Innovative Ways To Market Your Baseball Bat Company To Increase Sales

Baseball is known as America’s pastime because the sport gained popularity during the mid-1800’s due to the civil war. The game of baseball has continually changed over the last 170 years and so has the equipment and apparel used to play.

 The baseball equipment and apparel industry has grown significantly over the last 20 years and is why Underdog Sports decided to take a deep dive into the baseball bat industry. Underdog Sports is a sports business marketing and sales agency. The goal of this blog is to breakdown the baseball bat industry and provide actionable steps you can use to grow your baseball bat business today. 

As we examine the state of the baseball bat market, there are three topics we will cover. These include the practice of each child having their own bat, increasing participation numbers, and popularity of travel baseball clubs.

Gone are the days when players on youth baseball teams used the same 1-2 bats each season. It is now common practice for most, if not all kids to have their own baseball bat when the season starts. This has single handedly grown the baseball bat market over the last two decades. Instead of a team using a 1-2 bats, there are now 10-15 bats in a dugout.

As you can see from the image below, baseball participation has also increased over the last several years. From 2013-2018, there was a 15.7% increase in kids playing baseball. The 15.7% increase equals a total of about 2.4 million additional kids spending time on baseball fields and batter boxes. 

Image Taken From Wall Street Journal

The increase in sheer participation has also contributed to the increased size of the market.   More kids playing baseball has a direct correlation to the number of bats being used and purchased.

Participation in Little League sanctioned programs has been in a downward spiral due to the popularity of travel baseball.  When people refer to travel baseball, they usually mean a team of higher level baseball players who play in leagues against other travel clubs, participate in tournament play, and sometimes will have their own facility. As the number of travel baseball clubs has increased, more and more kids are choosing to play travel baseball vs. rec/little league. Playing travel baseball requires a larger financial commitment from the parents/families. Athletes playing travel baseball tend to spend more on their equipment and have at least one bat, if not multiple bats.  Travel baseball athletes also play more games over the summer. It’s not unheard of for a kid to play 60-70 baseball games from April – August.

TYPES OF BASEBALL BATS

When evaluating the baseball bat market, we must recognize there are several different segments within the bat market. 

• Wood Bats – The wooden baseball bat dates all the way back to the beginning of baseball. The most common type of wood used to make baseball bats include ash, birch, and maple.

• Aluminum Bats – These bats are also referred to by people as metal bats.  According to the Bat Nerds, “Bat manufacturers will often infuse their bats with additional elements in the aluminum to create an alloy that gives the bats improved properties like durability. This makes some aluminum bats more expensive.”

• Composite Bats- Composite bats include a combination of a few different materials. These bats typically have a larger sweet spot, which makes them ideal for youth athletes.  Composite bats performance change based on temperature. 

       You can read about the differences between aluminum bats and composite bats including the pro’s and cons right here. 

• Training Bats – As the barrier to entry for e-commerce businesses has decreased over the years, we have seen an increase in the variety of training bats made available. We have included a few examples of training bats below. 

CamWood Training Bats and One-Hand Trainers are the fastest and easiest way to teach the proper baseball and softball swing. Other heavy bats put all the weight at the end of the bat which causes a player to break down his mechanics and causes him to cast the bat around the hitting zone. Learn more here.

The FollowThru Pro Training Bat is a fabulous training aid for hitters and hitting coaches. It forces batters to have mechanically sound swings that will allow them to perform better against good pitching. A proprietary internal cylinder within the bat “clicks” at or near the point of impact only when a mechanically sound swing is performed. Read about them here.

The Super Slugger training system helps you increase your bat speed. The SuperSpeed Slugger lineup includes 6 different sets to accommodate players across the spectrum of competitive baseball. You should choose your SuperSpeed Slugger set based on the type of bat you are currently using in games.  You can see them in action here. 

The baseball bat market is expected to benefit from the rising popularity in the United States and Canada over the next several years. As baseball has become global, it has started to attract  The global baseball bat market is predicted to register 2.01% CAGR to achieve a valuation of US$ 390.41 Million by the end of 2023, growing from a US$ 346.54 Million earned in 2017 (PR Newswire)

5 Ways To Market Your Baseball Bat Company And Grow Sales 

Now that we have given you an overview of the entire market, Underdog Sports will provide actionable steps for you to grow your business. 

Personalization/Customization- The personalization economy continues to grow. People want the option of making a product their own.  Customization can include some/or all of these options 

• Name

• Initials 

• Team logo

• Color 

We provide an example from the Phoenix Bat Company and the layout on their website.  

Fundraising – Youth sport organizations are always looking for ways to raise money. Develop a fundraising arm of your business that allows you to reach out directly to whole teams and youth sports programs. Give them a certain % of each bat or a set dollar amount for every bat purchased.   We provide an example below with actual numbers.

League Size: 500 

Sell Through Rate: 7%

Total Bats Sold= 500 x 7% = 35 Bats @ $100 per bat = $3,500 in sales 

You can set up an agreement to give $10 back to the program for each bat. The league gets $350 in a sponsorship. It’s a win-win situation for both parties involved. 

Social Media Marketing– Utilizing social media marketing is a no brainer, but what type of content should you produce? We recommend putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience. In the case of baseball bats, the target market would include both the parent and the child. You should be creating content that will appeal to both of their interests in an ideal situation.

Parents will be interested in topics such as:

• How to choose the right size baseball bat for your child.

• The difference between an aluminum and composite baseball bat.

• How long should a baseball bat last?

Children/Kids will be more interested in the images of the bat, other kids swinging the bat etc. 

Bat Demos – Develop relationships with your local youth baseball leagues by hosting bat demos.  This is an event where you host members of their leagues and give them the opportunity to try your baseball bats in person.  

Allocate 5 bats for the event and let them swing off a tee or into a net. There is no better way to sell a product than allowing the person to get a feel and try it out. 

You can rent out a local facility, or use their indoor facility depending on the time of year. 

Partnerships - Look to develop Partnerships with batting cages or hitting coaches. Each individual Partnership and opportunity will vary to some degree.  Drop off a couple of bats and let the facility or coach utilize them with their programming.  This helps your brand out in a couple of different ways. . . 

• Gets your bat in the hands of a captive audience.

• Opportunity to create user generated content and testimonials for you to use on social media or blog posts. 

Underdog Sports is a Sales and Marketing Agency specifically focused on helping small businesses in the sports industry grow their companies. We offer a variety of different services such as sales outreach, social media marketing, email marketing, and building of databases.