Creating fans at every stage of the customer journey

Focusing all your attention on match day conversions means you may be missing out on extra revenue opportunities, both pre- and post-match, not to mention keeping fans and corporate customers engaged in the off-season. We look at a few ways you can build a buzz for your fans, and create extra opportunities to generate sales while you do it.

Off-season

The off-season can be a testing time for any sports organisation. While it can be a good time to get some housekeeping done for some parts of the business, for the marketing team it’s an opportunity to attract new fans and engage with existing ones. It’s also an ideal time to look to engage corporate customers.

The key is, as ever, to know how and where to contact your existing season ticket holders – this is simple enough if you have all of their customer data stored in a Customer Data Platform. Trickier, though, is engaging new customers, both recreational and corporate. You’ll need to know their preferred platforms – which could be a variety of social channels, SMS, or email, for example – and be able to contact them based on where they spend their time. Not the easiest thing to do. Even harder is making conversions seamless and impulsive once you’ve created an engaging campaign for these prospects. 

CM.com has a host of solutions for getting in touch with the right people at the right time, across multiple platforms, with a multitude of messaging and ecommerce solutions to make moving them down the purchase funnel a breeze.

Pre-match

Ahead of match day, you’ll want to build excitement and take advantage of ecommerce conversion opportunities. Casual and seasoned fans, for example, may want to take advantage of promotional offers on merchandise. The key to converting here is not only to contact them on the most relevant channel for them, but also to make payments as seamless as possible, ideally in-channel without the need to move away from the platform you’re contacting them on. 

Corporate customers will be looking to maximise the impact of their marketing efforts, so bespoke pre-match content is ideal as they themselves look to provide a one-of-a-kind experience for their guests. Knowing how and where to reach your customers is imperative to deliver maximum impact and to build anticipation ahead of the event. 

CM.com has payment and mobile order solutions that are perfect for encouraging conversion both pre-match and on match day. 

Match day

With so many moving parts, coordinating thousands of people on game day can be tricky, and each of them will want something different from the event. Corporate customers will expect a personalised experience that’s unique to their brand, both for themselves and their guests, to deliver ROI on what may be a considerable promotional investment from their marketing budgets. 

Recreational ticket holders will be looking for their own bespoke experience, whether that’s from a seamless travel and entry perspective, or a targeted buying experience once inside the venue. On the day, some of your attendees' questions may be covered by an FAQ on your website, but how do you answer some of the more leftfield queries? Nothing dampens the experience more than frustration when trying to get into the venue, so it’s important to ensure that fans’ questions can be answered quickly and effectively.

Again, it’s imperative that you know the audience you’re speaking to and can segment them effectively. Equally important is to be able to make contact with them on the most appropriate channel. Logistically that can cause headaches, which is why you’ll need to be able to access multiple channels from a single cross-platform dashboard in order to deliver consistent messaging to every type of consumer. 

CM.com offers multi-channel solutions that allow you to automate the segmentation and targeting for many different customer personas.

Post-match

Now you’ve given your customers an experience to remember, you’ll need to keep them engaged. Your corporate customers will no doubt have feedback, so you should be sure to prompt them to supply their thoughts in the spirit of improving the experience for them next time (or remedying issues proactively).

In the same manner, you’ll want to ensure your recreational fans have enjoyed the experience and are aware of upcoming matches. One of the most difficult things to do is to turn casual fans into die-hard followers, but with concerted, targeted campaigns based around solid, well-segmented data, much of that battle is already fought for you. As is the case throughout the process, holding all your data in one place, and having the ability to quickly target your segments on the platforms they prefer, is the key to converting casual fans into regular match-goers. 

And let’s not forget your dedicated fanbase. Ensuring their issues are dealt with quickly and effectively, and making sure they are rewarded for their dedication will keep them coming back. You may not always be able to guarantee sporting success, but if you can make the experience a pleasurable one for them in every other way, they’ll keep coming back for more.