How well do you really know your fans? This is a pertinent question that has off-late transcended from just Social media campaign discussions to boardrooms estimating enterprise valuations. Over the past few years, the depth of understanding of one’s fanbase has replaced the earlier focus on the sheer magnitude of one’s followership. To put it quite simply, it is now far more valuable to have 500k registered fans on your Website/App than having 5M anonymous subscribers on your Instagram handle. Granted that even third party Social platforms can offer a decent amount of insights, but they limit our ability to personalise fan communication as against Owned platforms. In order to understand this better, we could compare the granularity of insights that we can extract from each of the above types of platforms:

3rd Party Social - such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

Demographic split over location, age & gender
Allied interests & preferences over the platform
Tracking of last activity and engagement
Similar audiences and the potential reach

The cohorts of fans thus created could be activated at scale using targeted Paid Media campaigns.

1st Party Owned - such as Website, App

Everything included in the list above

and

Contact information such as Email ID or WhatsApp Number
Exact behavioral trends w.r.t. Content consumption or Gamification
Transactional history, for eg. Ticketing/Merchandise/Memberships
Data from direct third party integrations, for eg. OTT Streaming
Response rates to outbound fan communication across Channels

The cohorts of fans thus created could be activated in a highly personalised manner across channels with contextual nudges aimed at encouraging specific actions to be taken.

It is exactly due to this reason that Sportz Interactive’s Digital Maturity Matrix - an assessment of the level of maturity of the digital ecosystem - gives equal weightage to both Asset Maturity as well as Fan Data Intelligence. In a nutshell, Digital Asset Maturity evaluates ‘how well designed the Websites/Apps are’ whereas Fan Data Intelligence evaluates ‘how effectively is fan data being collected & leveraged’ using comprehensive checklists. Thus in order to become truly Elite as a sports organisation in the context of one’s Digital Strategy, it is imperative that both these dimensions are pursued in equal measure.

For most sports organisations that are just getting started on their Digital Maturity journey, the burning question is: where exactly do we begin? To make the path simpler to comprehend, here’s our version of the Fan Data journey:

Step I: Collection - starting the process of gathering data

In order to get started, it is naturally imperative to have the basic setup of a dedicated Website/App with a Login functionality to enable fans to register. The best practice to keep in mind here is to make the initial flow extremely seamless with minimal clicks, followed by the progressive profiling of the registered fans along their journey thereafter. Ensuring GDPR-compliant processes for the storage and transfer of data is another non-negotiable element of the Collection process.

How can Sportz Interactive help?

Website/App development, SSO Login integration, Strategic advisory on the Fan Signup journey

Step II: Unification - building one view of the fan

While tracking multiple data points simultaneously can be really powerful, it’s important to also not lose sight of the fact that their collation is just as important. Third party tools such as Customer Data Platforms or Data Warehouses can prove to be instrumental in the successful Unification of fan data.

How can Sportz Interactive help?

CDP/CDEP or Data Warehouse integration, Manual legacy data migration

Step III: Enrichment - expanding the coverage of data

Once the basic credentials of fans are recorded, the challenge thereafter is to keep augmenting the same with more behavioural insights. Mapping of each subsequent activity of fans over the digital assets then becomes necessary to extract the most amount of insight.

How can Sportz Interactive help?

Setting up of comprehensive Events tracking from GA/Firebase, Integration of Polls/Surveys

Step IV: Segmentation - cohorting of fans based on behaviour and preferences

There could be two kinds of attributes that we track for fans: stated preferences such as their favourite athletes or unstated behavioural trends such as the kind of content that they consume the most. A wider portfolio of engagement levers (such as Games/Videos) can enable us to segment fans more effectively.

How can Sportz Interactive help?

Strategic advisory on fan cohorting & funnel optimisation, Integration of VOD Players or Games

Step V: Personalisation - making the fans feel special

The ultimate objective of all the fan data thus collected is to deliver magical experiences for the fans in terms of tailoring the Website/App based on their liking or to make communications more compelling using references to their previous choices. By deploying Mar-tech automation, it is now possible to execute personalised Fan Campaigns at scale.

How can Sportz Interactive help?

Creation of communication assets (copy + creative), Campaign management, Response analytics

Step VI: Monetisation - translation of fan affinity into tangible returns

The final leg of the journey - perhaps the most critical of them all - is to be able to actively monetise the tremendous potential that the first party fan database holds within itself. The usual apertures are either to sell directly to fans on the Shop or to forge digital sponsorships using the fan traction on the assets.

How can Sportz Interactive help?

Conversion rate optimization for the Shop, Sponsorship playbook, Strategic advisory on Growth

We’re excited as ever to embark on this long yet enriching journey with sports organizations across the globe, hoping to accelerate its pace through our extensive industry experience. Over the past two decades, we've delivered numerous industry leading products such as Websites, Apps, Gamification, Data Streams etc engaging over a billion fans worldwide. But we also do recognize that the future of fan engagement shall be driven by first party data. The growing presence of venture capital in sports organisations also suggests that active monetisation of digital assets is set to become the top priority in the years to follow. Reach out to us on fanalytics@sportzinteractive.net to explore further and get started on your Fan Data Intelligence journey.

- contributed by Aaditya Ranade (Manager, CEO's Office)

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