Marketing intelligence at PSV: using data and technology in fanbase marketing
During ESSMA’s Fan Experience Workshop at Legia Warsaw, Joeri Verbossen - Marketing Manager at PSV - focused on how the club is using data and technology through marketing intelligence to enhance its fanbase marketing with some practical examples.
The main goal of the marketing intelligence department at PSV is to make communication towards fans more personal and relevant in an efficient way. Which should lead towards better service, engagement and conversion for the club and their partners. Furthermore, the following objectives are important as well:
- Building up a qualitative & quantitative database
- Focus on data analytics and performance management
- Maintain and optimise the marketing application landscape
How to get more people in the fan pyramid?
According to recent studies, there are over 1,900,000 PSV fans in the Netherlands. In total, PSV has 1,500,000 followers on social media and 400,000 registered fans in their database. A first important step is to get more fans in the first and second layer, mainly through spreading (unique) club content on online media channels for example via gamification and interaction. Furthermore, the fan first initiative is very important in this process. With the fan first principle, fans will be the first ones to receive news updates via the club’s social media channels e.g. the transfer announcement of Maximiliano Romero on the online game Football Manager.
The next important step for PSV is to get their fans into the third layer, their online database, via database campaigns. One of the questions which is part of the sign-up form is "Are you a football player yourself?". This is very useful information both for PSV (e.g. promotions in their webshop) and for business partners during potential campaigns.
What does PSV do with the information they have about their fans?
“We want to offer a personalised (digital) experience for each PSV fan across all channels.”
Internally, the contact strategy is know as “show me you know me” where they build quantitative and qualitative fan profiles to offer each PSV fan a personalised (digital) experience. This information is gathered via e.g. cookies on the PSV website and other CRM and fan behaviour campaigns based on their interests, merchandising, F&B and more. These profiles are not only relevant for the club but as well for (potential) business partners as they know more about potential leads. Furthermore, it allows PSV to create personalised web content and to send fans personalised mailings from their favourite player for example.
More marketing intelligence insights
Takeaways from Joeri Verbossen's presentation:
- Data and technology as strategic pillars of fan marketing, both for the club as for business partners
- Focus on contact strategy and business analysis
- The importance of quality of profiles vs. quantity of profiles
- Segmentation and personalised campaigns work
- Don’t forget the additional workload when creating personalised content to your fans
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Access his presentation on the ESSMA Knowledge Platform
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