Marketing Strategies used by Chelsea FC

Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, West
London. Founded in 1905, they play their home games at Stamford Bridge. The club
competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football. Chelsea is one of the
most popular clubs across the globe. Here are some strategies that help them improve their
fanbase and grow themselves off the field as well.
Current Chief Marketing Officer: Gary Twelvetree

1) The 5th stand:

Chelsea Football Club can only accommodate a tiny fraction of its fan base at its
stadium, so launched a mobile app to drive engagement across the world on match
days and beyond.
Chelsea Football Club has a global social media following of 100 million people –
and a stadium capacity of just 42,000. To help the club’s legion of fans feel better
connected, Chelsea created The 5th Stand, a mobile app for fans around the world.
The club dug deep into its mobile data, creating lookalike personas of its most
engaged users, while using paid media and push marketing to tempt inactive audience
members with content relevant to them.
It calculated a cost-per-monthly-active-user metric to evaluate the cost and value of
app users over the longer term.
Key app launches have included a pay-per-view model for preseason fixtures,
exclusive free streaming of Premier League 2 and Women’s Super League matches,
text and audio commentary of major matches, and franchised evergreen box sets of
historic matches.
The app has succeeded in meeting its goals. Within six months of launch it became
the most downloaded football club app in the world, becoming the fourth most
popular overall. According to a fan survey, 92% of users strongly agreed with the
statement, ‘as a Chelsea fan, you have to have The 5th Stand app’.
All this contributed to Chelsea winning the 2020 Marketing Week Masters award for
mobile.

2) Change in E Commerce website:

The people in today’s world prefer to shop online. Till 2017, Chelsea did not have an
E- Commerce website, they only had a single website that redirected to different areas
like “shop”, Tickets”, “matches” and users did not find it easy to navigate across the
website. When compared to Ecommerce pages of rivals like Arsenal or Manchester
united, Chelsea had the lowest visits and most time spent and least average pages
visited. This meant that users explored very little of Chelsea’s webpage compared to
rivals. After realising this, the club changed their E-Commerce section and made it
 more user friendly with proper communication, different language options, range of
products and a new menu with all options.

3) “Chelsea Creates” Campaign:

‘Chelsea Creates’ project has seen Chelsea Football Club and COPA90 provide a
huge platform to showcase and celebrate the most exciting emerging artists and
creators from across the capital. The seven-part series has brought about unique
collaborations from a variety of disciplines, from British singer and proud Londoner
Sasha Keable, to emerging illustrator Alva Skog and acclaimed poet James Massiah.
The fan-engagement campaign has run in tandem with seven all-London fixtures for
both the men’s and women’s teams, with inspirational new content and collaborations
unveiled before each local derby. The series has been a colourful backdrop to a
thrilling season on the pitch for all at Chelsea FC, set to conclude with both teams in
their respective UEFA Champions League Final.
The final instalment in the series sees the unique rivalry between Chelsea FC and
Arsenal FC celebrated with limited-edition framed prints from the artist Chester
Holme, who’s captured some of the most iconic moments from the London derby
with 20 one-off pieces exclusively shared with selected fans, creators and publishers.
The exclusively-curated content was showcased throughout the ‘Chelsea Creates’
series across Chelsea FC, COPA90 and collaborator-owned social channels. For each
collaboration, COPA90 also published a ‘Creator Journey’ video that delved into the
creative inspiration and process behind each of the collaborations, providing some
amazing insights in to how some of London’s finest young creatives create.

4) Virtual Fan-powered Home Kit Launch:

Three has teamed up with Chelsea FC to create the world’s first-ever AR kit launch.
Three is offering anyone the opportunity to digitally ‘try on’ the home shirt from
today, just hours after its official unveiling and ahead of its general availability. A
number of famous Chelsea fans including Marvin Humes, Jamie Laing, Tim
Lovejoy and Harry Lewis (widely known as @wroetoshaw) have already put the new
shirt on and love it! Fans can join them in putting the shirt on ahead of tonight’s game
away at West Ham where the Blues will be wearing the kit for real for the very first
time. Fans are also encouraged to show their support by sharing their images on social
with #ConnecttheGame.
Today’s fan-led virtual kit launch is the first initiative to go live from Three’s
partnership with Chelsea. With its goal to ‘Connect the Game’ Three aims
to showcase its network capabilities and build a stronger, more open connection
between fans and football. In today’s world with the game being played behind closed
doors, connectivity has never been more important and Three has kicked off their
partnership on day one with the fans at the heart of it.
5) Dark Horses invites fans to a “Chelsea’s superstar group chat”:

Dark Horses knew fanatical football fans would be desperate to know just how their
favourite players were using their week off. To bring those fans closer to all of their
favourite Chelsea superstars, the agency has created Chels Chat, a 2-minute video
that, literally, invites the audience into a fun and fast-paced group chat between
players such as, Callum Hudson-Odoi, N’Golo Kante, Mason Mount and Toni
Rudiger. And what are these football-mad players doing with their time off? Counting
down the seconds to their next game and trying to one-up each other with their silky
skills and tekkers, of course. Filmed in 9:16 format, it has been specifically created to
be viewed mobile-first, with messages and videos posted in messaging app style,
recreating the intimate feel of a group chat between the players on their smartphones.

6) “Imortalise players” Campaign:

Adidas and Chelsea have launched a YouTube and social campaign to promote the
football club’s new 2014/2015 home kit, which sees some of its players
‘immortalised’ as sculptures in their favourite ‘Chelsea moment’.
The ‘Forever Blue’, campaign features a video narrated by manager, Jose Mourinho,
and references ‘iconic goals, saves and celebrations’, showing five Chelsea players as
they get smothered in plaster to create the sculptures. The inhouse creative team at
Adidas, alongside The Corner and Hill & Knowlton, have devised a campaign to
follow on from last year's "It's Blue. What else matters?" imagery, sees the players
eventually breaking free from their sculptures to reveal the new kit.
Adidas brand director, Nick Craggs commented on the new launch: “Chelsea Football
Club is steeped in history. History is made with every goal, assist, tackle and clean
sheet. The players at the club are adding new chapters to the history of the Premier
League every week. Working with the players and identifying their moments over
recent years in Adidas shirts, we have managed to create a compelling campaign that
will remain with the club forever.
“It is not just about wearing the shirt; it’s what you do in the shirt. For the fans. For the
team. For the colour and for the future.”
 Plans for the future

In today’s online world, digital marketing is essential. No matter your industry or company
size, it’s one of the best ways to grow your business. To build your company and revenue,
however, you need the best digital marketing strategies on your side.
1) Search engine Optimisation (SEO):
SEO aims to direct more traffic to your website from members of your target audience.
These are consumers who are actively searching for the products and services you
offer, as well as users searching for more top of the funnel content .If you’re a
landscaper, for example, you may use SEO to increase your ranking in search results
for the keyword, “residential landscaping design,” and, “common lawn weeds.” While
these keywords have different intents, one transactional and another informational,
they target your audience. Due to that targeting, you encourage traffic to your website
from users that matter.

2) Content Marketing:
In content marketing, your business focuses on reaching, engaging, and connecting with
consumers via content. This content, which can include videos, blog
posts, infographics, and more, provides values to users.
For example: Many young children who have the desire to play football at a
professional level follow Chelsea so the can create a guide for the youngsters and
explain what all they need to do so that the can reach a professional level.