SFIMA January 2010 Event Recap

In case you missed it . . .

SFIMA's January Event featured Miami Dolphins Senior VP Jim Rushton.

Mr. Rushton gave us an exciting overview of Miami Dolphins' marketing efforts and how they accomplish the big job of getting everyone "on the team" and on board, not only to purchase game tickets and Miami Dolphins merchandise, but to interact with the Dolphins on many different levels: TV, radio, online & mobile.

Mr. Rushton was not only enlightening and personable, he is a very charismatic speaker.
Here are some highlights from his talk:

The Miami Dolphins marketing team developed 3 fundamental commitments to fans:
1. create a team worthy of supporting
2. enhance the fan experience
3. contribute to community

The team has to focus on so many areas of business, many might not be aware of the scope:
Stadium | Merchandising | Ticket Sales | Consessions | Sponsorship | Integrated Media

Mr. Rushton pointed out that advertising on the internet is such a challenge because it is still very new and hasn't been figured out just yet. "The internet is a combination of all 3 previous media: text (newspaper), audio (radio) and video (TV)."

The Dolphins media team recognized that the fans / consumers are connected to them, but in so many different ways & they react differently to ads & events put on by or about the Dolphins. The challenge is reaching and connecting with as many fans / consumers as they can.

Mr. Rushton was kind enough to share a campaign case study with us. The campaign he highlighted was a 2009 New Season Ticket Holder Acquisition Campaign. This was particularly challenging effort for that year since, as many Dolphin fans and South Floridians know, the Dolphins were coming off of a 1 and 15 season for 2008. (Yes, that's just 1 win and 15 losses, sadly - don't rub it in!) That, in addition to a recession made the task particularly daunting.

Campaign Objective:
- increase season ticket holder base
- recover lost ticket holders
- increase new ticket holders

Target:
- high income
- past single game ticket holders
- former ticket holders
- key South FL businesses

Strategy:
- highly personalized
- interactive
- engage
- invite
- be part of the team

Execution:
- integrated multi media
- direct mail
- large email campaign, personalized, with recipient's name on the Dolphin jersey
- miamidolphins.com
- sunsentinel.com
- personalized
- interactive video message
- relevant sales content (different content to different categories)
- specific & consistent rep. contact

Step 2:
Drive registration to a micro site: www.MyDolphinsLive.com

You HAVE to check this out! the site is still live now. It creates a custom video with your last name inserted in all the media buzz of being signed as a new Dolphin football player!

It really is very ingenious, interactive and fun for any Dolphin fan!

This generated 44,000 videos created by 25,000 unique users and also led to 50K + entries into the contest they were running to win a suite at Landshark Stadium.

The Results!
- 9600 new season ticket packages purchased
- 30% of the new season tickets attributed to the campaign
- $18.50 ROI for each $1 spent on the campaign
- $82.60 LTV for each $1 invested

A secondary value, Mr. Rushton pointed out, was the learning experience about new media advertising. As he had stated at the top of his presentation, internet marketing and advertising is still so new, we are learning more and more with each click, each campaign.

Mr. Rushton concluded his presentation to us with a look at some new advertising directives they are exploring for the Dolphins going forward.

Their new concept:

1st Staduim - Landshark Stadium
2nd Stadium - MiamiDolphins.com
3rd Stadium - Mobile & Radio

They are exploring new ways to cross engage all 3 stadiums and also integrate The 5th Quarter after game show.

Thanks so much to Mr. Rushton for a great, insightful presentation and look into the world of sports marketing. Coming from someone like me, who has been a fan since I was born, it was great to see how two things I love (Dolphins Football & online marketing) come together.

And finally, congrats to Pam Stein, of Clientize, who was the lucky winner of the signed Dolphin helmet, which we discovered was signed by Ronnie Brown, not Ricky Williams, so Mr. Rushton took it back to have Ricky sign it too! Now, Pam will get have both running backs' signatures on her helmet!