Audience development strategy for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023

Audience development strategy for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023

At the top level of Women’s Football, there's something enchanting about a space where passion runs as deep and diverse as the roots of the sport itself.

At the top level of Women’s Football, there's something enchanting about a space where passion runs as deep and diverse as the roots of the sport itself.

At the top level of Women’s Football, there's something enchanting about a space where passion runs as deep and diverse as the roots of the sport itself. The same was true - if not more - for the latest edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Yet, beyond the goals and victories, what truly captured hearts was the camaraderie and discussions among fans off the pitch. It was a reminder that sports isn't just about the game - it's about the community it fosters.

After hundreds of discussions with experts and all relevant stakeholders, we knew that engagement would be the factor that would not only dwarf its predecessor in quantity but also set apart this quadrennial tournament from the men’s edition in 2022 in terms of quality. We had a hunch that fan engagement would be our lever and our measurement - in all its forms. To the intricacies of engaging fans, from encouraging likes, interactions, and comments to igniting active discussions, we embarked on a journey that celebrated the essence of women’s football.

Why is engagement the main objective in digital marketing?

Here’s six of our main reasons:

Quality and Quantity:

Engagement metrics show how people interact with your content, which can paint a more meaningful and precise picture than just how many people see it.

We saw fans reacting more positively and supportive than during the Men’s World Cup in ‘22 - they celebrated Women’s Football Milestones but also individual success stories, even for the opposing team.

Audience Connection:

Engagement metrics reveal how well the content resonated with the target audience, indicating a stronger bond and a better inclusion of a global community.

Fans found thousands of options to shape their own FWWC23 experience, from heated debates to casual match prediction games or the addictive Panini Sticker Collection.

Brand Loyalty and Relationship Building:

Engaged fans are more likely to form lasting connections with your brand, event, club, or athlete; further along the funnel, they are even more likely to sign up or make a purchase.

While the Australian team was able to sell out the iconic Matildas beanie, we focused on getting as many fans as possible involved in our global voting around the best players or scenes of the tournament. That way, further conversations on social media grew organically.

Feedback and Improvement:

Engagement metrics provide audience feedback for informed content adjustments.

Making changes to content strategies during the tournament may be high effort, but seeing how well clips performed along the way was a key ingredient to finding the perfect mix for content.

At the top level of Women’s Football, there's something enchanting about a space where passion runs as deep and diverse as the roots of the sport itself. The same was true - if not more - for the latest edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Yet, beyond the goals and victories, what truly captured hearts was the camaraderie and discussions among fans off the pitch. It was a reminder that sports isn't just about the game - it's about the community it fosters.

After hundreds of discussions with experts and all relevant stakeholders, we knew that engagement would be the factor that would not only dwarf its predecessor in quantity but also set apart this quadrennial tournament from the men’s edition in 2022 in terms of quality. We had a hunch that fan engagement would be our lever and our measurement - in all its forms. To the intricacies of engaging fans, from encouraging likes, interactions, and comments to igniting active discussions, we embarked on a journey that celebrated the essence of women’s football.

Why is engagement the main objective in digital marketing?

Here’s six of our main reasons:

Quality and Quantity:

Engagement metrics show how people interact with your content, which can paint a more meaningful and precise picture than just how many people see it.

We saw fans reacting more positively and supportive than during the Men’s World Cup in ‘22 - they celebrated Women’s Football Milestones but also individual success stories, even for the opposing team.

Audience Connection:

Engagement metrics reveal how well the content resonated with the target audience, indicating a stronger bond and a better inclusion of a global community.

Fans found thousands of options to shape their own FWWC23 experience, from heated debates to casual match prediction games or the addictive Panini Sticker Collection.

Brand Loyalty and Relationship Building:

Engaged fans are more likely to form lasting connections with your brand, event, club, or athlete; further along the funnel, they are even more likely to sign up or make a purchase.

While the Australian team was able to sell out the iconic Matildas beanie, we focused on getting as many fans as possible involved in our global voting around the best players or scenes of the tournament. That way, further conversations on social media grew organically.

Feedback and Improvement:

Engagement metrics provide audience feedback for informed content adjustments.

Making changes to content strategies during the tournament may be high effort, but seeing how well clips performed along the way was a key ingredient to finding the perfect mix for content.

Adaptation to Algorithm Changes:

Engagement-focused strategies are more adaptable to platform algorithm updates.

“Speed x Story x Production Quality” is the golden formula, but optimising this for early and easy engagement boosts your content massively.

Long-Term Sustainability:

Fan engagement as a KPI is poised to dominate the future of digital marketing. It helps you to better tailor your strategy to a customer-centric, meaningful approach, and personalisation trends and allows for more direct ROI measurement.

Our first reports comparing 2019 to 2023 show that engagement grew even more than Video Views and Impressions. More than 5 times the engagement of 2019 was measured across all channels during the tournament weeks, with individual pieces reaching up to half a million likes.

The key factor in the new FWWC market was that fundamentally, the audience had changed a lot since the last tournament in 2019. Women’s Football had slowly started to become more and more mainstream and the numbers on growth over these years were exponentially increasing. So - how did we tackle this?

Sponsor Activation & Digital Rights Delivery

It was all about finding ways to add value for the fans. Uncompromisingly, always. Sponsors & FIFA co-created content or interactive solutions that enhanced every single part of the fan experience around the tournament: Highlights on social & website, games, votes, and evergreens (scores & fixtures, tables, news, liveblogs and deep-dive video content).

To find the most emotional moments or topics to ignite engagement fireworks, we stayed alert and reacted swiftly, to offer brands unique opportunities.

For Visa POTM, we were able to sneak in surprise award presenters: Sophia Smith’s dad, Marta surprised Ary Borges, and Musovic surprised her best friend, Amanda Ilestedt.

We optimised copies for our sponsors to connect even better with the global & local fanbases. From Nigerian slang to Colombian expressions, this was another big step towards authentic brand connections to fans.

Interviews with fans and players seemed to flow more authentically and brought wholesome moments like these from the Jamaican POTM and her prayer group, or from Matildas fans finding words to thank not only their players but women around the world.

Performance Marketing

You’ll hear us use this buzzword quite a lot - but what does it actually mean for big events like the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ 2023? It means dedicated assets. Targeted promotions. Paid campaigns. Media plans. Maximum impact. Positive returns on investment.

Ticketing:

To make this tournament the biggest FWWC in history, we started early on with the conceptualisation of messages aiming to address different audiences specifically in Australia and New Zealand. With relation to fan engagement, we supported FIFA to engage with their audience in the local market but also globally with the brand and its ticket products even before ticketing was open and continued to support them for the last stretch to sell out the stadiums.

With the creation of dedicated assets tailored to the defined audiences, targeted promotions on social media supported the build-up of hype in the hosting countries even before tickets were on sale.

By starting to communicate on various platforms more than a year ahead of the tournament, the full funnel activation shifted from awareness to consideration and finally commitment. A data-driven approach leveraging third and first-party data supported the continuous optimisation of digital marketing campaigns and guaranteed effective ad spend and a positive return on investment.

FIFA+:

In our dynamic paid campaign approach at FIFA+, we prioritised real-time promotions and campaign optimisations to leverage the continent available on the streaming platform. We understood that different products require distinct advertising strategies, which is why we tailored our efforts to each offering. Our lean media plan allowed us to make ad hoc adjustments based on performance data, ensuring we were always on the right track. In terms of engagement, this means that we supported FIFA with the promotion of their streaming platform and bringing users there to watch the content available to the fans which included live matches, highlights and replays.

Furthermore, our close collaboration with the content team ensured that our marketing efforts were seamlessly aligned with FIFA’s editorial schedule for maximum impact. As a result, we effectively drove traffic in the targeted markets and supported the goal of bringing as many people to the platform to watch the tournaments’ games live, their highlights and replays.

Sponsor Activation:

The third and last pillar of the performance marketing strategy for the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ included a tailored delivery of FIFA commercial affiliate posts to their audiences through the FIFA social media channels. With engagement in mind, we supported this with sponsored content on the FIFA channels by exposing them to an audience relevant to the sponsor and to FIFA.

With cost-effective paid media planning and execution, organically posted content was boosted during the tournament. This approach guaranteed the fulfilment of FIFA’s contractual obligations towards their sponsors by the end of the tournament. Activating paid media resulted in a positive return on investment for all parties involved.

Beyond the victories on the pitch, the vibrant community and spirited fan discussions ultimately stole the show. The strategy of focusing on engagement metrics resonated with fans, fostering a stronger sense of connection within the global community, and fuelling discussions, debates, and competitive gamification.

We’re aware that not every campaign will be following objectives measured by engagement. However - for sports events of this kind - bringing a movement together with a month of celebration, there’s no better north star to get a sense of your universe.

With the stars that shone at this FIFA Women’s World Cup, that universe is shining brighter than ever before.