^{By Zoe Haugen}

^{Director of Marketing at MOGL}

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Advertising to a Gen Z demographic is a crucial strategy for marketers in an increasingly digital and creator driven era of advertising. Brands have tried and tested every avenue to reaching the younger generation from tapping into short-form video content to placing celebrity talent in ads. The newest way to target this seemingly mythical audience is directly through the voices of their classmates who they see on TV and in highlights - college athletes.

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The Power of Influence

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Influencer marketing has proven to be a successful way to spread the word about a product or service through social media, but it is only as of July 1, 2021 that college athletes in particular have been legally allowed to participate in influencer marketing and monetize their name, image and likeness (NIL). If you haven’t began to employ this targeted influencer marketing strategy yet - consider yourself officially late.

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When reminiscing about the best years of your life while in school, it is likely you remember the pride and celebration surrounding your school’s sports programs and the pageantry associated with collegiate athletics. You probably often found yourself looking up to or aspiring to be like the cheerleader or starting quarterback. While you may not have fulfilled your dream of cheering or playing for a professional national league, there is a silver lining- Gen Z’s are still in school with the same dreams, and they’re looking up to athletes just like you did. What this means is you can at least live your next best dream of having a successful career and business.

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MOGL: The Leading NIL Marketplace

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One of the best ways to leverage the popularity of college athletes for increased brand awareness is by using a marketplace to connect to athlete influencers like MOGL. Think Linkedin for job seekers but for brand marketers looking to connect with college athlete influencers. Once your business is signed up and approved as a partner through the platform, you are granted access to a network of thousands of verified college athletes who are already vetted and interested in working with marketers.

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Fine-tune your athlete search using the platform’s filter feature for specific categories including social media following, school, sport and skills/interests. Gain direct visibility and insight into athlete profiles housing information such as their photo, a bio, fully integrated social media profiles, ratings, skills/interests, and more. MOGL provides a free marketing consultation during which you will discuss your marketing goals, what you are looking to accomplish, and best practices in order to do so.

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On MOGL, you can list campaigns for athletes to apply to while also being given the ability to filter through the network of athletes, identify ideal brand partners, and inviting them to apply to your listed campaigns.  

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Executing the Campaign

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You’ve finished posting a job opportunity and began to hire athlete influencers- what’s next? Now, you can work with your selected athlete influencers to create organic content promoting your company’s products or services according to the criteria you laid out in your job description.

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Through the advanced messaging feature, you can communicate directly with your athlete influencers, share campaign assets, and provide feedback on the content they have created.  The back and forth is helpful for ensuring your visions are aligned to achieve the desired end product.

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Monitor athlete activity with the campaign management feature that provides an organized view of the status of each athlete, their information and campaign stage. In your campaign management solution, you can filter, sort, and organize all of your applicants. To help you do so, you can directly view athlete profiles and message them

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Make an Impact

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Adding college athletes to your influencer marketing mix allows you to reach traditionally hard to reach markets of incredibly powerful audiences. Utilize a vital community of college athlete fan bases and support local businesses in the process. Stand for something larger than growing your business. Make a difference in the lives of college athletes for the first time in history. Be a part of the change toward empowering students to own their image and amplify their voices in this new NIL world.

Sign up on MOGL for free as a partner at www.mogl.online and get started with your new secret brand building weapon today.