Own your own domain name:

The benefits of owning your own domain name are endless but the spark-notes version is here…

• This allows your to truly promote yourself
• Your name is easy to remember, and your domain name will be too!
• It increases your search engine optimization (aka you will be found easier when people “google” you)

This is something we feel very passionately about ( in-fact don’t get Chris or his friends on this topic they may start foaming at  the mouth from excitement) … To read more click here!

Utilizing Social Media:

Social media has become integrated into all aspects of our lives and therefore knowing how to use it to your advantage is highly important. With anything there are pro’s and con’s….Using facebook and twitter appropriately (or inappropriately) can make or break your career whether it’s in the athletic field or not. That being said here are a few points to remember when enjoying your social freedoms on facebook, twitter etc.

• Creep Creepin Is A Habit:
  Coaches, employers, recruiters, (lets face it… EVERYONE) will look you up online and see what you are all about. Just like you would censor yourself and put your best foot forward if you were at a tryout for your dream team, or  on an interview, you should have that same attitude when posting on social media sites.

• Be a Leader:
  Athletes are held to a higher standard, we all had a favorite athlete growing up and probably wanted to be exactly like them. Being a good role model is something to be aware of regardless of if you are a high school, college or professional athlete. Remaining cautious about the photos, videos and language you post online is extremely important, not only for being a leader, but showing the outer world you are deserving of scholarships, being on a college team, or even the big leagues (yeah lets dream big ok!?)

• Strut Your Stuff:
  Now that we covered what not to do lets look at the bright side! Social media is the perfect place to get noticed for all of the positive things we know you are out there doing! Use this an outlet to promote your: championship game, show photos from your teams big win or a video of you pitching your best game yet! ( If you volunteer, are involved in other clubs and activities on campus show that off too! ) Give those coaches something (positive) to talk about after they’ve done their creeping…research on you.

Be Proactive:

There can be many road blocks when it comes to being recruited. Contacting multiple schools, relying on your coaches to send reels, or waiting to be found among the many athletes listed in third-party recruitment data bases, can all tie up your time and prevent you from being noticed. We encourage you to not only cut out all of the possible delays but also be proactive about getting seen by the right people.

Having a Player Profile Website is an opportunity for you to showcase your talents as an athlete. You control the photos, videos and content allowing you to show this to recruiters and coaches simply via email, and ensure you are portrayed in the best  light possible. When your name is searched online your player profile can be found easily and recruiters can see all of your statistics, videos, blog postings etc. in one place.

Stay tuned for more information on simplifying the recruitment process and getting noticed. If you are interested in creating your own Player Profile Website contact Whitney ( aka Marketing Champion) at whitney@protegebranding.com

-WIT

The link below is the official website of model Kate Upton. Real quick, while this video might border NSFW (no nudity), it directly catches the attention of the visitor directly showcasing her brand and what she is all about. Kudos to MediaTropics.com on the web design, you guys get it.

Dominating brands is what we do and when I see other individuals and brands being developed properly, I’ll give the credit where its due. Oh, and she utilizes her definitive domain name too. As mentioned in my previous articles, 85-90% of profressional athletes don’t own their own domain name.

Enjoy! (Click on picture below)

Why couldn’t we take the same revenue methods of these extremely successful websites and mimic it for Professional athletes? We can and ProtegeBranding.com does. There is a great deal of uniqueness in dealing with an athletes’ website. They have a substantial following already (which equals immediate traffic) along with (hopefully) obtaining their definitive domain name. We have the ability to capture their fan base from other social and media networks to consistently keep traffic on the rise.

Lets break down some numbers and have some hypothetical fun:

Steve Nash is making $12,250,000 for the 2009-2010 season. It is safe to say he made close to 1 Million dollars in endorsements this year ( educated guess). For the sake of the article lets call his total revenue at 13,250,000.00 this year.

He does not currently have a site promoting himself as a brand. He does have SteveNash.org which is dedicated to his foundation! Kudos. Steve Nash has roughly 520,000 fans on his face book page. He has roughly 110,000 followers on Twitter. ( He is gaining over 1,000 followers on each platform everyday.) Below is a quick snap shot of another memorabilia site selling Steve Nash articles (most likely without his permission and non of the profits going to him or his foundation). Having his own site allows him to control his own memorabilia and unique products he could sell. So lets say on average his products would profit $99.00 per item in his e-store. With a total of 630,000 followers, is it reasonable to say that 3% of his fans will purchase something from his site annually? I think so. That totals to $1,871,100. Yeah, crazy right. Now lets say he decided to have a paid membership on his site which gives fans an up close look at his season through video. He will only video blog 2x week and the cost would be $5.00/month. Safe to say that 15,000 of his fans will be members? I think so. That equates to $45,000.00/month for his membership which totals an annual revenue of $540,000. Now lets say we decide to have a monthly webinar in the Suns locker room with some of the players to discuss his upcoming games. The cost of this webinar will be $15.00/webinar. Lets say 1,000 fans login per month on this webinar. That equates to roughly $15,000.00/webinar which totals $180,000 annually.

Now let’s say he decided to shoot instructional videos and sell them on his site. He makes 15- 1:30 clips on his point of view of basketball, skills and workouts. The cost of the instructional videos will be $1.99 per video, which will be sold on iTunes. Lets say 10% of his fans purchase 2 videos each which totals $125,370. With the type of traffic Steve Nash would generate to his site, it is safe to say he would receive more than 500,000 unique monthly visitors. This usually equates to 6-8k per month in online advertising (easily). With a couple other online revenue generators that ProtegeBranding.com uses we could safely add another $250,000 a year in sales based on PPC campaigns, affiliate marketing and other development ventures.

From only drawing conclusions through the fan base he has already on two social networks, our modest revenue model for Steve Nash would be $3,062,470 annually. Obviously we came a little short compared to his salary. Since online revenue generation is solely based on traffic and conversion, his site awareness would increase monthly and would consistently gain in daily unique visits to his site. This would directly effect the site revenue in a positive manner.

I am very hesitant in writing articles like these because of how real and powerful the numbers are. I have had agents claim they can do the same process for their clients and have failed miserably. With that being said, there are agents that I have been in contact with that understand the value of the internet. It’s only a matter of time before every professional athlete/icon is utilizing their own platform as a means to connect with their fans and produce revenue effectively.

Till next time,

Chris Gruler

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