Joni Smoller still remembers her first National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators convention in 2005. She was a graduate assistant at her alma mater, Kansas State, and was part of a marketing team there to receive an award. Just over a decade later, Smoller, still at K-State as assistant athletic director, fan experience and sales, is president of NACMA, the trade association for collegiate marketers. She’s helping the group form a new strategic plan with a focus on three areas that are vital in college athletics: revenue generation, fan development and brand management.
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We’re all trying to make that connection with the fan throughout the year. You don’t want to treat them like customers; they’re fans. So we keep them updated on things like the basketball team’s trip to Italy, which has nothing to do with selling tickets, but just staying in touch. It’s just constant communication that’s not necessarily selling.”
On her leadership of NACMA: We have a few big goals, like a new strategic plan, which involves trying to define the role of a collegiate sports marketer and how can we give our membership the tools they need to carry that out.
On NACMA projects: This will be the third year we’ve done the student attendance research project and this year we’re partnering with Memphis. … Some of the findings reiterated what we already knew. Students like free stuff. But the in-game experience and making their experience unique is also important. Now that we’re getting this information, we need to apply it with, for example, a pregame concert in the student tailgate area. … We’ve also learned that Wi-Fi does not impact whether they go to a game. … it’s the social media before and after the event, not so much while they’re watching the game.
On having “fan experience” in her title: What I didn’t know was I’d get every fan experience question or complaint, whether it’s parking or popcorn. That led to the formation of the Welcome to K-State committee, which enabled us to tackle the fan experience as a staff. And then, over the last few years, I started to see these titles like fan experience and fan engagement and fan strategy show up next to people’s names all around the country.
On growing commercialism in college athletics: I think it’s the right direction if the partnerships are solid and if it’s working for both partners. We look at this a lot in our in-game scripting. Let’s not just show the 30-second commercial for Pizza Hut. Let’s do a feature that’s entertaining for the fans and give the sponsor the chance to engage that way.
On telling the story of the athletes: Research shows that fans are more connected when they feel connected to the student athlete. That’s got to be part of our marketing strategy, getting our players’ names and faces out there, whether through an email or a billboard, so the fans know who the players are.
