[cruzan_flame13]

Of course but this thread is more about how to we market ourselves go better grow support for our program. Simply sending recruiters out isn't going to do that. The fact we couldn't sell out the Syracuse game this year proves we have much further to go than anybody really realized.

Leveraging social media is key and finding ways to create legit connections to churches. Having a school president who is, at times, vulgar on social media probably doesn't help that cause but that is another topic altogether.

Also local support is something we need to grow. The ad campaigns are there but for whatever reason the local support doesn't seem to be there. The city has grown in the past 20 years but the support hasn't. It's really mind boggling why that is.

What Liberty needs to do is to allow the growth of their residential population. There are families who are moving from other parts of the U.S. mostly because of academic and financial reason. The way our country is going, we may receive more people coming to the Burg to be near it as possible. These people will need to be advertised with some the examples mention in this thread. We grow the residential population, we get more people moving here because their areas are becoming so far from God and morals are gone out the window. I may not have a chart to prove this but I speak to parent on a daily that tell me how thankful they are that Liberty existed. We get alot of applications coming in. If our residential population can increase to about 20-25k, we will get more students and family coming in. The most states that most of our students are from are on the east coast so we can definitely get more people going to home and away games on the east coast annually. We just have to schedule more teams on the east coast. I would hope we get a H/H with East Carolina and Temple in those open areas on our schedule. Just my thoughts and experiences thus far.

[Geraldos Mustache]

Good OP, GM.

I could be wrong, but I worry all three points under “The Message” will alienate quite a few Christians as well.

If the three points under "The Message" alienate some Christians - that's OK. They already aren't Liberty fans watching Liberty Football. Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand and declare "this is who we are" knowing it will be a turn off for some. There is a very large crowd of Christians out there who would be fired up to jump on the LU bandwagon if we can become to Evangelical Christians what ND is to Catholics. It doesn't exist today. Who's going to fill the gap? Grand Canyon State University and their awesome football program? Wait - they don't have one...

[Logic]

This is easy. Run a Super Bowl ad. I’ve been saying this for years.

I’ve never seen an ad for a university during the big game...why not? Would the networks reject such an ad? Surely FOX would run an ad from Liberty? Doing some quick research...a 30-second spot runs 5.6 million. I don’t know how one measures ROI on such an investment, but it seems as though it would be beneficial....no one would run super bowl ads if they didn’t work?

Now...how to get everything in there in 30 seconds...Need to hit:

1. World’s largest Christian university
2. Big-time FBS football and 20 Division I sports
3. Shots of campus facilities - show it off!
4. Academic diversity - one can study in an ABET accredited mechanical engineering program, aviation, or youth worship...find another school in the country that can do that. Mention law school and med school

Assume any given year 100 million people watch the game here in the US...so you’re paying 5 cents to tell someone about Liberty. Seems as though the “cheapest” way to hit 100 million eyeballs that I can think of?

[Chippy]

LU has recruiters visiting christian high schools around the nation.

. . . and high profile Christian concerts throughout the country (eg. Skillet, Red, Toby Mac . . . .)

[Geraldos Mustache]

This is easy. Run a Super Bowl ad. I’ve been saying this for years.

I’ve never seen an ad for a university during the big game...why not? Would the networks reject such an ad? Surely FOX would run an ad from Liberty? Doing some quick research...a 30-second spot runs 5.6 million. I don’t know how one measures ROI on such an investment, but it seems as though it would be beneficial....no one would run super bowl ads if they didn’t work?

Now...how to get everything in there in 30 seconds...Need to hit:

1. World’s largest Christian university
2. Big-time FBS football and 20 Division I sports
3. Shots of campus facilities - show it off!
4. Academic diversity - one can study in an ABET accredited mechanical engineering program, aviation, or youth worship...find another school in the country that can do that. Mention law school and med school

Assume any given year 100 million people watch the game here in the US...so you’re paying 5 cents to tell someone about Liberty. Seems as though the “cheapest” way to hit 100 million eyeballs that I can think of?

@Logic
Allow me to disagree with your Super Bowl suggestion and hope I don't come across in a negative way. I just think $5.6 million could be better spent in a more targeted way to better reach our target audience.

The nature of the companies who advertise during the Super Bowl (generally) have a product that could potentially be consumed by a majority of the audience. This is why there are so many food, beverage, auto and financial services being touted. Most everyone watching the Super Bowl eats, drinks, drives vehicles and buys insurance.

This thread is about marketing ideas which boost support for LU Football. More specifically, how do we get a college football fan with no affiliation to Liberty University to become an LU sweatshirt wearing, LU hat wearing, LU logo on his car kind of guy.

I live in the Chicago metro area. There are Notre Dame fans everywhere. Helps that this is traditionally a very Catholic area. But there are thousands of dudes who didn't even go to college - yet they have adopted ND football as their team. They wear ND gear, have ND stickers on their car - some of them even have ND tattoos! They turn on the ND game every Saturday. They follow ND football online. They talk ND football on social media and around the water cooler at work. Yet they didn't even attend college.

The other profile guy is the one who attended another university. Take me, I went to Northern Illinois and I'm a proud Huskie alumnus. I go to NIU football games with my fraternity brothers, follow the program, travel to road games occasionally. Yet I will see people wearing ND gear at an NIU football game. It is amazing to me how there will be people with a degree from another university who still have a passionate desire to follow ND football. A lot of it is the Catholic tie in. Liberty needs to foster the Evangelical Christian tie in. I think we have a long way to go with that. The other reason there are so many ND (and Michigan) followers is because of decades of TV broadcasts. LU is never going to have that advantage and that is OK.

We need a marketing plan that connects the dots between the Evangelical Christian and LU. Doesn't matter if that Evangelical Christian attended college or not. If he is an Evangelical Christian and loves college football - he needs to learn about LU football and become a supporter. That's the code I'm trying to crack. We won't accomplish that with a Super Bowl ad.

[thepostman]

LU has recruiters visiting christian high schools around the nation.

. . . and high profile Christian concerts throughout the country (eg. Skillet, Red, Toby Mac . . . .)

This is already done on a pretty consistent basis.

[chris leedlelee]

We need a marketing plan that connects the dots between the Evangelical Christian and LU. Doesn't matter if that Evangelical Christian attended college or not. If he is an Evangelical Christian and loves college football - he needs to learn about LU football and become a supporter. That's the code I'm trying to crack. We won't accomplish that with a Super Bowl ad.

Completely agree. The only way to have a national brand is to reinforce this tie in. If Mormons can all rally around a school, can't Christians?

[thepostman]

That's a loaded question @chris leedlelee

[ballcoach15]

I'd like to see "LIBERTY UNIVERSITY " on more shirts and hats, rather than just Liberty or Flames (or Liberty Flames). If someone just sees Liberty, they may not know its Liberty University, same for Liberty Flames. And our LU logo isn't as familiar as it needs to be.

[Jonathan Carone]

I know it was posted as a joke on the front page, but until Liberty’s leadership gets out of politics in the way that they currently are, it’s going to be near impossible to reach and covert many of the unaffiliated people we are talking about in this thread.

[ballcoach15]

In my opinion, only a select few connect Liberty Athletics and current politics. Two separate ball games.

[cruzan_flame13]

I know it was posted as a joke on the front page, but until Liberty’s leadership gets out of politics in the way that they currently are, it’s going to be near impossible to reach and covert many of the unaffiliated people we are talking about in this thread.

The leadership can leave politics, and Liberty will still have issues getting those people mentioned. Maybe we'll get a little more notice but not much. Not Liberty "Gays are the reason 9/11 happened" University.

[Liberty22]

In my opinion, only a select few connect Liberty Athletics and current politics. Two separate ball games.

You know what they say about opinions. They’re a lot like buttholes, everyone has one and they all stink. Unfortunately, those of us in the bubble think they should be two separate things but for the rest of America with no affiliation to LU, they see the politics and link it with the university. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true.

[Jonathan Carone]

I know it was posted as a joke on the front page, but until Liberty’s leadership gets out of politics in the way that they currently are, it’s going to be near impossible to reach and covert many of the unaffiliated people we are talking about in this thread.

The leadership can leave politics, and Liberty will still have issues getting those people mentioned. Maybe we'll get a little more notice but not much. Not Liberty "Gays are the reason 9/11 happened" University.

We’re talking apples and oranges. The people who would bring up Doc’s 9/11 comments likely aren’t evangelical Christians.

The people I’m talking about are the strong Christian base who might not be super conservative politically. Our politics keeps those people from embracing the school because they don’t want to be associated with what our leadership is spouting politically.

If I didn’t have two degrees from Liberty, I’d probably be right there with them. The only thing that’s kept me supporting the school the past four years is my personal experience with it. If it weren’t for that, I’d have bailed.

[Geraldos Mustache]

The politics of Liberty is out of our control. Let's not belabor the point. It is what it is.

This thread is about IDEAS for marketing Liberty University Football to unaffiliated Evangelical Christians.
More ideas - less complaints.

[Purple Haize]

We need a marketing plan that connects the dots between the Evangelical Christian and LU. Doesn't matter if that Evangelical Christian attended college or not. If he is an Evangelical Christian and loves college football - he needs to learn about LU football and become a supporter. That's the code I'm trying to crack. We won't accomplish that with a Super Bowl ad.

Completely agree. The only way to have a national brand is to reinforce this tie in. If Mormons can all rally around a school, can't Christians?

Mormonism is a lot more monolithic than Evangelicalism. There are also a bunch more Christian and “Evangelical” colleges/universities out there as opposed to just BYU and it’s hyphen schools

[Purple Haize]

I'd like to see "LIBERTY UNIVERSITY " on more shirts and hats, rather than just Liberty or Flames (or Liberty Flames). If someone just sees Liberty, they may not know its Liberty University, same for Liberty Flames. And our LU logo isn't as familiar as it needs to be.

Why do you think that will make a difference?

[TH Spangler]

until Liberty’s leadership gets out of politics in the way that they currently are ............................

Or alien them with yours

I've noticed a lot of folks on other B boards getting on board or at least coming to our defense because of our political leanings.

[Tnobes]

In my opinion, only a select few connect Liberty Athletics and current politics. Two separate ball games.

You know what they say about opinions. They’re a lot like buttholes, everyone has one and they all stink. Unfortunately, those of us in the bubble think they should be two separate things but for the rest of America with no affiliation to LU, they see the politics and link it with the university. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true.

Liberty's involvement in politics is a huge positive for the university, it distinguishes it from all the other "Christian in name only" universities that are out there. If they get out of politics the university becomes almost irrelevant

[Tnobes]

until Liberty’s leadership gets out of politics in the way that they currently are ............................

Or alien them with yours

I've noticed a lot of folks on other B boards getting on board or at least coming to our defense because of our political leanings.

Like the Bible says you become lukewarm and get spit out. Liberty is relevant and growing like gang buster because they are unashamedly Christian and vocal about it politically.

[Tnobes]

The politics of Liberty is out of our control. Let's not belabor the point. It is what it is.

This thread is about IDEAS for marketing Liberty University Football to unaffiliated Evangelical Christians.
More ideas - less complaints.

How is it "out of control"? The politics of the public school is out of control, the politics of every single state university is out of control.

[thepostman]

We have plenty of other threads about politics on the board. This is a great idea for a thread. So let's keep this to bringing up ideas to growing the LU brand.

[Geraldos Mustache]

The politics of Liberty is out of our control. Let's not belabor the point. It is what it is.

This thread is about IDEAS for marketing Liberty University Football to unaffiliated Evangelical Christians.
More ideas - less complaints.

How is it "out of control"? The politics of the public school is out of control, the politics of every single state university is out of control.

You misquoted me. I said "out of OUR control" - meaning, out of the control of the people here on this message board.

[thepostman]

Liberty has always and will always have a political leaning. It is what it is but there are ways to still market ourselves and grow our brand even with that aspect. After all it only, theoretically, alienates half of the population so that is still a large group of people go markets towards.

[Ill flame]

We need a marketing plan that connects the dots between the Evangelical Christian and LU. Doesn't matter if that Evangelical Christian attended college or not. If he is an Evangelical Christian and loves college football - he needs to learn about LU football and become a supporter. That's the code I'm trying to crack. We won't accomplish that with a Super Bowl ad.

Completely agree. The only way to have a national brand is to reinforce this tie in. If Mormons can all rally around a school, can't Christians?

Mormonism is a lot more monolithic than Evangelicalism. There are also a bunch more Christian and “Evangelical” colleges/universities out there as opposed to just BYU and it’s hyphen schools

This is a big difference between evangelicals, Mormons and Catholics. If you ask a Catholic or Mormon what their religion is they will generally say Catholic or Mormon. Idk anyone that says "I'm Evangelical". With liberty being a Baptist school its going to be tougher sell to get people from other denominations on board.