MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

Top marketers presenting their case studies at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit in Miami last week included Matt Griffin of the Boston Celtics.

Though the Eastern Conference-leading Celtics probably don’t have this problem right now, the team found itself looking at quite a few empty seats at least once in the not too distant past. Matt’s straight-forward mission: Get ‘em filled.

First, Matt understands his audience. He knows he has a die-hard fan base. He’s analyzed their emotional purchasing behavior, and he knows they have a tendency to impulse buy. He also knows his team has a broad demographic appeal.

Phase one of his strategy? A targeted email campaign to customers who had previously bought blocks of tickets, especially colleges (target those of the players) and families (throw in hot dogs and T-shirts and make it a package deal), and offer customers who had opted-in to get emails from the team site a ½ off ticket.

Phase Two: An email campaign to previous ticket buyers, carefully tracking click-throughs on the offer. If they didn’t convert right away, they got a phone call. “Phone calls after the fact are gold for us,” said Griffin.

Fast-forward to the tip-off: Seats were full, the Celtics won (and thanked the fans), and that brought on Phase Three of Matt’s plan: Follow up with everyone who bought a ticket, or a block of tickets, and offer them a six-game package.

Results? Their approach is an NBA best practice, getting twice the returns of standard email campaigns with their “three-point conversion,” and the Celtics are one of the top ticket selling teams, even in years they aren’t leading the league.

According to Matt, the Celtics aren’t about just putting on a professional basketball game: “What we really do is create an experience.”

Their approach to email marketing isn’t bad, either.

The Landing Page optimization advice in our next free brief is too good to save till Monday’s email, so I’m going to give you a couple of thousand dollars worth today. Jimmy Ellis’s, Aaron Rosenthal’s, and Flint McGlaughlin’s analysis of the Landing Pages that our subscribers sent in for evaluation at the Feb. 6 Clinic resulted in recommendations anyone can use to get an immediate bump in conversion rates and total revenue.

Here’s just a taste:

• Write a headline that quantifies key metrics. The goal of a headline is not to sell a product. The goal of the headline is get a visitor to read the first sentence of the next paragraph, getting them into the body copy.

• Don’t offer a multitude of products on one Landing Page. Drive visitors to a place where there is not so much unsupervised thinking. Don’t ask them to make choices between many options when they are still not sure they want you at all.

• Take all of the specific elements that help a customer figure out if this is the right product for them and move them closer to the image: price; free shipping; warranty; guarantees. If there is a product specific testimonial, put it right there.

• Customer ratings for products can have a huge impact on conversion. You absolutely need a product rating close to the image so visitors can see what other people are saying.

If readers of MarketingExperiments want to meet Flint, Jimmy, and Aaron (and me) in person, then the place to be is in Miami from Feb. 24-26. So pack your spring break togs and come on down to the MarketingSherpa Email Summit. The MarketingExperiments Optimization Team will be doing live Landing Page analysis for attendees, among other duties. I hope to see you there!