Dear Faithful Readers,

With the substantial boom in social media over the past few years, organizations are often looking for new ways to generate revenue from their loyal following. Through applications, timely deals and interactive promotions, social media has made it's way to the forefront of marketing initiatives. Employing this technology and their fan base, the New Jersey Devils were able to increase ticket sales and sponsorship by leveraging the new social media application Doodle.ly. Read on to see how the Devils utilized the application to acquire 400 new leads, ink a sponsorship deal with Ford Motors and bring in a large number of social media followers.

Enjoy the Feature,

Chantelle Neep
[email protected]

P.S. We would love to here your feeback! If you have a great idea/program your organization is doing Email me with your promotion and we'll feature it in an upcoming issue!

PROGRAM TITLE New Jersey Devils Doodle Contest

OBJECTIVES

There is no denying that social media has become a permanent staple in today's society. Aware of this new form of communication many companies in the sports industry have begun to integrate social media into their business plans by adopting Facebook pages for their sports teams and getting involved with Twitter to announce upcoming sales promotions. But in the sports industry, not all social media is created equal.

'Apps' for iPads and smart phones have become one of the most successful branches of social media, but with the ability for almost anyone to create one it is important for companies trying to utilize this channel to weed out the barren ones and utilize the ones that offer benefit to their business. In the sports industry, fans are very emotional and have strong connections with their favorite teams making it very common for them to express themselves via body art, signs at games and cards intended for players. With such high levels of energy, it is crucial for the social media a team chooses to epitomize this concept.

The New Jersey Devils, a leader in social media trends, were looking to keep their fans engaged while allowing them an outlet for their creative expression. They decided to partner with an up and coming application, Doodle.ly that embodied this idea well.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Realizing that fan communication was important to success and that some people communicate better through pictures than words, the Devils launched a promotional contest on March 19th that asked their fans to create and submit a drawing via Doodle.ly that they felt best captured their appreciation for the team. Night Agency, the company that created Doodle.ly, designed a Facebook gallery on the Devils Facebook page, that enabled the team to aggregate all drawings under the hashtag: #NJDEVILSCONTEST onto one spot, for all their fans to see. The gallery was designed for free, for the team, as Doodle.ly looks to grow their user base. Fans' submissions were then uploaded onto the New Jersey Devils Facebook Page giving them the opportunity to vote on their favorites. The Top 10 doodles with the highest votes won tickets to the last game of the regular season. From those ten finalists, a group of New Jersey Devils staff members chose the Grand Prize winner, who would get their doodle screened on 17,000 rally towels during the Devils first playoff game, and season tickets to the 2012-2013 regular season. The judges based their decision on creativity, uniqueness, team enthusiasm and best representation of the New Jersey Devils.

Although the winners were required to be 18 and over, the Devils invited all of their fans to participate regardless of age or artistic ability. Doodle.ly allowed the fans to design their 'doodles' through multiple channels as well; whether it be on their website, Android cell phone, or iPads , the contest opened the door to a vast amount of fan participation.

Click the photo above to learn more about the New Jersey Devils Doodlely Promotion!

MEDIA

The Devils launched their Doodle.ly contest on March 19th and it remained open until April 3rd. To spark fan excitement the Devils promoted the contest using an integrated marketing approach across various channels. They made use of popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to notify their fans and followers. In addition, they took advantage of their extensive database and segmented their market into season ticket holders, group buyers, and individual ticket purchases. From there they were able to send out email alerts notifying them of the upcoming contest. During the initial kick-off, the Devils also set up a 48-hour roadblock on their webpage that informed anyone who visited their site that the contest had begun, including a link where they could go to participate. The latter was all supplemental to the traditional in stadium promotions and signage.

RESULTS

The New Jersey Devils Doodle Contest has been extremely successful. Following the first week of the launch they received nearly 20,000 votes, far surpassing their expectations. In fact, it nearly "doubled original anticipation" according to Will Carafello, NJ Devils Director of Marketing. Collectively, they received over 600 submissions and saw a substantial increase in Facebook likes as well as Twitter followers due to the considerable boost in traffic to their social media pages. From a monetary standpoint, the Doodle.ly contest was able to assist the New Jersey Devils in both current and prospective ticket sales. One of the key components of Doodle.ly was its data collection feature that was integrated into the submission process and directly into their database. Aware that most people will not participate in a program, sweepstake, or contest if they feel they are being used for data collection purposes, the Devils were able to make the consumer feel comfortable in being forthcoming about their contact information. Embedded in the doodle submission process was a page that prompted the fan, although not required, to state their first name, last name, and email address, should they want to receive an automated email once the voting process began. This provided huge success for their CRM database as they were able to acquire 400 new leads that would directly aid them in sales purposes. Out of the 400 newly obtained leads they were able to successfully sell around 200 tickets. At their projected 2.33 average ticket sale per account, this presumes a 25% return that can be directly attributed to the success of the Doodle.ly contest.

The contest also benefited the Devils in the form of corporate partnership. From the amazing publicity and response they received from fans, the Devils were able to sell Ford Motors on a sponsorship by including their logo along with the winning doodle on the 17,000 rally towels as well as other locations throughout the Prudential Center. The New Jersey Devils weren't the only ones that made out well from the Devil-Doodle.ly partnership. The application Doodle.ly saw a huge increase of nearly 400 new downloads during the two week period and were featured in several online blogs and internet periodicals including Mashable and Tech Crunch as being an exciting new application!

LOOKING AHEAD

Due to its astounding success the New Jersey Devils look to turn their partnership with Doodle.ly and the contest itself into a yearly tradition. As Eric Kussin stated, seeing that "we are able to capture data and sell sponsorships around the platform, it was a no brainer for us to work with them," and continually working with them they shall. With the application being on the rise and its features looking to be upgraded in the coming months, such as being available for iPhone users and making strides towards becoming a social network itself, the Devils look forward to enhancing the program. With colleges, universities and even NBA teams such as the Minnesota Timberwolves already catching on it is clear that Doodle.ly is the next big thing for sports and the Devils were able to discover it first. Doodle.ly is looking to partner with more teams who are ahead of the curve in social media, and provide them with similar galleries on their Facebook pages.

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