#clickthruthurs

Of course, in marketing these days words like “engagement” and “relationship” are thrown around regularly enough that it’s easy for people to sometimes forget what they mean. These are not simple transactional terms. They are complex and represent the interaction of many (sometimes competing) ideas, goals, needs, desires and possible outcomes. It’s essential that fans, teams, riders AND sponsors understand this. Sponsors aren’t just some giant cloud of money in the sky that allow sports teams to exist. But neither are they exempt from a responsibility to understand and engage with the fan-base of the sport that they’ve sponsored. And that is why (again) I say that cycling teams in this respect have a very similar role to play as that of a marketing agency. In helping to quantify and understand their fans, they are able to identify sponsors who can in turn offer real value, benefit and opportunity to those fans. In turn the sponsor is justified in their investment, and is more inclined to grow their investment in the community that they have come to understand, appreciate and be a part of.

“The sport of cycling exists thanks to the synergy among fans, sponsors, athletes, teams, events and organizational bodies,” Pierce says. “Fans especially wield powerful influence when it comes to generating return on investment for cycling sponsors. It is abundantly clear that women athletes in all disciplines of cycling cannot look to the international governing body for cycling (UCI) to support and develop our sport; instead, most of the positive change we’ve seen for women’s cycling comes from grassroots efforts, often motivated by women’s cycling fans. As fans grow to realize how important and appreciated they are, I believe that grassroots efforts will flourish and nurture a positive future for the sport as a whole, and for women especially.”

Every Thursday, fans take a few minutes to "click-through" the articles on women's cycling, team websites, athlete pages, programs, affiliated sponsors, and more, and by doing so as a focused, collective effort every week, fans can actually spike the quantitative Return On Investment (ROI) for those companies invested in the sport. In other words, teams and athletes can show their sponsors concrete numbers indicating how they've increased web traffic - or click-through rates - for their sponsors; likewise, news sites will see better click-through rates on their articles covering women's cycling and be encouraged to provide more coverage for the fans. I'm emphasizing women's cycling here, because that is the context in which this idea was born; however, I want to make it clear that this initiative is a way for all fans to support ALL the good stuff they see happening in the sport - the great junior programs and races, or teams and programs dedicated to upholding clean sport. Whatever you see out there that is good and worthy, click away! Fans can post links, articles, sites, sponsors or other good stuff on Twitter using the hashtag #ClickThruThurs, to share with other fans. For now I encourage everyone to post using the hashtag as much as possible, because at the moment, that is how we can track participation.

One of my ongoing themes is thinking about how we, the fans, can help this sport we love. It’s a fascinating topic for me – on the one hand, I can (and do) bemoan the fact I feel women’s cycling is unfairly marginalised by the UCI, the cycling press, the media – after all, fans LOVE women’s racing when they get to see it, and more people watched the women’s Olympic road race on the BBC and Eurosport than watched the men’s – but on the other, what an amazing opportunity for us, as fans, to shape how the sport is portrayed, and to directly help it grow. Think about it – with the ridiculous sums of money and publicity floating around Team Sky, for example, fans of men’s cycling tend to be seen as an amorphous mass, for riders to moan about, if they think about us at all. But on the women’s side, our blogging, tweeting, ‘like’-ing, and our actions, can really make a difference. I really believe in that maxim, “be the change you want to see” – and I am still in awe of how fans’ backing and support for the Unofficial, Unsanctioned Social Media Jersey blew all our expectations out of the water, and showed how, working together, we can directly support the riders, teams and sport we love. And there are some more initiatives I want to highlight, that give us some really simple, easy and fun ways to help. I know I talk about some of these all the time, but damn, I love their passion, their continual commitment to the sport – and above all, how EASY they make it for us to help.