[Class of 20Something]

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.

I'd probably say most are reformed that align with LU. I've also found that most Baptists I've known that start on the path of learning the reformed doctrine they come from, they usually end up Calvinist.

[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.

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.

I was talking about those types of people who I lived with most of my life. When I told them that I was going to Liberty and not UVA or Tech, they laughed at me and ask me why I was going there. To you it is apple's and oranges but that doesn't mean you're correct about that factor.

[Jonathan Carone]

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.

I disagree with the bolded part.

With the way we are going about politics, we are going to turn off a lot of Christians who aren’t liberal Democrats.

You can try and say to keep politics out of this discussion, but if we’re talking about how to make Liberty a national brand and reach the entire country, we also have to look at the things that will limit our reach.

The idea that there are many different denominations within Evangelicalism/Christianity directly coincides with the idea that there are many different political beliefs within Evangelicalism/Christianity. As long as we are taking an aggressive, purposefully divisive political stance, our sports team will never reach the levels national, unaffiliated sports fandom this thread is discussing. We could reach BYU or Notre Dame’s on field success and because we are known more for our politics than our faith, we’ll never be the go-to team for the average Christian sports fan.

[FlamesHighontheTide]

Jonathan, your post among a laundry list of more important reasons is why I would like to see Jerry Jr. step down.

[Ill flame]

IMO liberty needs to find that line between having unabashedly conservative values without being overly political. It's one thing to say "we don't agree with gay marriage" it's another thing to say "gays caused 9/11".

Most liberals are going to hate what liberty stands for and that's ok but the Bible doesn't change, politics change by the day. The further into politics we get the further from the Bible and it's values we often get.

[Class of 20Something]

IMO liberty needs to find that line between having unabashedly conservative values without being overly political. It's one thing to say "we don't agree with gay marriage" it's another thing to say "gays caused 9/11".

Most liberals are going to hate what liberty stands for and that's ok but the Bible doesn't change, politics change by the day. The further into politics we get the further from the Bible and it's values we often get.

Exactly. If Jerry poofed over night, the School of Divinity would still be the 17 story landmark dead center on campus. The law school would still be constitutional, the students would still worship.

I would love the delicate line of conservative foundations but neutral conversation.

[cruzan_flame13]

It would be nice for Jerry to not align his politics with the school as a whole or step down and still help with the business property dealings. The thing is that I don't see the happening and our athletics may remain stagnated for awhile. When one is so narcissistic with comforting power, it will be difficult to set aside that person especially when a board is not doing anything about it. Politics is poison; the term implies how it sucks someone down into destitute (poli-tics).

[Tnobes]

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.

I disagree with the bolded part.

With the way we are going about politics, we are going to turn off a lot of Christians who aren’t liberal Democrats.

You can try and say to keep politics out of this discussion, but if we’re talking about how to make Liberty a national brand and reach the entire country, we also have to look at the things that will limit our reach.

The idea that there are many different denominations within Evangelicalism/Christianity directly coincides with the idea that there are many different political beliefs within Evangelicalism/Christianity. As long as we are taking an aggressive, purposefully divisive political stance, our sports team will never reach the levels national, unaffiliated sports fandom this thread is discussing. We could reach BYU or Notre Dame’s on field success and because we are known more for our politics than our faith, we’ll never be the go-to team for the average Christian sports fan.

The faith is rightfully inspiring the politics, you can't separate the two. Because Liberty is a Christian School it has to take the political stance it does

[thepostman]

@Jonathan Carone I've been pretty vocal about my stance on Jerry Jr and his approach with politics so this has nothing to do with me. What numbers are you using to draw your conclusions on the evangelical political beliefs? Every poll and study I see gives a very overwhelming picture of where that community lies. I don't get it and because of my own biases I said it only alienates half of the evangelical community. If we go by the actual numbers our political stance only alienates 25 to 30%.

Maybe those numbers are incorrect but those are the numbers multiple sources report and I'm a big numbers guy.

I do think Liberty would find it much easier to grow if they remained true to their conservative roots but did so without insisting on being so brass about it. I am sure we all can agree with that but Jerry seems fine alienating half of his target audience so we have to structure any kind of marketing strategy with that in mind.

[TH Spangler]

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.

Liberty "probably" falls into the larger protestant category more than baptist now.
https://education.stateuniversity.com/p ... stems.html

[Jonathan Carone]

@Jonathan Carone I've been pretty vocal about my stance on Jerry Jr and his approach with politics so this has nothing to do with me. What numbers are you using to draw your conclusions on the evangelical political beliefs? Every poll and study I see gives a very overwhelming picture of where that community lies. I don't get it and because of my own biases I said it only alienates half of the evangelical community. If we go by the actual numbers our political stance only alienates 25 to 30%.

Maybe those numbers are incorrect but those are the numbers multiple sources report and I'm a big numbers guy.

I read your post as the 50% we would reach were the liberal/progressive crowd. If you’re saying it’s 50% of the evangelical crowd, I can buy that.

As for numbers - if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that the polling numbers under the current president are rarely correct.

[TH Spangler]

I did a Goggle search to research some of these assumptions. Its amazing how biase the search results were. Two or three pages of left leaning publications first to come up. What was obvious though is the left's obsession with finding away to divide Christian's to regain political control.

[Geraldos Mustache]

EVERY POST ON PAGE 3 IS OFF TOPIC...

I appreciate what you are all saying and the debate is good. However, there wasn't a single marketing idea on Page 3. This thread is about marketing ideas to expand the following of Liberty Football with non-affiliated Evangelical Christians.

Perhaps y'all can start a new thread but let's keep this thread on point.

[TH Spangler]

GM I gave up staying on topic here years ago.

[Geraldos Mustache]

Who is the absolute center of the bulls eye in our target market?
Our target market is Evangelical Christian - College Football Fans (ECCFF).

#1 - High School football players, their parents and coaches.

#2 - College students at other Christian universities/colleges (perhaps start LU football "fan clubs" on these campuses)

#3 - College students who are Evangelical Christians attending secular universities (target Campus Crusade for Christ - CRU, InterVarsity and other Christian Fellowship organizations and Conservative groups such as Turning Point USA, College Republicans etc.)

[Purple Haize]

GM I gave up staying on topic here years ago.

Yeah, this place is an ADHD oasis!
SQUIRREL!!!!!!

[Class of 20Something]

EVERY POST ON PAGE 3 IS OFF TOPIC...

I appreciate what you are all saying and the debate is good. However, there wasn't a single marketing idea on Page 3. This thread is about marketing ideas to expand the following of Liberty Football with non-affiliated Evangelical Christians.

Perhaps y'all can start a new thread but let's keep this thread on point.

You want to blindly market to the masses? Very 1950s of you. It's 2020 and we use big data to only push ads to people that meet the target demographic.

https://support.google.com/google-ads/a ... 4368?hl=en

Audience targeting
Demographics: Target your ads based on how well your products and services trend with users in certain locations, ages, genders, and device types.
Affinity: Advertisers with TV campaigns can extend a campaign online and reach an audience using Google Search or the Display Network.
In-market: Show ads to users who have been searching for products and services like yours. These users may be looking to make a purchase, or have previously made a purchase and could still be interested enough to interact with your ads.
Custom intent: Choose words or phrases related to the people that are most likely to engage with your site and make purchases by using "custom intent audiences." In addition to keywords, custom intent audiences lets you add URLs for websites, apps, or YouTube content related to your audience's interests.
Similar audiences: Expand your audience by targeting users with interests related to the users in your remarketing lists. These users aren't searching for your products or services directly, but their related interests may lead them to interacting with your ads.
Remarketing: Target users that have already interacted with your ads, website, or app so that they'll see your ads more often. These users can be in any stage of conversion, as long as they've visited your site or clicked on your ad before. These users may even return to complete a purchase.
Content targeting
Topics: Target one ad to multiple pages about certain topics at once. Topic targeting lets you reach a broad range of pages on the Display Network. Google Ads analyzes web content and considers factors such as text, language, link structure, and page structure. It then determines the central themes of each webpage and targets ads based on your topic selections.
Placement: Target websites on the Display Network that your customers visit. If you select this type of targeting, we'll only look at your chosen sites (managed placements) when searching for relevant sites. Unlike contextual targeting (automatic placements), placement targeting doesn't require keywords. A placement might be an entire website or a subset of a site.
Content keywords: Choose words that are relevant to your product or service to target users making searches using those same terms. You can tailor a set of keywords to manually reach certain demographics or meet specific goals. For instance, you can change your keywords to reflect seasonal interests or make the most of a sale.
Display expansion for search: Let Google Ads find users for you with a combination of automated bidding and smart targeting. Display expansion works for both Search and Display campaigns, targeting high-performance moments for the best results.

[Purple Haize]

To get on topic, the fact you ask the question is evidence of the underlying problem. IMO opinion, the question should be “What is LU doing that it currently is not?” My answer to that question is when it comes to Off Field efforts, not much. But why your question is problematic is several fold. 1st it either assumes they aren’t doing everything they can. It shows those efforts are not being recognized. And finally it demands instant gratification
What it’s going to take is time. And because of that stance, I am the Potentate of the Darkside. Too many people want success tomorrow or in 3-5 years. That’s not going to happen. LU has a high profile coach and has well known P5 schools on its schedule over the next couple of years. State of the artish facilities and a hefty budget. What it does not have is interest. You can’t buy that long term. You have to earn it. THAT is the crux of your question. Does LU have everything in place to be a successful program and cash in when interest strikes? Outside of concessions and merchandise I’d say absolutely. But you can’t hurry loyalty and interest. Just cultivate it

[Jonathan Carone]

EVERY POST ON PAGE 3 IS OFF TOPIC...

I appreciate what you are all saying and the debate is good. However, there wasn't a single marketing idea on Page 3. This thread is about marketing ideas to expand the following of Liberty Football with non-affiliated Evangelical Christians.

Perhaps y'all can start a new thread but let's keep this thread on point.

Ideas without first exploring who your target audience is and your likelihood of reaching them is wasting money and yelling into the wind. Without that viability discussion and determining whether or not the idea of building a national audience can work, the rest of the discussion is useless.

[thepostman]

@Jonathan Carone I've been pretty vocal about my stance on Jerry Jr and his approach with politics so this has nothing to do with me. What numbers are you using to draw your conclusions on the evangelical political beliefs? Every poll and study I see gives a very overwhelming picture of where that community lies. I don't get it and because of my own biases I said it only alienates half of the evangelical community. If we go by the actual numbers our political stance only alienates 25 to 30%.

Maybe those numbers are incorrect but those are the numbers multiple sources report and I'm a big numbers guy.

I read your post as the 50% we would reach were the liberal/progressive crowd. If you’re saying it’s 50% of the evangelical crowd, I can buy that.

As for numbers - if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that the polling numbers under the current president are rarely correct.

Yeah, I wouldn't ever expect us to reach the liberal/progressive christian crowd. If you look back at Jerry Sr's vision that wasn't really his goal anyways.

[Ill flame]

Back to ideas. I'm curious if there is some way for us to give free tickets for away games to online students to try to get those people more involved. For example when we are playing at Western kentucky we can offer 500-1000 tickets to any former or current online students that are interested in going from that area. Also maybe give all online students a free shirt and hat or something to try and spread the brand.

[Purple Haize]

Back to ideas. I'm curious if there is some way for us to give free tickets for away games to online students to try to get those people more involved. For example when we are playing at Western kentucky we can offer 500-1000 tickets to any former or current online students that are interested in going from that area. Also maybe give all online students a free shirt and hat or something to try and spread the brand.

Free Tickets = Horrible idea. You devalue you’re product.
Free merchandise should be done already. Enroll and get a T Shirt type thing. If they aren’t doing that it’s a missed opportunity

[Ill flame]

The free ticket idea would only be for away games. That we most likely won't have many fans for anyway.

[Jonathan Carone]

The free ticket idea would only be for away games. That we most likely won't have many fans for anyway.

Discounted? Possibly, but even then it feels icky if it's too much.

Free? Absolutely not.

When people don't have stakes involved, they're less likely to show up and even less likely to pay full price for the product in the future. If we wanted to entice the new people to come, the best route would be something of value in addition to them buying their tickets. Give them a t-shirt. Invite online students to a special meal (separate from the Flames Club) before the game. Increase the value of their ticket; don't devalue it.

Think of it like Groupon:

Businesses heard about Groupon and then started putting out these great offers customers could buy to try their product at a cheaper rate thinking it would entice people to come back in the future. Unfortunately, what happened is most people bought the Groupon, used the service at the discounted price, and then never came back. They didn't see the value in it at full price.

It's why ball coach doesn't buy tickets.

[Purple Haize]

The free ticket idea would only be for away games. That we most likely won't have many fans for anyway.

Regardless. Bad idea and for the same reasons. Instead why not offer ticket packages for a game day experience? Say $20 for game ticket and official pre game tailgate with an opportunity to me <fill in celebrity here>. This way you are adding value instead of subtracting it. You are attempting to make it an even and you are trying to get these people to take a vested interest in you as opposed to the other way around