Can Swansea City be Premier League off the pitch too?

Today saw the publication of football fixtures for next season and so the excitement from Swansea’s play-off victory is ratcheted up another notch as fans (including myself) start to pencil in visits to Eastlands first then the Emirates, Stamford Bridge and beyond.

With the riches that accompany the Premier League comes a greatly increased profile and an opportunity to maximise off-field earnings as well as those from TV and gate receipts.

This isn’t about bleeding supporters dry, it’s about engaging with supporters through the means of targeted and relevant content (both Online and Offline). Although it feels like treason to say it, I don’t think Swansea have done great things on this front so far.

Regardless of what’s been going on this season, the only contact has been a weekly email every Friday afternoon which has a couple of one line teasers to content on the website with the rest of it being advertisements.

It could be argued that the aim of a newsletter is to drive people to the website and so content in the newsletter isn’t crucial. Unfortunately, in my opinion the content in the newsletter is so bland that I rarely bother opening them as I know that I’m better off just looking at the website directly now and again (I’m sure in plenty of cases however people will neither open the email or visit the website).

For successful off-field business, a club needs to be able to identify who is doing what with them. The obvious starting point are Season Ticket holders, but then beyond that there’s everyone who subscribes to the email newsletter, everyone who buys Match Day tickets (both Home and Away), Club Shop sales etc.,

One example of where this may have helped is after sealing promotion they announced the sale of a final batch of 2,000 Season Tickets. Rather than being able to determine those who may be more deserving of the opportunity of buying these tickets, it was announced on a Thursday afternoon that they were going on-sale at the club ticket office at 10 a.m. the next day, in-person sales only.

This meant that those season tickets just went to the first people who could get down to the ticket office and didn’t have to worry about work the next day. Some would say that real fans would have bought their Season Tickets already but there will be others who would argue they have been forced out by those jumping on the bandwagon.

It doesn’t have to be like this though, by combining all customer interactions you can then have a more solid understanding of:
• Who your key supporters are
• Who to target to try and increase their interaction with the club
• Delivering different offers/communications for different segments e.g., Those who bring children to the game, those who travel to away games, exile fans etc.,

This approach could be a cost effective strategy for a non-league team let alone a Premier League side but all too often is overlooked as it’s too far removed from the day to day running of a football club but is about:

• Capturing data
• Consolidating data into a single area
• Analysing the data to gain insights on activity

Which of course is where we come in, so if there’s any football clubs out there who are looking to get more from their data then get in touch.

Dan Barnett

Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett

If you want me back, don't slam the door in my face

I recently received an email from Lovefilm (a DVD/Games rental by post service) asking me to return as a customer with the offer of 3 months for the price of 1.

So far, so good. The problem was that I’d previously taken up one of these reactivation offers, which meant that, under their terms, I was ineligible to take up this new offer.

This fact was buried in the tiny small print of the email so it wasn’t until I went through the whole process of finding my login and password for Lovefilm and confirming I wanted to come back that I was told I couldn’t have the offer but I could still come back at full price.

There are two morals to this story:

1. Don’t contact someone with an offer to which they aren’t eligible. Poor suppression in this case is a bit annoying but in other cases can have far worse consequences.

2. Test the price points of your offers. There is a big gap in the price points Lovefilm are offering (either 3 months for the price of 1 or full price). Testing can help find the best level of payback (e.g. £5 a month off, every second month free, highest tier package for mid-tier cost). They don’t want me back at 3 months for the price at 1, I don’t want to go back at full price – so make me an offer that’s acceptable to both of us.


Dan Barnett,
Director


Analysis Marketing Ltd
blog@analysismarketing.com