Our goal at Trace is to maximize the value that players, clubs, and parents get from soccer game film. The Trace game film system captures match footage, generates tactical playlists, and delivers each player’s moments directly to their inboxes after each game.
But we also have a number of resources for teams, clubs, high schools, or leagues to use game video to build their brand and showcase their players. Competition for the best players is fierce, so it’s important to explain and sell your distinct advantages to potential players and their families. This article features some of the innovative ways that directors of coaching have used Trace to market their clubs to potential players.
1. Showcase Talent With Trace Video on Your Club Website
One way to market a club is by showcasing your current talent and letting potential recruits and their parents know that your club prioritizes player development and has invested in the latest technology to capture soccer games.
Clubs are using Trace’s Latest Goals video on their websites to showcase their commitment to player development and college recruiting resources for players. With a simple line of HTML code inserted on your website, every goal scored by your team and captured by Trace will appear within this feed.
Top clubs like NEFC, Legends, and FC Westlake showcase Trace’s Latest Goals video feeds. These short-form videos give players and parents a reason to visit the website on a regular basis. Players are excited to see their best moments featured prominently on the club website, and parents love revisiting the best moments of their children’s matches.
This video also gives college recruiters a reason to visit your club’s website. College coaches can spot players with game highlights and click through the videos to see even more video footage from players on the team. If you have players considering college soccer, chances are you know how difficult it can be to capture the attention of recruiters. Trace’s Latest Goals is one way to overcome that obstacle.
2. Share Trace Moments on Social Media
Players are using social media more than ever to get noticed by college recruiters (see our recent article on that topic here), and clubs are catching on to this trend and using social media to boost their club’s profile.
Trace makes it easy to download the best moments by your players and easily post those moments onto your social channels. While the moment is playing, simply click the share symbol in the navigation bar and then click “Download” to get the file of the moment.
If you tag Trace when you post your video on social media, we’ll re-post your Trace content for the Trace community to see. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #TraceMoments and include a link to the player’s Trace iD so recruiters can check out other highlights.
3. Share Trace Video and Trace iDs in Your Club Newsletter
Managing a club newsletter can be a time-consuming job. It’s not easy to come up with new content every week or even every month. One way to save time when creating newsletters is to create a dedicated section for Trace video. You can easily link to each player’s Trace iD and to your club’s most recent full game footage in your emails. Once this section is created, parents and college coaches can easily view the newest game footage every time you send out your newsletter.
Minnesota Eclipse used this strategy to keep college coaches updated and engaged with the club. Their newsletter dedicated to college recruiting features each player’s Trace iD in the email so that college coaches can see all new moments, and they also feature links to some of the best moments from the previous week.
“The college coaches have really liked being able to view players’ Trace moments,” stated MN Eclipse Coach Andy Kaasa. “It’s definitely helped increase interest from coaches in our team, and coaches have been adding more and more of their staff onto our newsletters.”
4. Use Trace Leaderboards to Get Players Motivated
Trace Leaderboards are the largest source of video data for youth soccer in the United States. College coaches and players can view nationwide stats on the most viewed players, most viewed Trace moments, most viewed goals, top speed, max efforts, and other moments.
Already, college coaches are using Trace Leaderboards to identify players they may have missed or players in geographies they are unable to travel to in person. This equalizes the playing field for athletes who may live in remote areas or who do not have the funds to travel across the country to play in showcases and attend ID camps.
Players can also learn new skills from viewing the moments of top players at the top of the Leaderboards. As new moments make it to these Leaderboards each week, there’s always something new to watch to get motivated to improve.
Real Athletic Development FC uses Trace leaderboards to showcase which goals are getting the most views within any given month. Clubs can also create their own leaderboards to showcase things like most viewed moments, top speed, most viewed players, and other Trace player metrics.
We Want to Hear From You
How is your club using Trace video? If your team has used Trace video in an innovative way, we’d love to speak with you to learn about it!
What can our team at Trace do to help you use video more effectively? If you have questions on how to implement any of the strategies above, don’t hesitate to email us (Charles@traceup.com) and we can provide assistance.
