This coming weekend, on February 17th, UFC 298 will take place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. The event will be headlined by Ilia ‘El Matador’ Topuria, who will attempt to take Alexander ‘The Great’ Volkanovski’s featherweight title. What inspired me to write this blog post was how hard Ilia is digging his teeth into promoting himself ahead of this bout. It’s a testament to his self-belief that he can get the job done. Coincidentally, there’s certainly value for fighters, brands and promotions to take away from El Matador’s marketing tactics. Let’s dig in!
Repurpose content from larger media outlets
Ahead of every main UFC event, the promotion produces an embedded series throughout fight week to optimise the build-up. A few days before, they typically release a premiere on their YouTube channel to summarise the fights. From the media footage above, Topuria has cut out the most influential piece of content from the Premiere and re-posted it across his X feed. It sounds simple enough, but fighters seem to overlook it a lot of the time.
This can generally apply to anything. For example, if you’re a fighter who appears on a podcast, interview, or similar media activity, you can often find free video downloaders. Alternatively, ask the provider if sending the footage over via a WeTransfer link is possible. Then, chop up the most marketable bits of content and share them with your audience.
Treat yourself as a personal brand, not just a social media account
Here’s another absolutely awesome content piece put together as a trailer for the Spaniard’s biggest combat sports event. It’s clear as day to be super illustrative, with the voiceover clearly narrating Ilia’s story and commitment to the fight game. However, something that stuck out to me was the rose we see right at the start of the trailer.
To the macro, it may seem like a little gimmick. Although, this is a sign of personal branding. If you scroll through Topuria’s X feed, you’ll notice this rose appears consistently in the majority of his posts alongside his bios across his marketing channels.
As a fighter, brand or promotion, using emojis to represent your brand can pay big dividends in the long term to grow brand identity. For example, from personal experience, there’s a fitness app called Strava, where you can record your exercise activity. There was an occasion when I was simply lying on my bed during the day; I turned over and saw an orange light pop up as a notification, and straight away, I assumed it was from Strava. What this demonstrates is how much of a big deal the likes of colour coding, emoji representation and more contribute to building a brand.
Personal Branding Tip Part 2
Quite interesting to see Ilia’s birthday isn’t so far away from mine, and we’re the same age, what a coincidence! However, back to the topic of discussion, despite hashtags not being as influential as they were years ago, they still contribute as a long-term trend, particularly in the fight game.
For example, the UFC add a hashtag for each of its events across its marketing channels; Topuria seems to do the same, particularly with #TeamTopuria in a different range of themed posts.
The impact this will have towards your consumer is similar to the breakdown above, it will contribute to brand identity and can be repurposed towards other outlets.
Be your own biggest self-promoter
It’s exactly how the likes of Jake Paul, Conor McGregor, Colby Covington, and many more have elevated themselves into being some of the biggest stars in the fight game. However, relentless self-promotion doesn’t have to be orientated around extreme trash-talk; it can begin with yourself being creative, and this cover photo from Topuria is a great example of this.
The colour red is strongly affiliated with his brand, through the rose he regularly promotes through his posts alongside his colour grading through graphics you’ll see on his Instagram feed. Once again, this doesn’t just help with personal branding, it helps yourself with enjoying the process more.
Now that’s Ash’s Sports Marketing Class dismissed! As always, I hope you found plenty of value from this to help build opportunities for yourself!
Ash Sports Media 