How Do We Get New Players Into The NFBC In 2019?
Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 4:36 pm
One of our major goals for 2019 is to expand our brand and grow our playing audience. We already know that we have the best players in the fantasy baseball, football and basketball industry, but it's very important to add new players each year while retaining our current players.
That has been a major focus this off-season and I think you'll see the results very shortly. The first thing we did was identify the leading fantasy baseball content companies in the industry and I reached out to each of them to see if we could work together. We were hoping that they could spread the word to their great users and in return we'd gladly alert our players to their content and tools. We want to work with the best companies in the industry who understand the NFBC and can help our players have the best season possible.
So here's where we are spreading the word right now:
Rotowire.com: We started a promotional relationship with Rotowire.com in 2011 and this will be the 9th year that we have offered the Rotowire Online Championship. Now with a record $125,000 grand prize, we know that this relationship works as we get incredible exposure on their web site and on SiriusXM. Chris Liss, Jeff Erickson, Derek Van Riper, Peter Schoenke and the gang are great supporters of our contests and they talk about their teams and their draft strategies year-round. They will continue to push all of our contests and we will continue to offer Rotowire "Beat" leagues where our guys can earn free subscriptions to the site by finishing ahead of those experts in those Online Championship leagues. Hopefully we'll expand the relationship even further with content, so stay tuned.
BaseballHQ.com: We are excited to be working even more closely with all the folks at BaseballHQ.com this year. Ray Murphy is a Charter Member of the NFBC and he's doing a great job at BaseballHQ.com along with Brent Hershey, Ron Shandler and others. You can already see our ADPs on the site inside their projections and you'll see more in-season content based on our winning FAAB bids throughout the season and the weekly cuts. BaseballHQ.com will promote the NFBC events through banners and emails and we know they have the perfect audience for the NFBC. Glad to be working together Ray and we hope even more NFBC owners start their draft prep season with the award-winning Baseball Forecaster.
FantasyGuru.com: We are really, really excited to be working with the FantasyGuru.com gang in all of the sports starting in 2019 as this is one of the biggest subscription sites in the industry. You know them for John Hansen and fantasy football, but they are expanding into all of the sports this year while bringing in the Guru Elite gang of Jeff Mans, Ray Flowers, our own Vlad Sedler, Tommy G and others. They launched baseball last week with some incredible baseball content and Ray's Baseball Draft Guide should be available soon if it's not already. There isn't a more comprehensive guide in the industry than that one, so be sure to check it out. We'll have more details on this partnership shortly, but we'll also get some "Beat" leagues going with these guys soon and give you some offers to check out the inaugural season of baseball content. They pushed our NFFC Post-Season Contest and we immediately got a couple dozen new players right from the start. This is going to be a fun relationship and with any luck we'll get the boys out to Las Vegas to draft live with us.
Fangraphs.com/Rotographs.com: Jeff Zimmerman is pumping out a column a day, so make sure you follow him on Twitter and on the site. Jeff, Paul Sporer, Justin Mason and others are doing a great job and we know many of our NFBC owners use their site for advice, projections and more. We look forward to working closely with those guys, getting some "Beat" contests against them as well and steering you toward their top content is important to us. They will also push the NFBC as their die-hard players are always looking for better competition. Glad to be working with these guys this year.
Speaking of Justin, you know he started The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational a few years ago and it's a great national contest. He has asked the NFBC to run the draft software this year and we are more than delighted to be hosting TGFBI this year. These will be 15-team, 30-round FAAB leagues in the NFBC format that will be run and managed at playnfbc.com. I think it starts in March, so we look forward to bringing some new users to our site and having them get accustomed to how the NFBC works.
We are talking with a few other industry partners and hope to add to this list soon. We know there are some great sites that have a mix of DFS and season-long players that we'd love to work with and I think there are some unique promotional ideas we can incorporate together. I know of one idea that would be an instant hit right away, so stay tuned. We're still talking.
SiriusXM Fantasy Channel: Tom and I kicked off our 8th season on the channel this month as the High Stakes Fantasy Advantage airs every Wednesday Night from 10 pm ET to midnight. SiriusXM has again committed to broadcasting the MTM Invitational New York Ultimate League this year from the Stewart Hotel in New York City on Friday, March 15th and they will broadcast the New York Super League on Labor Day weekend as well. The channel really gives us a lot of great exposure and it's the number one driver of new users right now. We look forward to another great year together.
Our ADPs might be our best promotional tool right now as they have become the Gold Standard of the fantasy baseball industry. We continue to push out the playnfbc.com/adp link on SiriusXM and on Twitter and the traffic is really building up. Now we need to make that page better so that new users have direct links to entry level games. We're on it.
We also want to find ways to alert die-hard players about leagues that are close to filling in an easier way. We think there could be opt-in links for certain contests or alerts when any contest gets in the red that could be emailed out to interested participants. We also can put those listings for leagues that are close to selling out on more pages that all of you are using. We're working on all of that now, so stay tuned.
We've also reached out to a prominent member in the industry to help us spread the word via social media. We're not the experts there, but we think we've found someone who is. With a little work, I think we can get more folks aware of our contests through social media. Stay tuned again.
We also have to make it easier for new users to understand what we offer in the NFBC. We have so many different contests at different price points that it can get overwhelming to new users. As a result, we have to style our pages differently and not be so confusing. We also have to send those folks to the right pages. One change we quickly made was to the Contest Overview, which contains all of our contests. The landing page before was filled with text and hopefully the new look is a little less confusing:
https://playnfbc.shgn.com/gamestyles/baseball
We'll continue to fine-tune our inside pages, while working with industry partners on the outside to bring in new users. I promise that we are working hard and have a plan in place to attract the best of the best our way. From bigger grand prizes to more entry level contests to best ball to draft 'n hold to promotional partners, we're trying to reach out and offer something for everyone who loves season-long fantasy baseball. I think it's already working as the early signups are well ahead of last year's pace and last year was a record year.
Keep an eye on our promotional partners because I think you're going to see more NFBC-centric articles, promotions and more. And we are always looking for more ways to spread the word about the NFBC, so if you have any ideas post them here or contact me at [email protected]. This is the year we really expect record growth, so help us reach those goals. Thanks all.
That has been a major focus this off-season and I think you'll see the results very shortly. The first thing we did was identify the leading fantasy baseball content companies in the industry and I reached out to each of them to see if we could work together. We were hoping that they could spread the word to their great users and in return we'd gladly alert our players to their content and tools. We want to work with the best companies in the industry who understand the NFBC and can help our players have the best season possible.
So here's where we are spreading the word right now:
Rotowire.com: We started a promotional relationship with Rotowire.com in 2011 and this will be the 9th year that we have offered the Rotowire Online Championship. Now with a record $125,000 grand prize, we know that this relationship works as we get incredible exposure on their web site and on SiriusXM. Chris Liss, Jeff Erickson, Derek Van Riper, Peter Schoenke and the gang are great supporters of our contests and they talk about their teams and their draft strategies year-round. They will continue to push all of our contests and we will continue to offer Rotowire "Beat" leagues where our guys can earn free subscriptions to the site by finishing ahead of those experts in those Online Championship leagues. Hopefully we'll expand the relationship even further with content, so stay tuned.
BaseballHQ.com: We are excited to be working even more closely with all the folks at BaseballHQ.com this year. Ray Murphy is a Charter Member of the NFBC and he's doing a great job at BaseballHQ.com along with Brent Hershey, Ron Shandler and others. You can already see our ADPs on the site inside their projections and you'll see more in-season content based on our winning FAAB bids throughout the season and the weekly cuts. BaseballHQ.com will promote the NFBC events through banners and emails and we know they have the perfect audience for the NFBC. Glad to be working together Ray and we hope even more NFBC owners start their draft prep season with the award-winning Baseball Forecaster.
FantasyGuru.com: We are really, really excited to be working with the FantasyGuru.com gang in all of the sports starting in 2019 as this is one of the biggest subscription sites in the industry. You know them for John Hansen and fantasy football, but they are expanding into all of the sports this year while bringing in the Guru Elite gang of Jeff Mans, Ray Flowers, our own Vlad Sedler, Tommy G and others. They launched baseball last week with some incredible baseball content and Ray's Baseball Draft Guide should be available soon if it's not already. There isn't a more comprehensive guide in the industry than that one, so be sure to check it out. We'll have more details on this partnership shortly, but we'll also get some "Beat" leagues going with these guys soon and give you some offers to check out the inaugural season of baseball content. They pushed our NFFC Post-Season Contest and we immediately got a couple dozen new players right from the start. This is going to be a fun relationship and with any luck we'll get the boys out to Las Vegas to draft live with us.
Fangraphs.com/Rotographs.com: Jeff Zimmerman is pumping out a column a day, so make sure you follow him on Twitter and on the site. Jeff, Paul Sporer, Justin Mason and others are doing a great job and we know many of our NFBC owners use their site for advice, projections and more. We look forward to working closely with those guys, getting some "Beat" contests against them as well and steering you toward their top content is important to us. They will also push the NFBC as their die-hard players are always looking for better competition. Glad to be working with these guys this year.
Speaking of Justin, you know he started The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational a few years ago and it's a great national contest. He has asked the NFBC to run the draft software this year and we are more than delighted to be hosting TGFBI this year. These will be 15-team, 30-round FAAB leagues in the NFBC format that will be run and managed at playnfbc.com. I think it starts in March, so we look forward to bringing some new users to our site and having them get accustomed to how the NFBC works.
We are talking with a few other industry partners and hope to add to this list soon. We know there are some great sites that have a mix of DFS and season-long players that we'd love to work with and I think there are some unique promotional ideas we can incorporate together. I know of one idea that would be an instant hit right away, so stay tuned. We're still talking.
SiriusXM Fantasy Channel: Tom and I kicked off our 8th season on the channel this month as the High Stakes Fantasy Advantage airs every Wednesday Night from 10 pm ET to midnight. SiriusXM has again committed to broadcasting the MTM Invitational New York Ultimate League this year from the Stewart Hotel in New York City on Friday, March 15th and they will broadcast the New York Super League on Labor Day weekend as well. The channel really gives us a lot of great exposure and it's the number one driver of new users right now. We look forward to another great year together.
Our ADPs might be our best promotional tool right now as they have become the Gold Standard of the fantasy baseball industry. We continue to push out the playnfbc.com/adp link on SiriusXM and on Twitter and the traffic is really building up. Now we need to make that page better so that new users have direct links to entry level games. We're on it.
We also want to find ways to alert die-hard players about leagues that are close to filling in an easier way. We think there could be opt-in links for certain contests or alerts when any contest gets in the red that could be emailed out to interested participants. We also can put those listings for leagues that are close to selling out on more pages that all of you are using. We're working on all of that now, so stay tuned.
We've also reached out to a prominent member in the industry to help us spread the word via social media. We're not the experts there, but we think we've found someone who is. With a little work, I think we can get more folks aware of our contests through social media. Stay tuned again.
We also have to make it easier for new users to understand what we offer in the NFBC. We have so many different contests at different price points that it can get overwhelming to new users. As a result, we have to style our pages differently and not be so confusing. We also have to send those folks to the right pages. One change we quickly made was to the Contest Overview, which contains all of our contests. The landing page before was filled with text and hopefully the new look is a little less confusing:
https://playnfbc.shgn.com/gamestyles/baseball
We'll continue to fine-tune our inside pages, while working with industry partners on the outside to bring in new users. I promise that we are working hard and have a plan in place to attract the best of the best our way. From bigger grand prizes to more entry level contests to best ball to draft 'n hold to promotional partners, we're trying to reach out and offer something for everyone who loves season-long fantasy baseball. I think it's already working as the early signups are well ahead of last year's pace and last year was a record year.
Keep an eye on our promotional partners because I think you're going to see more NFBC-centric articles, promotions and more. And we are always looking for more ways to spread the word about the NFBC, so if you have any ideas post them here or contact me at [email protected]. This is the year we really expect record growth, so help us reach those goals. Thanks all.
