The Inbound Marketing Process: The Nick Saban Approach

The process. Follow the process. It sounds cliché; however winning three national championships in four years is anything but cliché. That’s exactly what Nick Saban has done at the University of Alabama. Success like this doesn’t happen by accident. And due to this said process that Coach Saban has brought with him on all of his stops, it’s no coincidence that the Crimson Tide are primed for another run at a BCS title. 

When looking at his “process", it is not a checklist, nor a menu, nor any principles that are set in stone, but it is a focus and determination that has led to consistent success. Consistency is a hard attribute to find in today’s collegiate football landscape. Between the network television dollars, exorbitant coach’s salaries (which Saban tops the list in) and a metaphorical arms race within the SEC, creating the successful longevity enjoyed by USC in the 1970’s and Notre Dame in the 1980’s seems to be a thing of the past. 

Just as football programs recruit the best athletes in the nation and hire the smartest coaches, organizations have started to embrace new alternatives to branding, imaging and communication.  Inbound marketing and leveraging the tools that make it effective need to become staples in your advertising war chest. Saban’s career record is 167-55-1. Tallying four BCS national championships while elevating four football bowl subdivision programs along the way, as well as stint in the NFL, he has arguably perfected his program building methods. The parallels one can draw between Saban’s process and career arc to the core principles of marketing are undeniable. When it comes to implementing crystal footballs (campaigns) and producing dollars for a university (business), his success rate is irrefutable.

Hailing from the “Bill Belichick Coaching Tree”, Saban has manned the helm at Toledo, Michigan State, LSU, the Miami Dolphins and Alabama. “The process is having a plan for all areas of the program, and working hard every day,” said Joe Pendry, a Saban assistant from 2007-2010. Just as you launch a campaign or a consistent message to convey within your market, focusing on a steady process has become imperative in order for you to be effective. The inbound marketing process embraces this principle. Let’s look at how the inbound marketing funnel relates to Saban’s process.

Content creation: The basic fundamental of inbound marketing is what fuels your marketing efforts. Creating interesting and remarkable content is what fuels the rest of the inbound marketing process. Whether it is via a blog, e-books, video or podcasts, search engines crave and reward fresh, relevant content. Coaches and fans alike crave new 5-star athletes that can lead their team to another championship. Committing to this aspect on either side of the football/marketing parallel is essential in fulfilling a successful process. 

Optimization: At this point you have your team, your website if you will, ready. It’s full of the best and brightest student-athletes (content). Now it’s time to put them in the best position to win. For a collegiate football team that means strategy and practice. For your website and content it means optimization. Positioning your site to be found in search is critical to your marketing plan being successful. There is no point to have content that your clients and prospective consumers are craving and searching for, if they can’t find it. Just as there is no point in assembling a team and putting them on the gridiron with no intention of winning a game.

Promote: Now you have precisely designed your team. They are prepared and performing at a very high level. In football, it is time to go win games. For your marketing strategy it is time to push this information to an audience that can benefit from it. In amplifying your content through various social media channels and email campaigns, you are engaging a captive audience. In football you rise and improve through in the national polls and BCS ranking by playing a competitive schedule. It certainly helps a team in the polls when they play a quality opponent in front of a nationally televised, so more people are sharing in the "buzz" of your impressive win. Likewise in inbound marketing, your content will be more "likeable" when it's dynamic and remarkable in nature. 

Convert: At this point in both processes you’ve put in the work, devised strategies and created an opportunity for this process to reach a successful conclusion. On the football field this is where your wins, practices, meetings and preparations turn into championships. But the true conversion comes from what those championships yield. It can transform a community, state, region and national fan base. The dark days of probation riddled Alabama football were not long ago. Now they are on the verge of accomplishing something that hasn’t happened since 1936, win 3 consecutive national titles. With the transformation, fan bases and university boosters grow, resources increase and the process creates a cyclical protocol where as long as its followed, these positives results continue. For your marketing efforts, conversion occurs when the leads you generate through your content creation, search engine optimization and promotion become customers. 

Whether you are earning return business or brand new customers, the ultimate end game for a marketer is to earn more business. That is exactly what the inbound process is intended to do. By generating content for prospective clients to read and putting it where they can find it, you position yourself to earn their business and ultimately grow your bottom line. “It’s a total overall plan. The plan is about always improving. Nobody stays the same. The plan happens to have worked and is proven,” continued Pendry. The variables that can affect a program are countless, much like the outside environs that impact your marketing efforts, no single element can be stagnant and remain dependable. Players get injured, coaches leave, resources get reallocated, markets shift. Strong coaches, leaders and marketers, however, are able to persevere. Between depth on the bench, relevant content and SEO, coaches and inbound marketers alike can overcome bleak circumstances. For Coach Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide it will not be a goal to win their third consecutive national championship. Raising that crystal football in Pasadena will only be a byproduct of the process. Much like higher sales and new clients won’t be the specific goal of certain inbound marketers, but it will be the result of a committed, effective marketing effort within your organization.