The last episode set the size of your marketing budget. This one decides where every dollar goes — because you can have exactly the right number and still spend it in all the wrong places. Jeremy breaks a sports marketing budget into three buckets (top, middle, and bottom of funnel), lays out a 45-30-25 starting allocation for a balanced live-event team, and shows why most teams are closer to 80-15-5.
If 80 cents of every dollar is chasing people who have never bought a ticket, the problem isn’t the size of your budget.
KEY TOPICS COVERED
– Why setting your budget and allocating your budget are two completely different problems — and why solving the first one doesn’t fix the second
– The three jobs your marketing money has to do: get attention, convert interest, bring buyers back
– Exactly which channels belong in top, middle and bottom of funnel, with real examples from billboards to automated journeys
– The 45-30-25 starting framework for a balanced live-event marketing budget, and when your team should deliberately break it
– What a $100,000 budget looks like split correctly against a $400,000 single-game revenue goal
– How to spot the imbalance that actually matters — and why 80-15-5 is a finding, not a rounding error
– Why “we email our past buyers all the time” isn’t the same as investing in your database
– What real database investment looks like: segmentation, automated journeys, tested offers, and retargeting buyer lists on paid social
– Why the cheapest fan to acquire is the one you already acquired, and what that should do to your budget
– How the same Meta budget can serve all three funnel stages depending entirely on who you target
– Why not every dollar should be held to the same 4-to-1 return, and what to measure at each stage instead
– Why first-party data is a structural advantage sports teams have over almost every small business — and how most teams waste it
– The free Marketing Report Card that grades your current allocation and shows where you’re over- or under-invested
TIMESTAMPS
[00:00] – The question a right-sized budget creates: now where does it go?
[02:02] – Recapping the 4-to-1 return as a starting point for budget conversations
[03:25] – The three different jobs your marketing dollars have to do
[05:10] – Top, middle and bottom of funnel defined, with the channels that live in each
[08:32] – The 45-30-25 starting framework — and why it’s a starting point, not a rule
[10:54] – Running the math: what $100,000 looks like allocated correctly
[11:42] – Why “we email our buyers all the time” doesn’t count as investment
[13:23] – The cheapest fan to acquire is the one you already acquired
[15:05] – Why you still have to keep filling the top of the funnel
[16:33] – Channels don’t automatically belong to one bucket — the Meta example
[18:21] – Stop asking what channel. Start asking what job.
[19:18] – Why not every dollar should be measured against the same return
[21:14] – First-party data as a sports team’s structural advantage
[23:30] – Acquire, convert, return, grow — instead of acquire, acquire, acquire
[24:24] – How to audit your own allocation this week in under an hour
[25:46] – What the free Marketing Report Card does and how to read the grade
[28:08] – Final takeaway: spend with a job in mind, not just a channel
CALL TO ACTION
Take every marketing dollar you spent last season — or plan to spend this one — and run it through the free Marketing Report Card at revelocitysports.com/report-card. Put in your channels and your spend, cash and trade, and it sorts everything across the funnel and grades your allocation. It takes a few minutes and it will tell you whether you need more money or a different plan for the money you already have. If you want to talk through what it shows you, the 30-minute conversation is free too.
QUOTE PULLS
“You can have the right amount of money and still have the wrong marketing plan.”
— Jeremy Neisser
“The cheapest fan to acquire is the one you already acquired.”
— Jeremy Neisser
“Don’t ask what channel you’re spending money on. Ask what job that channel is doing.”
— Jeremy Neisser
“We’re telling people we exist. We’re not inviting them to the game.”
— Jeremy Neisser
“The bottom of the funnel deserves real budget. Not leftovers.”
— Jeremy Neisser
“Before I ask for another $50,000, I want to know whether we’re getting everything we can out of the $100,000 we’re already spending.”
— Jeremy Neisser
Take the FREE Marketing Report Card
