How to Leverage This Summer’s Olympic Games to Increase Your Bottom Line

Every four years the entire world gets caught up in the frenzy and excitement of the Olympic Games. This Summer, Brazil’s second most populous city, Rio de Janeiro, will host over 10,000 athletes as well as an expected 500,000 visitors, all ready to cheer on their countrymen and women.

While brand giants like McDonald’s and Nike will have (and profit from) a heavy advertising presence at the actual games, small businesses can tailor marketing campaigns toward the event and reap big rewards.

Here are some ways you can get creative and leverage this summer’s Olympic games and increase your bottom line:

Incentivize Patriotism

More than any other time, except for maybe the Fourth of July, Americans feel a sense of pride and patriotism during the Olympic games. Incentivize this patriotism by encouraging patrons and customers to celebrate in their own way.

For example, you could encourage people to wear red, white and blue and offer discounts to those who show their pride.

Be sure to keep an eye on the news so you can take advantage of a moving Olympic story. Use these stories to send out a quick email campaign or create a print ad that will stir people’s emotions and get them to buy.

Get Social

You can pretty much count on the Rio games to be a consistently trending topic on most social media platforms. Be sure to follow official Twitter handles like @Rio2016_en for updates and use the right hashtags like #Rio2016.

Get in on the relevant conversations that will be happening and engage your customers. Consider asking patrons to share patriotic images via their social pages to enter into a contest or giveaway that you sponsor.

Find Real Connections

If at all possible, find some real connections between your business and the summer games. Is there a local athlete competing in the games that eats at your restaurant or uses your products? Promote these connections.

If you’re not lucky enough to have a real connection, have some fun by linking to hot events or athletes. For instance, you could offer a 10% discount if Michael Phelps makes it to the next round or wins a gold.

Host a Watch Party

Want to get more people into your place of business? Host a watch party. There will be dozens of games each day, and like any sporting event, people like to watch the action with others.

Create a fun atmosphere and perhaps partner with another local business to cross-promote.

Get Your SEO Right

People are going to be searching heavily for news about the summer Olympic games. This means you’ve got to work on your own SEO game and get it right. Make sure your search engine marketing campaigns and your website’s keywords have been tweaked to reflect whatever is currently trending to capture consumer interest.

Get Ready for Extra Digital Traffic

If you’re going to do the work to get extra traffic to your digital assets, you need to make sure you have enough bandwidth to handle it. Contact your hosting company to prepare for the additional traffic your promotional campaigns might generate.

Be Careful of Licensed Trademarks

While it may be tempting, do NOT use any licensed trademarks or imagery or even specific language of the official Olympic games in your promotions. Olympic organizers are understandably very protective of their brand and you risk possible legal action.

Just because you’re a small, local company doesn’t mean you can’t cash in on the excitement of the upcoming summer games. By getting a little creative you can leverage this excitement and increase your bottom line.