with Facebook, You Tube, Twitter along with a student rewards program we are just about to launch.
6. Do you have any recent or upcoming projects you could share with us?
We are launching a Student Reward Program for our Winter term which will work with all our social media strategies, we are just working on final details now. I guess one of the biggest projects we have launched for 2013-14 is a partnership with Waterloo Alumni and an Affinity Partner. In April 2013 we launched our “ALUMNI BIG TICKET PROGRAM”. All Waterloo Alumni (not just athletic alumni) where offered FREE season tickets (limited quantity) to Football, Basketball, Hockey and Volleyball. The sponsor paid for the tickets, Waterloo Alumni is administrating and we shared print costs. In the first week we were 75% of our goal, we are currently looking at extending our ceiling, as gate counts have been increasing every game. Our sponsor is very happy with the response from alumni as well Waterloo Alumni have a greater appreciation for the role Athletics plays in the engagement of their alumni.
