Shamrock Rovers FC Increase Season Ticket Sales by 37% with Fulltime Analytics
BACKGROUND
Shamrock Rovers Football Club is the most iconic football club in Ireland, playing out of Tallaght Stadium in Dublin. The club's senior team competes in the League of Ireland Premier Division and is the most successful club in the Republic of Ireland. Founded in 1899, the club has won a record 19 league titles and has also lifted the FAI Cup on a record 25 occasions.
When the pandemic hit, Rovers, like most sports organisations the world over, were faced not only with a loss of revenue from matchdays, season tickets sales, and sponsorship streams, but with the issue of how to keep their loyal fanbase engaged. Having so many factors outside of their control, they decided to take the opportunity to look at what they could do at an organisational level to make sure the club came back to business fighting fit in 2022.
When Fulltime Analytics began working with Rovers in mid-2021, the club had one clear goal in mind: To drive their fans back to the stadium once pandemic restrictions were lifted.
ACTION
To do this, they knew they needed to establish a data driven culture across their commercial operations and help navigate a complex minefield of information. Using the Fulltime Analytics Advisory service, Rovers underwent a process to structure all of their fan data in a way which created an immediate impact for the business.
With data silos in the form of unconnected lists, such as match ticket buyers, memberships, newsletter subscribers, kids soccer camp members, merchandise buyers and a legacy CRM system, there was no single view of their customers and no way to track their conversions. The first step of the process was for our data science team to bring all the data together, cleanse it and organise it in a meaningful way.
The next step was to ensure that the organised data was brought to life, continued to update in real-time, and performed in a way that empowered the commercial team to use it effectively. Enter Fulltime Insights: purpose-built sports dashboards covering all business streams across Ticketing, Merchandise, Fans and Sponsors.
Fan Engage Marketing Solution
RESULTS
By integrating with Rovers ticketing provider Future Ticketing, as well as their online Shopify store, 3rd party merchandise store, and their club shop, Rovers now have a real time view of how each of their channels are performing in an accessible, visual, and easy to navigate set of dashboards.
In addition to having a real-time view of how their sales channels are performing, Rovers also wanted to understand how their fans were engaging with the club and how to best serve them.
Using the Fulltime Analytics marketing solution, Fan Engage, the club was able to segment groups of fans based on their demographics and behaviours to ensure that they were receiving the right marketing communications that would drive conversion rates and track the revenue uplift from their efforts. By taking an omnichannel approach and aligning their social media strategy with their email campaigns, Rovers were able to increase their marketable database which led to a record breaking 37% increase in their season ticket sales for 2022 compared to the previous record of sales set ahead of the 2020 season.
With the team going for three-in-a-row on the pitch, matched with a high performing commercial team off the pitch, Rovers have really exceeded expectations with the impressive season ticket metrics.
The club now has actionable data at their fingertips, Rovers no longer have to spend valuable time trying to manually gather reports and collate lists of fans to send email campaigns to, meaning their productivity levels have never been higher. With the development of a new stand in the plans for Tallaght Stadium, they will have capacity at matches for even more loyal supporters, so a continued data led approach has never been more important for the club.
Denis Donohoe, the Chief Executive of Shamrock Rovers, said:
“There were some great nights and record attendances in Tallaght at the end of last season. Many discovered, or rediscovered, the joy and excitement of seeing attractive and winning football live. Our ambition was to build on that experience and encourage supporters to “trade up” to a 2022 Season Ticket. Fulltime Analytics provided us with invaluable support and insight to achieve that ambition, helping us to identify and communicate effectively with those fans. We look forward to working with Greg and the rest of the Fulltime Analytics team in 2022 as we strive to continue building our retail and matchday revenue.”
Speaking of the partnership, Fulltime’s CEO Greg Slattery added:
“Fulltime Analytics were delighted to work with the most iconic football club in Ireland to harness the power of their data. Denis and his team are very forward thinking in their approach to running the commercial aspect of the club, we are excited to continue supporting Rovers across their data, marketing, and fan communication needs.”
