Moving and changing schools is a reality for many working in the college sports marketing profession. Craig Pintens, the Assistant Athletic Director/Marketing at LSU (follow him @LSUPintens) went through a move like this less than a year ago when he moved from Marquette to LSU. Craig was nice enough to answer some questions about his move in hopes that others might make a smooth transition as well.

Q. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview Craig. Changing jobs and moving to a different school is a situation that almost everyone with a career in college sports marketing will be faced with at some point. After spending 5+ years at Marquette what led to you eventually landing at LSU?

A. LSU was a tremendous professional opportunity and something we felt we needed to explore. There are only a handful of schools like LSU in collegiate athletics that compete at a high level across the board and have such amazing fan support. The other intriguing thing about the position was the pull of college football. I had only been at UTPA (University of Texas-Pan American) and Marquette and there is definitely no better place to experience college football than LSU and the SEC. It still was a tough decision, as I was very happy at Marquette and given a lot of opportunity to grow. In the end, we made a decision that we thought was best for my career long-term.

Q. How important of a role did your wife and kids play in your decision to move? What tips can you give others that might help smooth the transition for their family?

A. Anytime you have a family, your job in college athletics really becomes a lifestyle because of the demands and hours required of the position. My wife is the most supportive spouse anyone could have and has sacrificed a lot for us to be in this position. She helps keep me grounded and is the best mother to our children. As for our kids, they really didn’t have a vote, as our oldest was five when we moved and hadn’t started school yet. We moved here with a five year-old, three year-old and a one year-old and within two months of my wife arriving had our fourth in November. For them the transition has been pretty easy as they didn’t have many roots such as school or friends in Milwaukee other than family. All of them traded their Marquette gear for a bunch of LSU gear and have become huge LSU fans. Our son Jack has practically worn out his LSU football jersey, it might be time for him to get a new one. It isn’t as easy for them to see relatives, which is probably the hardest part. Our daughter had grandparents day at school and was one of the few children who didn’t have a grandparent there.

As for advice, the most important thing is trying to put your family in situations where they can meet people. My family moved here not knowing anyone, while I am able to meet new people on a daily basis at work. Anyone in college athletics struggles with trying to balance family and your profession, which goes back to it being a lifestyle. We structure a lot of our lives around the games and different sport schedules and they have become family activities for us.

Q. With Marquette being known primarily as a “basqetball” school, what challenges/surprises were you faced with during your first football season at an SEC football powerhouse?

A. Nothing can prepare you for the LSU football experience. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was at a “football” school or not. The RVs begin rolling in on Thursday and the party doesn’t end until really late Saturday night. There is such a rich tradition here and Tiger Stadium is always on the list of best places to see a college football game. It definitely didn’t disappoint. There is not a better place in America to watch a football game then Death Valley on a Saturday night. The season was a blur as I arrived here on August 13th with a little under one month to prepare for the home opener. The Florida game was unlike anything I’ve ever seen with an estimated 40,000-50,000 people who came to campus just to tailgate and didn’t have a ticket. Anytime you gather 93,000 people in one place who are passionate about the same thing, your atmosphere is going to be unbelievable.

Q. Is there anything you did specifically your first 30 days at LSU that you feel helped establish your presence/gain the respect of your new peers and co-workers?

A. Again, my first thirty days were an absolute blur as it was full-speed ahead for the football season. Anytime you start somewhere new, it’s always best to try and sit back and observe before making drastic changes, especially at a school with tradition like LSU. Respect cannot be earned in just thirty days, but you can start building a foundation of respect to draw from. I’ve never been one to look for short-term results and that is especially true in dealing with co-workers. Respect is a bank and I am always making deposits, just trying to draw some interest.

Q. Do you have any other tips/suggestions for other sports marketers either faced with an impending move or considering one?

A. Don’t ever take a job for title or money, take it for the opportunity. LSU was and is an outstanding opportunity.

Thanks for the interview Craig!

About Craig Pintens
Assistant Athletic Director/Marketing

Pintens received his Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing cum laude from the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater and his Juris Doctor degree from the Marquette University School of Law. Pintens is a member of the Wisconsin State Bar and serves on the Board of Directors of NACMA. Pintens resides in Baton Rouge with his wife, Jill and their children, Kaitlin, Jackson, Tate and Avery.

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This year we were lucky enough (again) to work with UCF on their football season ticket renewal mailing. This is the second year in a row we worked on this campaign for UCF Football. You can read about the campaign we did for them last year here: The Making of the 2009 UCF Football Renewal Campaign.

The piece we did for UCF this year was greatly expanded over the much smaller piece we did last year. This was very much a joint effort between us, and the UCF Athletic marketing and ticket offices. From what we’ve heard from UCF they’ve seen much better results with the brochure format they went with this year versus the folded letter format they used last year. Plus, including all relevant information in one tight knit package comes off as a more professional presentation to fans. A win for everyone involved.

Before we get into the details, if you’d like a sample of this piece, just send me a note.

The Specs

This year’s mailer was a 6 x 9, 8-page brochure (modeled after similar renewal brochures we’ve done for Duke and FSU) with a tear-off ticket form which had the recipient’s seat selection information from the previous year, their parking pass information, as well as their Golden Knights Club contribution populated into the form.

The piece was completely variable with the recipients name featured prominently on the cover, and the brochure highlighted the web address of each recipient’s personal URL (PURL) throughout.

Cover

Inside Spread

The Site

UCF decided to go with a personalized website that fans could visit to learn more information about the upcoming season. An incentive of a limited edition 8 x 10 photo was offered to fans who referred other friends to the site.

MyUCFFootball.com

All in all this was a solid campaign built using best practices that we have learned from producing similar campaigns over the past couple years. It’s a given that you have to put a good product on the field, but assuming you do that, and as long as you are focused on continually improving your marketing year after year, you will see a positive trend in the growth of your fan base.

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A few weeks back you may have seen my post on the Florida State email campaign we did for their Season Ticket and Booster Renewal campaign. Well that was just the first touch of a multi-touch communication schedule that we came up with for FSU.

The second communication in the multi-touch campaign was a 10 page brochure which contained everything from a personalized letter from Coach Fisher, to pre-populated forms for booster pledges, and football season ticket form with previous years season ticket information. As with the email communication the messaging is based on the 16 data segments that resulted from the audience segmentation. With the various elements being controlled via data, the direct mail communications had over 52 possible base versions. If you consider the personalized images and ticket renewal form, every version sent was unique and targeted to that individual recipient for maximum response.

Before we dive in, I have a limited number of samples of this mail piece available. If you’d like one, just let me know. (Please include your address.)

The personalized imagery incorporated in the mail communication was a FSU locker shot with the recipient’s name on the jersey. The technique was also used on the back of the mail piece with Coach Fisher holding the recipients jersey.

The following images will provide an overview of some the variability that is contained within the brochure. The collection of targeted messaging and imagery all controlled by the data segments deliver relevancy that prompts action.

(Click the image for a larger view)

(Click the image for a larger view)

This is one of the more complex campaigns we’ve done for a school, but by far NOT the most complex we’ve done when you consider the work we’ve done for other companies such as Ebay.

The benefit for FSU, outside of the improved renewal and acquisition rates they are seeing, is that they only had to focus their time and effort on one campaign (with mulitple touchpoints), rather than creating separate campaigns to reach each type of audience. This resulted in both cost and man-power savings for FSU’s booster and marketing staff.

If you’d like to learn more about executing a campaign like this, please give me a call at 386-271-3082 or send me a note by email.

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A few weeks ago we launched an ambitious campaign on behalf of Seminole Boosters and FSU Athletics to jump start their season ticket renewals and booster pledges for 2010. The campaign kicked-off on national signing day with an email blast to more than 60,000 people, a personalized website, and a personalized video with messages from both Christian Ponder and Jimbo Fisher. This is just the first touch in an integrated, full on blitz that we have planned with FSU in the coming months. I will post more updates as other parts of the campaign roll out.

“A part of” vs. ” A target of”
You know that one of the most valuable assets you have is your relationship with your fans and supporters. But sometimes its hard to communicate to your fans that you feel this way about them.

One way you can let them know is by getting personal. It’s no longer as simple as greeting them by name in an email or a mail piece. You have to also acknowledge their past involvement and really let them know they are part of the family. This lets them feel like they are a “part of” rather than a “target of”.

Communicating in this manner is of utmost importance to FSU’s strategy this year, and we’re going to great lengths with them to get it done effectively.

Personalized Email - 1 of 16 different versions

16 Unique Communication Versions
Maybe the most interesting part of this campaign is the data driving it. When we looked at FSU’s data, we determined that there were 16 different dispositions that people could be classified as:

Tickets: Renewal, Reacquire, Reconnect and Thank You’s (those who already took action) and

Booster: Renewal, Reacquire, Reconnect and Thank You’s (those who already took action)

(4 x 4 = 16 unique combinations)

This essentially meant that we had 16 different versions of email text and website copy, depending on which bucket the recipient fell into based on their past ticket purchase and booster membership. This was all able to happen on the fly as people received their email and visited their personalized webpage.

Personalized Webpage and Video - Click image to see actual site

Laser Targeting and Cost Effectiveness
FSU did not limit their audience to ticket renewals or booster renewals. In order to hit their goals for this year they determined they would need to place an emphasis on reconnecting with past supporters and fans and reacquiring those who either let their tickets or booster membership lapse.

Not only is FSU reaching out to a larger audience while becoming even more targeted in their messaging, but their campaign is getting more cost effective with each additional record as the unit price drops when the volumes get higher. This will be especially key when we get into the direct mail portions of the campaign.

Reporting
We are able to report back to FSU the response rates of all 16 groups. It was interesting for us and for FSU to see which groups performed the best. There were a few surprises for sure.

The Power of the Database
Once sufficient time has passed after the signing day email, FSU will pass data back to us on who renewed or bought tickets, who renewed their booster pledge and at what level, and who took no action at all. This information goes into our database and will drive the content of the next communication, which will be a direct mail renewal package, later this month. Again, the content of the mail piece, just like the email and personalized website, will be different for each recipient based on which bucket they are in and what actions they have taken thus far.

Systematic Campaign Plan
This level of coordination and personalization may sound overwhelming and complicated. It is not easy, but it is essential if you want to reach your goals today. There is a solid plan in place that anyone can follow with the right amount of help. See a sample communication plan that anyone could use below:

Click to enlarge

If you’d like to learn more about how we could apply this system to what you’re doing this spring, I’d love to talk to you. Even if the wheels are already in motion for your 2010 renewal campaign efforts, it is never too late to incorporate some of these strategies to better your results.

You can get in touch with me here or just give me a call at 386-271-3082.

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Towards the end of 2009 we completed campaigns for LSU Men’s and Women’s basketball programs. These campaigns are a great example of how schools can get more mileage out of their marketing budgets by pooling their campaigns.

By printing and sending both the men’s and women’s direct marketing campaigns at the same time, LSU was able to save quite a bit of money on the per piece cost. As you know, the higher the quantity, the lower the cost is per piece. LSU actually used this savings to expand their reach and send to more buckets of people…people who had bought tickets previously but maybe not season tickets, people who were previously ticket holders but for whatever reason did not buy last year, and people who because of their proximity to campus might be interested in buying tickets.

To realize this cost savings, the only thing that had to be the same were the size/format of the piece. The print date also had to be the same, which did provide a small challenge in making sure all necessary copy and assets were delivered to us by their respective deadlines. Through constant communications with LSU we were able to make this happen.

Besides segmenting the overall campaign into two segments (Mens and Womens), we also segmented the Men’s campaign by location. Residents in Baton Rouge received a piece that was different than all other recipients. Both the messaging and the enclosed insert were different from what the other recipients (those residing outside of BR) received.

If this sounds like a lot of work to accomplish, its not really. These types of campaigns are our bread and butter. All thats required is good data, which LSU was able to provide to us.

The overall components of the campaign were email, direct mail, personalized videos and personalized web pages to track response and act as a jumping off point to reinforce the campaign message and direct fans to purchase tickets. As you can see, even though these campaigns ran simultaneously, they are unique unto themselves, allowing the proper branding and messaging to come through for their respective teams.

Fell free to check out the campaign websites for each. To get the full experience you’ll need to enter your name and email address:

Mens: http://CommitToLSUHoops.com

Womens: http://MyLadyTigers.com

LSU Mens Mail Piece - Outside

LSU Men's Mail Piece - Inside

Mens personalized webpage and video

LSU Women's Mail Piece - Outside

LSU Women's Mail Piece - Inside

Womens personalized webpage and video

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Bowl season is over and a lot of schools are working on, or at least thinking about working on, season ticket renewals for football. At Replay Marketing we have several renewal marketing package options to consider based on your specific needs.

Check out the example packages below. These can be customized to fit your needs, and we suggest adding additional communications such as email reminders. When incorporated into your direct mail campaign, these can be done at very low cost, but can have a big impact on your response and conversions.

We will design your emails to have the same rich personalization as your mail piece. Remember that multi-touch campaigns increase your chances of a response significantly.

If you have any questions about the campaigns below, including pricing and other specifics contact me here or give me a call at 386-271-3082.

Personalized Postcards -See postcards we did for UNC

Certainly the least expensive option, but with great imagery and rich personalization these can be effective in marketing tickets, especially as a reminder to those who have received their renewal information but have not yet bought their tickets.

8.5 x 11 and 8.5 x 13.75 Folded Letter Package -See examples we did for UCF and Wisconsin

These give you much more room to communicate with your fans and convince them that now is the time to renew. These packages include an optional 5 x 7 personalized photo, white 6 x 9 large window envelope (see why?), the outside of the folded letter has personalized image to show through window and a standard 1-color reply envelope for those who may want to renew their season tickets by mail.

8-page Booklet Renewal Package – See example we did for Duke Football

This package is the cream of the crop and gives you plenty of room to communicate everything you need to. You can have a personalized letter from Coach, stadium seating chart and parking diagram, schedule, hospitality and group ticket information, booster club message and more.

Perhaps the best feature about this package is the integrated ticket renewal form. Using your data, we will make this piece uniquely personalized for each of your fans by including their specific ticket information such as location, ticket quantity and pricing right on the form inside the mail piece.

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Rule #1 of Direct Mail: Get the mail opened.

We’ve known for years that using large window envelopes leads to higher mail open rates. That’s why most of the direct mail campaigns we do for schools make use of a 6 x 9 large window envelope which allows the creative as well as the school branding to show through.

The December issue of USPS’s Deliver Magazine has another case study to prove our conclusion.

The Wilderness Society — a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit — adopted the larger windows for its bimonthly donor recruitment package, which it mails 2 to 3 million of annually. It now places the traditional single envelope used for the prospecting piece inside another envelope with an oversized window. And donors have taken notice.

When the double-envelope approach was tested against the single envelope, the oversized-window piece produced a 35-percent higher response rate, according to Robin Hickman, the group’s director of membership services. She adds that a subsequent test also generated a higher response rate, proving that doubling your efforts really can pay off.

If you want to see a boost in your mail open and resulting response rates, try a large window envelope for your next campaign and see what kind of lift you get.

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As we wind down the year its time for everyone to come out with their “Top 10 this” or “Best 5 that” type lists. In the spirit of looking forward (because GREAT things are ahead of us in 2010) here are three trends to watch for and implement in college sports, development/booster, and alumni marketing in 2010.

Going Green
Everyone talks about the need/desire to go green and reduce their organization’s impact on the environment. We should use best practices such as emailing before sending out a direct mail piece for renewals. We should encourage people to renew or pay online. But perhaps the best green contribution college athletic and alumni organizations can make is through targeting. And many of you are already doing a great job at this.

Think about it. You’re probably not sending out ticket or membership renewals scatter shot…you’re sending them to people who were either ticketholders/members/donors last year, people who were previously ticketholders/members/donors who did not renew last year, and finally those who, based on prior relationship with your school (ie: graduates/alumni) might be highly likely to take action.

Contrast this with the pool care company that blankets a neighborhood with postcards sent to every home, instead of just homes with pools. I’m sure you can think of other examples of wasteful marketing, we see it everyday.

Pat yourself on the back, and think of ways that you can get even more targeted in your marketing and prospecting to 1) “go green” and 2) get even better results.

One possible strategy is profiling your current ticketholders/members/donors and finding out where they live, how many games they attend, what their annual giving habits are etc. Then go find other people that look just like them to target.

Localization
Alumni and Booster organizations are the best when it comes to practicing localization, defined for our uses here as using a member’s/donor’s current location as a connect point with your organization. You can see this in action with local chapters of alumni/booster organizations, usually in major metro areas.

But have you thought to use this in your marketing? Instead of a form letter or mailer that says the same exact thing to everyone, speak to each person individually. How about something like: “Join the other 2,419 Orlando area <School Name> alumni by becoming a member today”.

This type of appeal lets them know that 1) you care about and “know” them as an individual and 2) uses the power of social proof (ie: the other 2,419 area alumni) to help tie them back to your organization.

Sound like a lot of work? Perhaps if you are doing all of your marketing in house. But to direct marketing companies like Replay Marketing that do this everyday, its all just variable data communication. We do it everyday, and can help you accomplish this.

Your data holds untapped power. It’s time to put it to use in 2010.

Integration
Many college sports and alumni marketing organizations experienced better results this year by integrating their marketing campaigns across multiple channels from direct mail, to email, and even personalized websites. This trend will continue to build momentum in 2010 simply because it works.

In tests in just about every industry it has been found that sales can be as much as 50% higher among those who receive a mail piece and click through to a personalized website than those who just visit the site on their own. An email either before or after sending a direct mail piece has also been proven to boost response significantly.

Isn’t this more expensive? It can be, but with proper planning probably not by much. You probably already use direct mail, email, and web in your marketing, just maybe not together. Integrate them, and your campaigns could be dangerously successful.

When doing your 2010 marketing planning keep these 3 trends in mind and look for ways to apply them effectively within your budget.

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There is a new report on digital marketing making the rounds and after reading it I thought it was important enough that everyone involved in alumni or college sports marketing should take some time to read.

FEED: The 2009 Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report is an annual study charting how technology is changing the way consumers engage with brands. Download the full report (pdf) or view a summary of the key findings embedded below.

As you are all well aware, a lot has happened over the past 12 months with the explosion of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. It has no doubt changed the way we will all look at marketing going forward.

One big takeaway from the report is that, more so than ever, experiences matter. So much so that they are becoming the new advertising and marketing. And research proves that digital brand experiences create customers. According to the report:

“The overwhelming majority of consumers who engage with a brand online move from passive “receivers” to advocates almost instantly.”

This means that every alumni or college sports marketer must constantly be thinking about the kind of digital experiences they are creating for their alumni and fans, as well as how to make them aware that these experiences exist. What good is a viral video if only a percentage of your target audience is aware of it?

Of course use email, of course use Twitter, of course use Facebook. But don’t forget that traditional direct mail should also be used to drive people to your digital assets in order to provide an effective multi-channel and multi-touch strategy.

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Personalized marketing is a great way to strike a chord with your prospects, but especially those who you want to make feel a little extra special. Season ticket holders, as well as fans who regularly purchase premium tickets and suites come to mind as a great target audience for this type of communication.

A few months ago we worked with Vince Sweeney and his team at the University of Wisconsin to market a few remaining premium and club seats they had left. The great thing about marketing premium seats is that if you target the right audience and combine it with a unique personalized marketing piece, you can easily make your campaign money back just by selling a few tickets.

This campaign not only generated multiple premium and club ticket sales for Wisconsin, but it generated a lot of inbound calls and interest which led to other ticket packages being sold as well. A true Win-Win.

Below is a look at the package we put together. In addition to the outside of the mail piece being personalized with each recipient’s name on the back of a Wisconsin jersey, it also included a keepsake 5 x 7 photo of the same image. This goes a long way in showing your customers how important they are to your school and your overall success.

Front cover that shows through the window of a 6 x 9 envelope

Inside with info. on premium and club seats, messages from AD, past player, etc.

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