Why Putting Fans First Is The Only Safe Bet
Bravo to Watford FC and particularly the person behind the idea to recognise fans that attended all 19 away matches in the Premier League last season by rewarding them with a free replica shirt and encouraging them to use the #All19 hashtag on social media. We agree that reward and recognition is a compelling formula.
At FanHub our mantra is to put fans first and it’s something we’re deeply passionate about. We’re fans ourselves and we feel their pain.
But it’s not just a sentimental purpose behind our mission — it makes sound commercial sense. In fact, perhaps it is the only approach that does make sense in the medium to long term.
Let’s unpack the thinking behind that statement for a moment.
In these days when broadcasters pay multi-billion pound sums to rights-holders, it may seem inconceivable that clubs should focus on anything other than what has proved to have been an increasingly successful formula for decades.
Premier League clubs have enjoyed unprecedented revenues from the broadcasters — but as the recent “down round” of Premier League rights packages perhaps indicated, how confident can anyone be that that level of money will continue to flow in? Just Google “cord cutting” to learn more about how market behaviour has been changing since 2010 with increasing momentum.
History in other industries perhaps provides an indication of how this scenario may just pan out. Given an opportunity in hindsight, would the boards of Kodak, Blockbuster video or Nokia have done things differently when confronted with the dilemma of sticking with what had been immensely successful at the time or investing in innovation that would have effectively disrupted their own business models? They didn’t want to see change coming.
Even in other sectors within the global entertainment industry, user-centric solutions have already displaced traditional business models and re-shaped entire markets: think Spotify and Netflix as two high profile examples.
Post digital transformation, user-centric thinking has always come out on top.
Therefore, anticipating that a paradigm shift within a sport context is overdue, we believe that putting fans first must transcend all other thinking.
Whereas the web 2.0 created value through information, the web 3.0 will be about community and all football clubs are in essence a community — whether that be from a National League club with hundreds of people gathered in a stadium on a Saturday afternoon to a global brand that has hundreds of millions of followers on social media.
The future presents an unprecendented opportunity for those clubs that grasp it and we predict that the biggest winners in the new paradigm will be those that put #fansfirst and create value through the power of their community.
In recent years “fan engagement” has perhaps been viewed as an increasingly important (yet still peripheral) activity that clubs should be involved in. A cost of business to entertain fans outside the stadium or generate content to gain more followers and shares on social media.
However, we assert that putting fans first is the key driver for clubs to grow as businesses and the rest of this article explores specific ways in which we have attempted to provide clubs with a tool that begins to immediately address issues that are important to fans.
Yet we’re also very aware of the challenges that clubs face in increasing revenues when it’s widely accepted (and annually reported) how expensive it is for fans to follow their team. Not only are they already digging deeper into their pockets than they can probably afford to, but the last thing your customers want to be seen as is customers.
Fans want to be treated as fans.
Of course there is also a massive upside to that for clubs from a business perspective. In every other industry that we can think of, if your customer isn’t happy with your product, they have the option of moving to a competitor.
However football is very different and generally, whilst fans may vote with their feet and stop attending matches for a period of time, it is highly improbable that they will switch allegiance to the competition. How many Sunderland fans have traded red and white for black and white this season? Or how many discontented Arsenal fans would buy a Spurs season ticket instead — it’s an unthinkable scenario.
Our research has pointed to a number of challenges which we felt needed to be overcome and the result is FanHub, a free app for fans that rewards them for their loyalty.
Fans Want To Spend Less Money, Not More
The most striking observation of fans’ matchday spending is that whilst on average their ticket will account of 28% of their total costs, travel and accommodation soaks up far more at 35%. The media focus on ticket prices is therefore perhaps misleading and we’ve found a way for fans to save money on their train travel.
Our solution: FanHub automatically finds the best travel options for every fixture and on average our train tickets are 27% cheaper.
Fans Have A Latent Desire For Recognition
Listen to the banter between groups of fans at the pub and everyone likes to believe that they are amongst their club’s most loyal fans. The competition between different clubs’ fans about who has the most loyal fanbase is even more fiercely discussed. The questions of who does go to the most games and which fans are the most loyal can now be objectively answered by FanHub’s fan leaderboards.
Our solution: Users can “check in” via the app at the stadium to prove that they were at the game. The app calculates how far each fan has travelled throughout the season to create a leaderboard for each club and users can also see how they fare against fans of all other clubs.
Fan Loyalty Deserves To Be Authentically Rewarded
Recently we’ve seen a few great examples of clubs rewarding their fans. As highlighted above, Watford recently sent a free away shirt and a signed note from Troy Deeney to every fan that travelled to all 19 away matches last season. That’s personal, authentic and was funded by the club’s main sponsor. Interestingly, the club also encouraged recipients to send in a photo of them wearing their free gift with a specific #All19 hashtag that could be posted on their social media channels — an authentic reward combined with public recognition. FanHub enables such gestures to be planned as part of a strategy that is automated and consistent.
Our solution: Clubs can create rewards that are automatically distributed to fans as they trigger specific milestones. Rewards could be a free shirt, an experience with the club, perhaps a voucher for the club shop or a discount/freebie from a club sponsor.
Sponsors Want Targeted And Authentic Activation Opportunities
Brands want to be associated with your club in order to benefit from the unique emotional bond that it has with your fans. The emotional rollercoaster that is involved in following a team is a powerful marketing formula for positioning their brand close to the heart of the fans.
If boards around the stadium or pages in the matchday programme have significant commercial value (when there is no metric for the effectiveness of such “indirect” advertising), consider the premium that may be commanded by an activation that results in a direct touchpoint (or potentially even sale) when presented to your fans as a reward for their loyalty.
Our solution: Use FanHub as a delivery mechanism for your sponsors to reward your fanbase with freebies/discounts for their product or service.
The FanHub app is available now on the App Store so take a look and test it out for your next match. We’ve already lined up some of our own rewards for your fans, but this could be so much more powerful for your club and meaningful for your fans with tailored rewards for your fanbase from their club — Watford have provided a fantastic example as to how this could work.
Just one other final thing — we’ ve mentioned that FanHub is free for your fans but it’s also free for your club. So what’s in it for us?
Well, our business model is built on exactly the same principles that we’ve outlined here. Put fans first and build community — that is how we believe value will be created in the paradigm that awaits us.
To start the conversation as to how FanHub can work for your club, reach out to us at https://www.fan-hub.com/contact #fansfirst