The sports media industry has taken on a new identity, with more opportunities for creators and influencers than ever before.
Building sustainable personal brands and cultivating loyal audiences are essential for growth, but the burden of brand development has shifted onto the creators themselves. Marketing expertise is no longer just a skill — it’s necessary for independent creators to survive.
David Cross, founder and director of Vision Digital, spoke with Sports Media Playbook on providing the marketing blueprint for sports content creators.
Learn From an Expert: 6 Marketing Tips for Content Creators
Cross began his journey as a freelancer in web design, forming his company Vision Digital in the process. After founding in 2017, Cross noticed that many Vision Digital clients needed additional marketing assistance beyond simple web design adaptations.
After recognizing this, Cross made the ultimate marketing move: He built Vision Digital into a cutting-edge marketing strategy provider, meeting consumer demand while also finding his passion. Now, Vision Digital provides business growth solutions to a vast array of clients across markets.
As marketing becomes more and more important in the modern world of sports media, Cross’ intrinsic marketing instinct makes him an invaluable source for creators less familiar with the principles of marketing.
As the industry evolves, marketing may be the separating factor. Here, Cross tells you how you can use it.
Adopt a Marketing Mindset to Effectively Promote Yourself
Outside of the marketing field itself, there’s at times a misconception that marketing is only advertisement and active promotion. That’s a misconception that Cross is eager to clarify.
“I think the most overlooked concept of marketing has to be that everyone is ALWAYS marketing,” Cross said during the interview. “Every interaction you have is marketing.
If you are a business owner, or an employee, every client interaction is an opportunity to get that client to tell their circle of influence about the business.”
Marketing, in truth, is segmented between active and passive marketing. The active modes of marketing are more easily discernable to outsiders, but passive marketing is always happening.
As Cross says: “A bad experience and the marketing consists of negative feedback to your target market. An exceptionally good experience will result in positive feedback to your target market. A bad experience put right will result in positive feedback to your target market. Too many businesses forget this and think the marketing is done once you hop on a sales call – it doesn’t.”
Understand Your Cultivated Audience and Tailor Your Offerings to Them
The key to recognizing this is having a marketing mindset. But what does having a marketing mindset entail? A content creator or influencer, brought up as a writer, journalist, or video producer, might not have an intrinsic knowledge of this philosophy. Cross breaks it down into two parts:
“First, [a marketing mindset is] looking at things differently and framing things so they become more attractive to your target market. For example, everyone knows what a protein shake is, and most people think it’s just for gym-buffs, but by re-framing a simple protein shake to ‘the man shake’, you can speak directly to dads who want to lose weight by replacing a meal with a shake. Secondly, understand that you don’t always have to be super clever about things, and marketing is mostly just about giving your target market what they are wanting, in the way they want it.”
For creators, it’s a unique situation. In the modern age of sports media, creators cultivate their own audiences – but that marketing mindset also starts and ends with the audience and what they want. That’s why it’s important to have a strong understanding of your composite value offering. What do you offer that provides your audience value, and how can you maximize that in everything you do? Those are the questions to ask.
Recognize That SEO Adjustments and AI Reinforce the Importance of Marketing
For a long time, Google SEO was a key part of content marketing in sports media – earning placement in front of interested audiences. But algorithm changes and the introduction of AI summaries have affected Google SEO’s viability as a tool for building a brand imprint.
In Cross’ words: “Not only have changes to SEO made it harder for businesses to get visible on Google, but individuals aren’t using search the same as they were 3-4 years ago.”
For many, SEO optimization was a life raft in tumultuous waters. That raft has vanished. From a marketing perspective, where can creators pivot and redirect their attention? Is social media the key? Cross is of the mind that it is. Not only that, but Cross corroborates the belief that social media platforms are evolving into a new kind of search engine.
“Content creation, in the form of videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, is doing much more for brand awareness than SEO will ever do – and at a fraction of the cost.”
Bridge the Gap Between Human Connection and Informative Content to Get Ahead
We’ve known that content creation is a growing industry, and we’ve known that social media is where content creators live in this new day and age. But how can you, the aspiring influencer, capitalize on this opportunity? Cross says that bridging the gap between connection and content value is how you optimize.
“Brands that allow the owner/CEO to be the face of the videos, and keep their audience up to date with highly relevant information, while seeming highly accessible, will do the best. People want to feel like they have access to brand owners – not just some VA that’s been hired to reply to DM’s.”
Social media isn’t just a hub for human interaction. It’s where a rapidly growing number of users — particularly Generation Z users — are actively searching and seeking out information and answers for queries, as they might on a search engine.
For independent content creators and influencers, that development is crucial. Many content creators are the de facto “owners/CEOs” of their own brands. Human connection and accessibility are common threads that tie creators to their audiences.
It’s something every audience wants, and few are in a better position than creators on social media to provide that connection – if they can also insulate it with a quality value offering and a quality marketing strategy.
Be Consistent and Authentic to Build Trust
While Cross hasn’t worked with influencers and content creators one-on-one as a marketing strategist, he has plenty of advice for creators looking to use marketing to survive in a chaotic, unpredictable sports media environment.
“It takes time and it takes effort, but it’s well worth it,” Cross said of underpinning one’s mission with organic marketing. “First, find out where your audience hangs out. Next, find out what content they already like. Then replicate that style of content for your own business.”
It can be easy to overthink things in the world of content creation, but Cross’ advice is to take action and produce, learn along the way, and use your production as a base for passive marketing.
“Consistent content that is imperfect will ALWAYS outperform occasional perfect content.”
Be Present in the Moment So You Can Capitalize With Execution
When you hear the term “consistency” within the sports media context, you likely associate it with production. But presence is just as important within the lens of consistency, when trends and social media movements can be so vital to connecting with your audience.
“Audiences want highly relevant and up-to-date content, so pushing out a rough video about an event that happened five minutes ago is going to get far more engagement than crafting the perfect script and getting the lighting right so you can publish a perfect video two days after the fact.”
Cross’ advice echoes widely observable shifts that have been visible among sports media audiences. Unflinching authenticity fosters human connection, while jumping on trends in the heat of the moment allows creators to capitalize.
Cross’ final insight is this: The age of the influencer, as we’ve known it, is coming to an end, and content creators and personal brands are entering the forefront. As social media blossoms as the ultimate hub for interaction and engagement, being able to connect in real-time is becoming a true necessity.
And with that connection taking such a great emphasis, Cross feels it apt to re-emphasize: “Understand that you’re always marketing. Understand your target audience and give them what they want. Don’t try and overcomplicate things.”
Be yourself. Be authentic. Use those tenets to solidify your passive marketing presence, connect with your audience, and cultivate a following. And magnify those qualities through evaluative observation to form a marketing strategy that puts you ahead over the long-term.
