With baseball spring training only a few weeks away, teams are working hard to build out their strategy to fill up stadium seats.
For marketing teams, it is all about rethinking the fan experience. That starts even before fans arrive at the field, says Cody Haynes, Senior Director of Business Development for the Sports & Entertainment division of Factoreal.
“A lot of sports teams spend a lot of money on the court on the field…but sometimes the business office doesn’t get that same type of budget or they just don’t have the staff to operate all these marketing tools.”
That’s where Factoreal comes into play. Haynes describes Factoreal as “one platform for all of your data and your digital marketing tools.” The platform combines all outbound marketing channels – be it email, SMS, social media management, browser or app notifications – under one roof. That data can then be analyzed and segmented out to create the most personalized messages to fans.
Teams across the Southeast are using Factoreal to increase ticket sales, email engagement, and overall marketing growth. The NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars are Factoreal customers, alongside soccer teams like Chattanooga FC, Louisville City FC, Racing Louisville FC, and the Tampa-based United Soccer League.
On the baseball field, the Gwinnett Stripers, the Macon Bacon, and the Florence Flamingos are all also Factoreal customers.
Haynes said the Gwinnett Stripers, the Atlanta Braves’ AAA team, specifically came to Factoreal looking to build up a strong email presence.
In 2022, the Stripers doubled their email engagement numbers and reduced their unsubscribe rate by 5x. Its single-game ticket sales rose by over 30% and its merchandise revenue increased by an impressive 11%, which the marketing team attributed to working with Factoreal.
“By being able to focus on certain subsets of our database, we can make sure our emails are being sent to the right people and our marketing is opened by the people we are targeting,” added Kyle Kamerbeek, Gwinnett Stripers’ Marketing Manager.
Haynes said it was about helping the Stripers “understand the importance of not sending a generic message to their entire database and [instead find] those unique segments within their database and sending a more personalized message.”
Though it has seen major success with leagues and individual teams, Factoreal doesn’t work exclusively with sports teams. It also has MarTech options for healthcare, ecommerce, SMBs (small-to-mediums-sized businesses), and enterprise firms.
