Image: Chicago Cubs, Major League Baseball

Most Major League Baseball teams are now in full swing with their spring training game schedules, leading up to the season opener April 4^th when the World Series Champion New York Yankees visit the Boston Red Sox. Long suffering Cubs fans like me are filled with hope and excitement this time each year. It’s the one month annually when we can boast that “this is our year!” Now this isn’t a knock on my Mighty Cubbies, just the transparent truth that we haven’t won a World Series in over 100 years. Taking the positive approach – we have a big celebration to look forward to, and this requires preparation.

All teams, in fact, are doing their pre-season due diligence to evaluate each player’s talents and select their final rosters for the season. Spring seems a time of year when we all can step outside, stretch out in the sun, clear the cobwebs and identify improvements we can make in our lives, both personally and professionally.

Professionally speaking, marketers and PR practitioners are among those who can benefit from some annual spring training. A few baseball tenets can guide the way. For instance, you can:

Assess your roster – You know your team and which tools are at your disposal. Perhaps someone or something is clicking, yet only needs a new position assigned to shine. Maybe you have a gaping void in centerfield, so assess your prospects internally and externally to fix it. Stepping back to survey your operations can be revealing, and in the context of a still young season you can likely correct course.

Keep your eye on the ball – Don’t have a vacation mentality. In business it is always game on, and even seasonal businesses should seek to make downtime productive by prospecting and networking. It’s not uncommon to get caught up in the hustle and lose sight of your stated goals. Review the marketing and communications plans you poured your heart into preparing for the executive board. Are you on course for the All-Star team and to make a playoff run?

Use your relievers – We’re working in the knowledge economy, and most of us have at least several colleagues or contractors with varying talents. Make sure you are aware of your team members’ core competencies and don’t hesitate to put them in the game when needed.

There’s probably no limit to the baseball clichés we could come up with to get ourselves motivated, but you get the point. Baseball teams don’t solve all their problems in a day. They work on them game by game, inning by inning, and you can too.

A Season Of Social Media?

Ok, being a social media enthusiast I couldn’t help but scan for teams using Facebook, Twitter and social networking in interesting ways. The Cubs have some common elements in play including a Facebook fan page (with a half million fans, nice), but it’s the south side White Sox who impress me most early here in the pre-season. The team works with Amy Jo Martin and her Digital Royalty team, ensuring high creativity.

All Major League teams follow a specific format for their Web presence, which at times seems limiting to me yet I can see the overall benefit of consistency. The Sox have taken what they have to work with and blended in some social elements including links to Facebook and a collection of Twitter accounts, as well as use of the league’s MLBlogs network.

Digital Royalty’s work with the team for SoxFest in January was impressive for giving the team’s social networking a jump start in the offseason. dR created some interesting activities to bridge virtual Web connections and onsite activity including games of “Hide and Tweet” where tickets to SoxFest were hidden around Chicago for fans to find via Twitter hints.

The good vibrations have expanded since SoxFest. Just yesterday for example I saw a tweet from @InsideTheSox (club VP of Communications Scott Reifert) who was demonstrating the importance of listening – that classic we all preach regarding social networking.

Reifert spotted a couple of fans chatting on Twitter and offered to reward their loyalty with tickets to today’s game: “@ciaomari and @DiyaMarketing – overheard you talking about Spring Training. I have tickets, tomorrow’s on us. DM me for details.”

The simple things truly are some of the best. As this attention to detail keeps up a critical mass of fans are sure to follow.

Wishing a great Spring Training to everyone!

And for us Cub fans, some encouragement via a social video courtesy of Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder…

With ample bias and nervous excitement I’m pleased to note that our Mighty Chicago Cubbies take on the lowly los angeles dodgers at Wrigley Field this evening to kick off the 2008 major league baseball postseason. Ryan Dempster gets the start for the Cubs, Derek Lowe for the dodgers.

Never mind that it’s literally been 100 years since the Cubs last won a championship. What’s front and center here – and always – is Cub fan loyalty, and it’s a fine customer loyalty case study in its own right.

Like it or lump it, if things don’t work out for us this October, long-suffering Cubs fans are content to once again say “next year is our year!” A World Series championship would of course be ideal. Yet, if it’s not in the cards, there is still so much aura around the Cubs – you can’t help but remain a fan, or finally become one.

Wrigley Field’s friendly confines alone provide more appeal than most ham-and-egger major league teams could ever hope for. Add a fiery manager, some refreshing beverages, and a lineup that gave us 97 wins to 64 losses this season and all of a sudden we’re cooking with gas.

Selling out home game after home game, regardless of record, is one of the biggest validation points for the Cubs’ mass appeal. Fans who follow the team from around the globe are another. Even pre-season games at HoHoKam Park in Mesa, Arizona can require paying premium prices to ticket brokers just to get in and essentially see the team practice.

Maybe there’s some “lovable loser” stigma here, although I think what has really occurred over the years with the Cubs is a favorable customer experience. It isn’t just a couple players or even the team on the field (they’re quite important of course). It’s the entire package and sense of membership the Cubs brand creates.

Consider the opportunities an organization has when it achieves this kind of following. Because the Cubs have genuinely shown interest in delivering an enjoyable baseball experience for years on end, their fans are open to suggestion: new or even alternative kinds of ticket packages, online community feedback that they’d otherwise have to pay for, non-game events, and weathering potential changes in team ownership and management are just a few simple examples that come to mind.

Much of that business is for the off-season though. For now, it’s time to focus on shaking the curse and getting that ring. Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam vocalist, Chicago native, and Cubs fan captures the feeling well with his song “All The Way.”

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