The UFC is one of the two sports promotions I follow. And so I know that earlier this week, UFC president Dana White teased potential fights that will happen next April at UFC 300, a milestone number for the monthly MMA event.
White says that UFC 300 will make fight fans “lose their minds” because of the caliber of the fights he will organize.
That’s the kind of problem the UFC faces these days: coming up with bigger and more exciting fights, and figuring out where to bury all the cash that these fights produce.
Today, the UFC is by far the dominant player in the sport of MMA.
The company is worth an estimated $12 billion.
But back in 2005, the UFC, already a decade old at the time, looked like it might have to fold.
They’d had a few successful fights that did well on pay-per-view. And yet, financially, the UFC was not successful or sustainable as a business. It looked like the company would go bankrupt if it had just one or two more lackluster events.
So how did we get from near-bankrupcy at UFC 50… to a $12 billion valuation at UFC 300?
I’ll tell ya. But before I give you the answer, it’s worth thinking about what you yourself — as a marketer, or a business owner — might do in the situation that the UFC was in back in 2005.
Would you run ads on TV hyping up upcoming PPV fights?
Would you send direct mail to subscribers of martial arts magazines, and try to sell recordings of your previous events?
Would you hire celebrities to come sit cageside to build up public interest?
None of those were what saved the UFC from ruin.
Instead, the owners of the UFC did something clever.
They didn’t try to sell their core product at all. Instead, they created a second product, and they promoted and sold that.
Specifically, they created a reality TV show, called The Ultimate Fighter. It showed a bunch of guys, living together in a house, training and bickering and competing with each other for the right to get a six-figure contract for the regular UFC promotion.
The show was a huge success. It drew lots of viewers. It became profitable in itself. It converted many of those new viewers into PPV customers.
The Ultimate Fighter saved the UFC. And then next year, with the next season, The Ultimate Fighter did it all over again.
Now, you are probably nowhere close to bankruptcy. But the point still stands:
You can tap into a popular format or medium. You can use that popular format or medium create a new offer that’s easy to promote… easy to sell… keeps people in the loop… builds your standing and reach… warms prospects up to your main business… and keeps them engaged even after they buy your core offer.
It’s a proven playbook to get traffic, conversion, and retention all in one.
Edward Bernays did it a hundred years ago.
Dana White did it 20 years ago.
You can do it today.
Now, if you’ve been reading these emails for a while, then you can probably guess the popular format or medium I would recommend for all of the above:
An email newsletter.
Odds are, if you’re reading my emails, and if you have a successful business, then you already have your own email newsletter.
But if you don’t, and you would like to, then hit reply. Because as of today, I’m offering a done-for-you newsletter service.
I will have more to say about it in my email tomorrow. But if you want to talk about it now, then hit reply, tell me who you are and what your business is, and we can take it from there.