March 7, 2012 | Volume 10, Issue 20

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Dear Faithful Readers,

I know it's not ground-breaking or technologically advanced, however I never hear enough love for direct mail. In my eyes, direct mail remains the best option for any marketing campaign. And yes, I've heard it all... "email is free" and "snail mail is archaic"...however direct mail remains one of the true one-to-one marketing channels. But don't take my word for it. As you will read below, the Tampa Bay Lightning's use of direct mail postcards resulted in an ROI ratio of 17:1. Might have you think twice before sending out another generic email.

Enjoy the Feature,

Joe Shapero
[email protected]

Tampa Bay Lightning and Full House Turn Emotional Playoff Run Into New Sales

Two direct mail campaigns return over $500,000 in new ticket package sales

CONTACT

Advertisement

Lynn Wittenburg
Vice President of Marketing
Tampa Bay Lightning
Phone: 813-301-6681
Email: [email protected]

Brandon Steffek
Sales and Marketing Consultant
Full House Entertainment Database Marketing
Phone: 866-280-0637
Email: [email protected]

ORGANIZATION

Tampa Bay Lightning

PROGRAM TITLE

Lightning Direct Mail Campaigns

OBJECTIVES

Having not made the NHL Playoffs since 2007, the Tampa Bay Lightning were ecstatic on March 31, 2011 as they clinched a berth to participate in the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Playoff run. In order to take advantage of the building momentum and excitement within the Tampa community, the Lightning wanted to leverage their first playoff appearance in four years into future ticket sales for the 2011-2012 NHL season. "Going into the playoffs, our objectives were simple," explains Lynn Wittenburg, Vice President of Marketing for the Lightning. "We were looking for companies that were potential season ticket holders." To capitalize on the success of the team on the ice and the upcoming $40 million renovation to St. Pete Times Forum, the Tampa Bay Lightning partnered with Brandon Steffek and Full House Entertainment Database Marketing to target proven NHL ticket buyers.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Through their partnership with Full House, the Lightning were successful in realizing they could achieve their objectives through direct mail, a true one-to-one marketing channel. Counterintuitive to some, direct mail has become a way to differentiate a brand with consumer correspondence saturation shifting from direct mail to email. "The direct mail campaign was a quick and effective way for us to make the phones ring," Wittenburg says.

The Tampa Bay Lightning turned to Full House's expertise in direct marketing to pinpoint industries that are proven season ticket buyers. In combination with Full House's 13 years of research from across all North American sports and leagues, data was also drawn from a recent National Hockey League-specific project, Full House's NHL Future Fan Gold Club Program. The NHL-specific research involved comprehensive analyses of customer databases from five NHL teams from across various geographies and locations with various market conditions. After analyzing all the data, Full House was able to identify the top season ticket industries currently buying between each market. This information was applied to the Lightning project to target specific businesses in the Tampa Bay area based off of the proven buying industries and company sizes ascertained from the NHL Future Fan Gold Club Program.

The campaign delivered 30,000 corporate post cards broken down into two mailings, the first consisting of 20,000 during the first round playoff series versus the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the second batch going out to 10,000 completely new businesses distributed at the beginning of the Eastern Conference Championship series against the Boston Bruins.

The creative design of the mailers was handled by the Lightning in-house after consulting with Full House. "Brandon was very helpful in suggesting what he thought would work and things that he had seen other teams do that were successful," states Wittenburg. The design also incorporated a personal touch, variably printing each recipient's company name onto a name plate above a player's locker in the Lightning locker room.

The trend towards personalization in sports and entertainment gives fans a deeper sense of connection with the team. Additionally, personalizing either the company name or last name of a potential new customer onto the post cards has helped increase inbound inquiries and sales for the Lightning.

The postcards incorporated personalization, variably printing each recipient's company
name onto a name plate above a player's locker in the Lightning locker room.

MEDIA

Outside of the direct mailing postcards, there was no additional media used for this campaign.

PARTNERS

The Tampa Bay Lightning partnered with Full House Entertainment Database Marketing for the two direct mailing campaigns. Full House provides targeted sales leads, performs business email campaigns and executes full-service direct mail to help find new season ticket, group sales and premium seating customers. "It was a great opportunity and pleasure to partner with the Lightning during that critical time in the season," stated Full House's Sales and Marketing Consultant, Brandon Steffek. "They understood how important it was to capitalize on the heightened awareness and excitement in the community and results only prove that. We thank and truly appreciate the Lightning for allowing us to flex our expertise in targeting businesses that had been proven through our research to buy tickets."

Specific to their work with the Lightning, Full House Direct is a division of Full House that provides full-service direct mail campaigns that include post card design, variable printing, postage, targeted mailing lists and mail house fulfillment. Full House Direct was created to help Full House clients earn a higher return on investment with their mailing campaigns. Through multiple factors related to personalization, improved messaging, mail piece timing and coordination with teams' follow-up phone call efforts, Full House Direct provides the necessary guidance to make each campaign successful.

RESULTS

The Lightning sold 182 tickets included in 2011-2012 packages through their direct mailing campaigns, returning $502,000. Fifty-percent of sales were for full season tickets; 40-percent were half season tickets; and ten-percent were ten game ticket packages.

The total cost of the first campaign (20,000 post cards) was $0.95 per post card which included the prospect leads from Full House, the variable printing costs and first-class postage. The second campaign (10,000 post cards) was $1.00 per post card. Combined the total cost for the campaigns was $29,000. The aggregate ROI of both campaigns was an astonishing 17 to 1.

Because of their great run through the 2011 NHL Playoffs and work with Full House,
the Lightning were able to sell an additional $502,000 through their direct mailing campaigns.

LOOKING AHEAD

Since the Lightning are within striking distance of another playoff berth, they are currently formulating their marketing plans. Nevertheless, Full House has taken its lessons learned from the Lightning campaigns to make a larger, more refined strategy for other NHL teams to follow this upcoming playoff season. The blueprint will use similar practices employed by the Lightning to successfully sell ticket packages for the following season.

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