The Inﬂuence of Digital Marketing On the Communication of Football Clubs
Authors: Šidlauskė Aušrinė , Ūsas Antanas 
Published: May 2023

Relevance of the topic. Today, the role of marketing is to satisfy the consumer's curiosity through transparent and valuable content (Sawicki, 2016). More than 4 billion people around the world regularly use online services to find their products, entertainment, friends and even romances, and the behavior of customers and the way companies sell their products to both consumers and businesses has changed a lot (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2019). As the use of the Internet has grown, so have related activities such as digital marketing. The main difference between traditional and digital marketing is that digital marketing focuses on the customer, offering him a personal message and a response to his request (Ištvanić, Crnjac Milić & Krpić, 2017). Digital marketing is an integral part of the digital business transformation process. It includes new marketing methods based on information and communication technologies. Todor (2015) the study is based on a study by ZenitOptimedia, which shows that internet use has increased significantly over the past five years, while the use of other media has decreased or only slightly increased. The situation is as follows: internet (+105 %.), outdoor advertising (+3%), television (-8%), cinema (-11%), radio (-15%), magazines (-23%), newspapers (-31%).  For this reason, its application in practice is a prerequisite for the successful development of business in modern market conditions (Veleva & Tsvetanova, 2020).

The problem. Football fans around the world are increasingly communicating with each other on social networks (Parganas et al., 2017), and football clubs, regardless of their degree of professionalism, include a large number of social media/media platforms for their online campaigns (Helleu, 2017). Bagchi, Sreepada (2020) in the survey conducted, respondents expressed their opinion about the social networks of their favorite football club and why they follow the news of the club in them.  Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the influence of social networks on football has increased. The clubs tried to give interesting and new content to the fans. Some organized social media quizzes, others made videos with a message that the stadium missed the fans (Szczepkowski, 2021).

The aim of the study is to analyze the influence of digital marketing on the communication of football clubs in the case of Lithuania.

The subject of the study is the influence of digital marketing on the communication of football clubs.

The choice of assessing the influence of electronic marketing on the communication of football clubs was determined by the popularity of the sport in the world, the constantly growing sports market and a large fan base. The quantitative research method chosen for the survey is a questionnaire survey. The quantitative study examined the opinions and behavior of fans of Lithuanian football clubs – consumers – related to the applied online marketing tools. In order to assess the influence of digital marketing on the communication of football clubs, literary analysis and empirical research were chosen. The questionnaire was compiled on the basis of Vale & Fernandes (2018) “Social media and sports: driving fan engagement with football clubs on Facebook” research. To obtain a targeted sample of those who responded in the study, paniotto's sample size formula (Bokor et al., 2011) was used to avoid going beyond the 5 percent error. A total of 451 respondents participated in the survey.

Results and conclusion. The largest part of football clubs follow with the help of social networks and even note that they monitor the news on a daily basis thanks to social media platforms. All categories of questions were dominated by the influence of social networks on the communication of the football club. From the results of the study, it is noted that clubs use various strategies, but dominate and fans like social networks the most. Their rating from the presented means was the best. In addition, the respondents were quite unanimous in answering the questions of involvement in the activities of the community - they agree that the activities of the supported football club are important to them. The vast majority of the study participants are happy to get involved in the activities of the communities of clubs and organizations, which give them good emotions, relax them, help them escape from the routine and reduce the feeling of loneliness. The vast majority emphasize that they see basic information about the activities of the clubs there. Also on the Internet buys club products (tickets, merchandise), which also shows that digitalization has progressed in the football world. In conclusion, it can be noted that social networks dominated throughout the study, both on the part of football organizations – communication is developed thanks to this tool and from the part of fans – they recognize it as the most effective tool.

Keywords:   digital marketing in football, football club communication, A League