3 Ways the Indiana Fever Shape Their Game-Changing Fan Experience
The WNBA's Indiana Fever know how to form deep connections with their fans. Here's how Salesforce makes it happen.
When the WNBA’s Indiana Fever selected a college basketball phenom with the first pick in this year’s player draft, fan interest surged. With that increased popularity comes a need to grow operations quickly — but delivering a personalized fan experience at scale has always been a top priority for the Fever.
To do this with such a rapidly increasing fan base, the Fever use trusted artificial intelligence (AI) in their customer relationship management (CRM) platform to connect with fans and keep data secure. This is crucial as women’s sports are growing rapidly worldwide, with Deloitte predicting that this year, revenue generated by women’s elite sports will surpass $1 billion for the first time.
Salesforce isn’t just part of the Fever’s jerseys — it makes up the fabric of the team’s fan experience. The team can connect with fans in new and innovative ways, from targeted email and digital marketing and great customer service, to get them ready for game day — all powered by Salesforce Einstein 1.
Personalization is key to building deeper relationships with fans and increasing engagement. With the help of AI, the Fever are creating a more customized and connected experience for their growing worldwide fanbase — here’s how.
Look inside the Fever’s customer experience playbook
- Personalize the fan experience on all channels
- Invest in customer service
- Team up with Salesforce for a 360-degree view of the customer
- Gear up for the year with Marketing Cloud
1. Personalize the fan experience on all channels
The Fever are transforming the way they engage with fans — through personalization. Salesforce is the engine behind the Fever’s ability to understand and respond to the unique preferences and behaviors of each fan. With Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, and Data Cloud, the Fever turn valuable data and insights into fan interests, and personalized interactions.
For example, rather than investing in one huge advertising campaign, promotional offer, or generic email, they are using data to tailor marketing messages to individual fans. By delivering the right message at the right time, the Fever are fostering a deeper connection and increasing engagement.
They do this through multiple channels:
Email marketing
With Marketing Cloud, the team crafts individualized email campaigns that resonate with each fan’s unique preferences and actions. For example, the Fever can target local fans who have been active across the team’s digital channels with a special sweepstakes offer for a VIP experience at an upcoming home game.
With more than a 6x increase in first-time season ticket holders this season, the Fever uses personalized automated journeys in Marketing Cloud to tailor the content served to these new customers. This makes sure they are prepped and ready for the exciting season ahead.
Digital advertising
With Marketing Cloud, the Fever can precisely target their digital advertising, ensuring their messages reach the right fans. The Fever strategically direct their digital ads to specific fan segments, honing in on criteria such as location, age, gender, and interests.
This precision ensures their ads are viewed by those most likely to engage. For example, an ad for an away game in Chicago could be tailored to reach fans in that city.
2. Invest in customer service
Speed and agility aren’t just good traits for the basketball court — they’re vital to customer service and improve the fan experience. Using Service Cloud and Sales Cloud, the Fever meticulously track customer interactions and preferences, ensuring that fan inquiries are met with swiftness and efficacy, which is vital when lead generation has increased 46x compared to last season.
Service Cloud is a complete platform that connects service to sales, marketing, commerce, and IT. This gives you a complete view of your customer — making service interactions seamless and more personalized.
The Fever can automate part of the post-game fan experience thanks to Service Cloud. After each home game they send out a Marketing Cloud email with an integrated survey to Sales Cloud to every fan that attended to get their feedback. If the fan rates their experience low or identifies any problem areas it will trigger a case, allowing the Fever’s customer service team to quickly address any fan experience issues.
With AI for CRM, Salesforce delivers more than a trillion predictions a week to customers. With trusted CRM data, Service Cloud enables seamless AI experiences for agents and customers. By automating various customer service processes, such as the dispatch of confirmation emails and the pursuit of customer requests, the Fever can maintain a standard of consistency and reliability in their customer service, enhancing the fan experience.
3. Team up with Salesforce for a 360-degree view of the customer
Teamwork goes beyond the court for the Fever. The Salesforce products they use team up to enhance the fan experience even more.
For example, the team uses Marketing Cloud to send mass email communications for things like game day offers or events like “Select-a-Seat” aimed at becoming a season ticket holder. Data from that event then funnels into Sales Cloud, where a dashboard tracks data around the event and its sales.
By using Salesforce, the Fever’s marketing, sales, and service departments have a clear view of every fan’s data and can collaborate more productively and meet their fans wherever they are in their journey. The result? Higher efficiency for Fever employees, and more personalized, connected fan experiences that keep people engaged and coming back for more.
Gear up for the year with Marketing Cloud
This season is already shaping up to be a memorable one for the Fever. With a rookie star generating so much buzz, the team uses Marketing Cloud to keep the conversation going, and have even added a new email subscription this season to keep up with fan demand.
To give their new fans a great experience from the start, the Fever set up journeys in Marketing Cloud specifically for them. This journey included content about all things to prep for this season, merchandise discounts, exclusive events for the season, and more.
The Indiana Fever’s use of Salesforce has transformed their fan engagement, delivering a more personalized, compelling, and inclusive experience. By tailoring interactions to individual preferences, the Fever have deepened their connections with fans and propelled overall engagement with their rapidly growing fanbase.
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