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Text & Save with the Seattle SuperSonics - '07-'08 NBA Season
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| Company |
The Supersonics was a professional NBA basketball team based in Seattle, Wash. until 2008 when the team relocated and became the Oklahoma City Thunder. The campaign featured in this case study took place while the team was located in Seattle. The lessons learned still apply. |
| Challenge |
The Seattle Supersonics endeavored to increase fan interaction and participation during games at the encouragement of the NBA. One of the tactics being advocated by the league was the use of text messaging. The objectives were for the team to personally interact with fans on a mass scale and, at the same time, to develop an opt-in list for subsequent promotions. |
| Solution |
Rather than incur the time and cost associated with provisioning its own short code (as other teams in the league did), the Supersonics opted to team with iVision Mobile and rent one of its shared short codes. This allowed the Supersonics to immediately launch its program and take full advantage of the season ahead.
After the short code was reserved, the team began testing ways to get its fans more involved in games and communicating via text. At first, the calls to action stood to rally fans around event proceedings, such as texting in to request a song for the dance-cam segment. Invitations to text in were announced over the PA system and on the jumbo screen during games.
This spurred some fans to get involved—but it wasn’t nearly the level of participation the Supersonics had envisioned. So the team began mixing in trivia questions and user polls with the opportunity to win team memorabilia, such as autographed jerseys and basketballs. The text-to-win approach garnered a much stronger response, especially when paired with a question or poll that fans felt strongly about.
Participation was further boosted by establishing a schedule of regular announcements so that fans could anticipate when those announcements would be made and take it upon themselves to ensure they didn’t miss out. Next, the team realized there were revenue opportunities with text messaging and began appending an offer code for discounted ticket purchases on the return text that thanked the participating fan for entering a text-to-win promotion.
This discount was also extended to broadcast audiences when a game was televised, using simple calls to action or easy trivia questions to encourage participation. This helped to boost fan interaction at home, to increase the team’s mobile opt-in rate by reaching a larger audience, and unexpectedly, to spur a greater amount of ticket sales than the promotion had achieved in-arena because fans at home were already close to their computers and could immediately jump online to make purchases.
The team decided it needed a more immediate revenue draw from fans attending the game in person. It began alternating the discounted ticket promotions with coupons for 10% off team store merchandise, available that night only.
Results: By the end of the season, the Seattle Supersonic’s opt-in list had grown into the thousands, with hundreds of participants interacting at every home game. And adding the discounts paid off, with an additional 610 tickets sold and upwards of $19,000 of additional revenue generated through related ticket sales and store merchandise purchases. Not bad considering the discounts were introduced mid-season, and that the cost of the campaign was only around $1,290 for the entire season. |
| Business Lessons Learned |
• Incorporate mobile marketing into live events to increase audience participation and to create personal interactions with fans.
• Transform mobile event participation into revenue generation by integrating money-saving incentives that trigger purchases while fan enthusiasm is running high.
• When extending a promotion into broadcast media for a live event, be sure to run the announcement multiple times so that you can also catch people who are distracted or flipping back and forth between channels. |
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