In this final episode of 2024, Karen Ramirez, founder and skipper of Sporting Sheroes, takes us on a reflective journey through an extraordinary year for women in sports. From historic victories at the Paris Olympics to record-breaking crowds at the Women’s Six Nations, 2024 was full of achievements worth celebrating.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Karen dives into the challenges that remain—from pay disparities to structural inequities—and the moments that sparked critical conversations, such as the fallout from the Spanish Women’s World Cup scandal.

Looking ahead to 2025, Karen highlights the exciting events on the horizon, including the Women’s Rugby World Cup in the UK and the continued expansion of the WNBA. She also discusses how fans, organizations, and allies can help maintain the incredible momentum women’s sports have built.

Tune in for an inspiring recap, insights into what lies ahead, and a powerful reminder of the role we all play in shaping the future of women’s sports.

In this episode, Data Talks’ founder Stefan Lavén sits down with Gabriel Monidelle, CEO of HockeyAllsvenskan—the second tier of the Swedish ice hockey league pyramid. Together, they dive into how HockeyAllsvenskan is revolutionizing fan engagement and driving commercial success using innovative data strategies.

Gabriel shares the league’s vision for elevating hockey in Sweden, the challenges of uniting 14 unique clubs under a single banner, and the importance of creating meaningful connections with fans in a highly competitive sports landscape. From leveraging centralized data to shaping personalized fan experiences, this conversation is packed with actionable insights for anyone in the sports industry.

Tune in to discover how HockeyAllsvenskan is redefining the game beyond the rink and setting new standards in sports marketing.

When it comes to leveraging fan data to drive ticket sales, merchandise revenue, and high-value sponsorships, you need a partner you can trust. That’s where we come in at Data Talks.

At Data Talks, we’re proud to partner with a diverse range of sports organizations across various countries and sports. From the passionate football supporters of 1. FC Magdeburg in Germany to the committed fans of the Vålerenga in Norway and PAOK FC in Greece, our reach is broad. We also work with AIK, the trailblazing Lewes FC—known for their gender equality stance, and FK Crvena Zvezda, helping these clubs not only understand but also engage their supporters on a deeper level. But our expertise isn’t limited to football and ice hockey. We’re also working with the Swedish Golf Federation, Dolphins - which is competing in the Australian National Rugby League and the Austrian Handball Federation, to name a few.

No two clubs are the same, which is why we tailor our approach to meet your specific needs. For instance, when 1. FC Magdeburg wanted to increase merchandise sales, we helped them initiate a campaign encouraging fans to print their names on their jerseys to increase purchases. The outcome was impressive sales and a clear understanding that targeting specific groups can create fantastic results.

To check their strategy, 1. FC Magdeburg divided their audience and sent the same campaign to two different groups. Group one targeted those who purchased a shirt this year, but also spent a minimum of 90 EUR in previous purchases—a small but promising group of 1,200 recipients. Group two went broader, reaching all supporters who bought a ticket in the last two years, totaling a whopping 38,000 recipients.

The smaller group saw outstanding results—a jaw-dropping 66% open rate, a 6% click rate, leading to 20 orders and 1431 EUR in revenue from 1100 recipients. The larger ticket buyer group also held its own with a superb 54% open rate, and 6% click rate, resulting in 90 orders and a revenue of 7384 EUR from the expansive pool of 38,000 recipients. 

While both groups had fantastic open rates, the segment that had previously bought merchandise stole the spotlight with higher conversion rates. Proportionally, this smaller segment generated significantly more sales. In fact, if that segment were as large as the the segment that had previously bought tickets, the numbers would have skyrocketed to 630 orders versus the already impressive 90 orders from the ticketing segment.

The message was simple yet impactful – a warm reminder that time was running out to secure tickets for the upcoming match.

The combined results from both groups brought in a total revenue of 8 815 EUR in the Fan Shop. Here’s the takeaway—the Data Talks Customer Data Platform (CDP) empowers clubs to go broad or laser-focused. Both approaches yield great outcomes, and the real magic happens when you pinpoint the right strategy, connect with the right audience, and present them with an irresistible offer. 

Similarly, we helped SC Fortuna Köln prove the power of fighting until the last moment with their last minute ticket campaign. With just 20 hours remaining before a match, Fortuna strategically targeted around 9,000 profiles in their database who had not yet purchased tickets. The result? Despite the short ticket-buying window, the campaign led to an impressive 83% increase in ticket sales. The success of this initial campaign was just the beginning. Fortuna Köln recognised the vast possibilities that the Data Talks platform offered. Beyond overcoming their first challenge, they now look forward to utilising the platform’s advanced features, including segmentation, personalisation, and automation.

Fortuna Köln’s success story is a testament to the transformative power of data-driven strategies and the seamless collaboration with Data Talks. As the club continues its journey, it remains committed to embracing...

In the wise words of Robert Kiyosaki, “the best way to predict the future is to study the past…”. And that’s what we did to identify these trends. Not only that, but based on our first-hand experience and research, we are able to bring you these trends with great confidence. So without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Values-driven fandoms: Sports for many supporters and fans are not just about the game. They are a way of living and being. They are about identity and being. So we are seeing the rise of value-based fandoms. Scour through social media and you will see Facebook, and LinkedIn groups around women in sports, people of color in sports, and other identity-based fandoms. This is a sports trend that will continue into 2023. You need to give more thought than ever before to how your decisions will be perceived by your supporters. Granted, you will not be able to satisfy everyone 100% of the time, but you still need to be meticulous in your thinking. Not only that, but you need to embrace your role as an agent of change in society. So instead of going into defense, go on the offense. Tackle the issues that affect your supporters.

What do Stormzy (the British Grime rapper) and Natalie Portman (the Hollywood Oscar-winning actress) have in common? Well, they are both lending their star power in the sports industry to bring about equality. Stormzy launched Merky FC in partnership with Adidas to “change the game, providing young people of Black heritage with career opportunities from across the football industry” in the UK. Natalie Portman on the other hand helped found the women’s expansion soccer team Angel FC in Los Angeles. This is another sports trend you will see in 2023: Stars lending their power to the sports industry.

Working data-driven and digitalization will only increase in sports in 2023. These are two topics we have discussed extensively on this podcast so it’s no surprise that these two are sports trends you will be seeing a lot in 2023. We discuss these topics in depth throughout the podcast so feel free to go back and listen to them—especially episodes 1 through 3. The main benefits of working data-driven and digitalization are that you can grow your supporter base, continuously, get superior sales and make real revenue.

Business-model innovation is another big sports trend you will see in 2023. Examples include Digital media innovating revenue streams, Community as a business model, and Product Innovation model. I like to call this trend, business model innovation, the “thinking outside the box approach to sports” because you have to identify the unique opportunities available for your organization. And how do you do that? By working data-driven.

Content will still be King in 2023. This podcast is a perfect example of this very trend. Listening to this allows you to get a more intimate and exclusive look into who we are as a company and all the knowledge and insights you could learn from us. Content will do the same for your supporters. So when you produce content, make sure that it brings your supporter closer to your organization and helps you build a stronger relationship with them.

Meet Stefan Lavén the CEO and Founder of Data Talks. 

Did you listen to #49 with Martin Jacobsen, Ticketing Manager at FC Midtjylland on Using a subscription model to sell football tickets? Well, Stefan was the interviewer. So in a sense, you have already met him.

In this episode, however, we get to interview him. We look back:

1. on the journey that our company Data Talks has been on so far in 2022  
2. the highlights and crucial steps we took this past year 
3. and also look forward to what we hope will happen in 2023 

Stefan also gives all the aspiring CEOs and leaders out there advice on how to achieve as much success as he has so far. Follow Stefan on LinkedIn to connect with him.

Join our mission
At Data Talks, we are passionate about equality. This past year we have worked hard to advocate for women's sports in order to bring more visibility for women in sports through our initiative: Women in Sports: Beyond the hashtag. Not only that but we have, and continue, to strive to create tangible value for women's sports by bringing commercial success to clubs and leagues within that sector. Along the way, a lot of people have joined our mission by joining our Women in Sports: Beyond the hashtag community platform. Members have an opportunity to network, collaborate and exchange skills and knowledge. They also get an opportunity to expand their personal brands by coming on to the podcast, speaking at our events and collaborating with us on various projects.

Why not become a part of the change as well by joining our community today?

About Data Talks

Data Talks CDP is a Customer Data Platform built specifically for sports. We make it easy for sports organizations to sell more tickets, negotiate sponsorship agreements of higher value, and increase merchandise sales. We are an international company with Swedish roots, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Some of our proud clients include RC Lens, The Austrian Ice Hockey Association, PAOK FC, AIK, the Swedish Golf Federation, and Collingwood FC.

In today’s episode, we are focusing on the importance of making women’s sports a priority as part of our “10 components to include in your sports marketing today” series. This is the 10th and final component we are discussing so if you have missed the first 9, make sure to listen to those too. To quickly recap, these are the 10 components to include in your sports marketing today that we have already discussed:

1. Adopt a supporter-centric approach
2. Personalization as a driver of revenue and fan loyalty
3. Why you should work data-driven
4. Content is King
5. Why you should Prioritize OTT
6. The importance of Leveraging your social media platforms
7. Leveraging Influencer marketing to drive personal connections
8. Incorporate new sponsorship opportunities
9. Why you should make social justice a key component of your marketing strategy

And finally today, we are discussing the importance of making women’s sports a priority. Please note, that we are not saying make women’s sports a priority over men’s. But rather that, women’s sports deserve the same push and support that men’s sports have been getting for decades and decades.

This is an area that we are passionate about at Data Talks and over the course of the year, we have worked hard in this area. Our goal has always been and still remains, to create tangible value for women’s sports. We started off with our profiling program where we aimed to bring the tangible value of increasing the visibility of women in sports. The many women who have been on this podcast for our "In conversations with..." sessions were thanks to our initiative women in sports: beyond the hashtag.

Since then, we have also launched a women in sports community where everyone involved within the women’s sports space is welcome to join. There is power in coming together under the same mission and working together to accomplish that mission. If you would like to also join our initiative, find the link in the description below.

If you too would like to make women’s sports a priority, here are a few tips:

1. First and foremost, be authentic - doing things for the sake of marketing is never a good idea. It brings more harm than good so whatever you do, let it be authentic.
2. Start where you are. With the resources you have today, what difference can you make? For us, it was starting our profiling program. We had great storytellers and enough resources to get started so we focused on that.
3. Focus on value - don’t just do something for the sake of just doing it. Think about what value you want to create for others and what value they can create for you. The emphasis here is on tangible and shared value.
4. Grow and expand naturally - it is important to not try to force things to grow in a specific direction but to make sure that the growth you see is organic and natural. Once again, for us, the natural way to expand and grow was to create a platform, where all the fantastic people we had profiled can meet and collaborate, amongst other things.
5. Last but not least, stay collaborative - “alone we can do so little, together we can do so much”

Join our community to meet other people who are passionate about the sports industry!

“FC Midtjylland is the story of how will and unity can create the impossible. It is the story of what can happen when the dreams are big and the will is even bigger. It is the story of a club that from the start had the courage to think innovatively and step out of the shadows”.   One of the ways that FC Midtjylland is leveraging innovation and dreaming big is by using a subscription model to sell their tickets. Something that is not common in the sports world.

Our CEO and Founder Stefan Lavén sat down with FC Midtjylland's Ticketing Manager Martin Jacobsen to talk about all this and more. In this episode, they discuss:

1. Why and how to use the subscription model

2. The struggle of increasing match attendance and not just ticket sales

3. The benefits and drawbacks of using the subscription model

4.  The importance of using data to underpin innovation

Listen to this episode to dive deeper into this subject!

In this day and age, sports organizations possess powerful platforms that can be leveraged for the greater good. And addressing issues related to injustice and inequality are two pivotal examples. Deloitte described this ever so eloquently in their US sports outlook 2021 report when they wrote: “Social justice has become so critical that future growth will likely be predicated upon how authentic organizations are in responding to this challenge. Players and fans increasingly expect leagues and teams to play a proactive role in the social justice movement. Deloitte’s Global Millennial Survey 2020 supports the notion that a proactive response to social injustice may be especially important to younger generations, many of whom tend to be more values-driven in how they engage with brands and businesses.”

That is why today’s episode is centered around making social justice a key component of your marketing strategy. Please note that we are not encouraging you to exploit social justice courses for the sake of marketing your sports organization. We are rather, encouraging you to find the course that your organization is passionate about and then make a concerted effort to make a difference within that area. This is such a crucial distinction because we as human beings are very good at spotting when someone is being disingenuous. So the key here, just like the Deloitte report so eloquently put it, is authenticity.

This is something that Alba Pardo, the co-founder of the Women in Action Sports, also spoke about when she guested on the podcast in episode 34. So, do check that episode out. In a nutshell, making social justice a part of your marketing strategy is saying to your supporters, we see you and we hear what you are passionate about. We will meet you halfway to ensure that, together, we build a more equal sports industry.

Moreover, it is important to note the intricate relationship between sports and society. Research continues to prove that this relationship yields significant benefits for everyone involved. Not just the societies themselves, but the individuals that make up that society as well. Some people say that sports and politics don’t mix. And by politics, they include things such as protesting against discrimination on the basis of race, sexual orientation, for example. I don’t aim to substantiate or discredit this statement in this blog post, but I want to rather highlight an important fact that we overlook when we fixate on this line of thought. This fact is that sports is a mirror of society. And because of the deep sense of belonging and identity sports evoke in fans, sports can be a very powerful force for change in society.

Creating sponsorship agreements of higher value for your organization is one of the top two priorities of many sports organizations. We know this because we talked to over 100 decision-makers in sports and found out this information. And you know as your preferred sports CDP partner we take what you say seriously.

That is why we are focusing on incorporating new sponsorship opportunities as part of our “10 components to include in your sports marketing today” series. This is the 8th component we are discussing so if you have missed the first 7, make sure to listen to those too.

“According to Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising Study, 81% of global respondents either completely or somewhat trust brand sponsorships at sporting events.” So there’s a great opportunity for sports organizations to tap into new and lucrative sponsorship opportunities. Some sponsorship opportunities that are either growing or are projected to grow faster than their traditional counterparts include:

1. Crypto/Blockchain/NFT
2. Automotive
3. Insurance
4. Retail
5. Unbundled sponsorship investment in women’s sports which have grown by about 146%, according to the Nielsen 2022 Global Sports Marketing Report.

So how can we help you create sponsorship agreements of higher value for your organization? I am glad you asked. Well, using our sports CDP takes the guesswork out of the process. This is because firstly, With the CDP you can develop a long-term sponsorship strategy that you can replicate. For example, sponsorship acquisition is one thing but delivery is another. So once you get the sponsorship, how do you plan on delivering the best results possible? Secondly, the CDP will help you keep on improving your sponsorship strategy so you can always get results. For example, when you know exactly what your supporters will appreciate, you can keep delivering exceptional results for your sponsor. You can also effectively monitor the performance of your sponsorship campaigns. And the CDP will also help you align with the right sponsors for your organization.

Did you also know that you can also leverage your supporter information to negotiate higher sponsorship deals? That’s right - data is one of the most valuable assets a sports organization could ever have. But unfortunately, not a lot of people who work in sports organizations understand this. So then sometimes they give away their data for discounts on software and the like. While the thought behind the practice is not wrong, it’s what you get in exchange for your data that we are questioning. So why not use your supporter information to create sponsorship agreements of higher value for your organization?

Okay, enough talking. How about you just see this in action instead? 

Try out our demo for free today.

Join our Women in Sports Community today

Meet Lindi Ngwenya

The Founder and Managing Director of a sports agency called  Sisu Sports Management, representing male and female football players, staff, and clubs as well as providing merchant services to Clubs. Lindi Ngwenya is passionate about serving emerging football markets across Africa, Scandinavia, the USA, and Women's football. And today, we get to step into her world and share her incredible story with you.

Lindi is also part of our Women in Sports Community, so join the community if you would like to meet her and other incredible women like her.

In this episode we discuss:

1. How Lindi built Sisu Sports Management from the ground up

2. Lindi's background - from being in the military to getting her engineering qualification and playing rugby

3. The future of sports representation and the sports industry in Africa

4. Being a woman of color in the sports industry

Connect with Lindi today!

Today, an increasing number of sports athletes are driving personal connections on different platforms and channels – especially on social media.

Sports fans are looking to athletes and other sports influencers that champion societal issues that they believe in. They view these athletes as both meaningful and personalized connections. And this trend can be seen across industries beyond sports. On a global scale, 71% of consumers involved in a survey said that they either completely or somewhat trust opinions and ads from influencers about different brands and products.

But what is an influencer? An influencer by definition is anyone who inspires or guides the actions of others. That’s why athletes and players are the ultimate influencers when it comes to sports.

If you are a smaller club and doubting the effectiveness of your players or any other influencers, don’t worry. The increased interest and trust in influencers is particularly prevalent among micro-and nano influencers. These types of influencers are those who have less than 10 000 followers on social media. Influencers with fewer followers make more personal connections with followers and thus have a greater impact on driving supporter behaviors, such as trying a new product or attending a sporting event. So you see, anyone can leverage influencer marketing, from small clubs to big ones - there is a way for everyone to win.

So how can you leverage influencer marketing in a creative way?

To make this a bit more concrete for you, why don’t we take a real-life example? This example shows the power of clubs understanding their fans and using every single moment to really push the envelope when it comes to increasing revenue. This example is from our customer PAOK FC a top-tier club in Greece.

It’s February 10, 2022, PAOK is facing AEK Athens for the second leg of the Greek Cup Quarter Final. The score is 1-0 for AEK Athens and PAOK qualifies only with a draw. Only a few seconds before the referee blows the last whistle, Jasmin Kurtić, one of PAOK’s best players scores! Everyone goes crazy. What a game!

So what does the PAOK team decide to do? They decide to leverage their success on the field to gain more success off the field. How?

By creating a campaign that offers fans the opportunity to purchase t-shirts starring the legendary Kurtić.

1. Their e-store sales rocketed by 66% on the 15th of February 2022 compared to the best day of the year so far (11th of January)
2. They gave their fans and supporters something “extra” to be excited about which boosted engagement across their social media channels as well.

What can we learn from the PAOK FC case?

That:

1. Your intentions need action

We all want to win and have great success in everything we do but we have to put our money where our mouths are. And that starts with being aware of opportunities as they show up. PAOK seized a moment that some might have not realized was a great opportunity.

2. You have to understand your supporters

Do you understand your supporters? Do you know what keeps them coming back to your club for more?

A great solution that you can start using is the sports customer data platform (CDP). That’s because a CDP allows you to:

1.  store all your supporter data in one place

2. it helps you analyze that data so that you can uncover patterns in your supporters’ interaction with your organization

Not only that but with the insights you get from the sports CDP, you can then act in real time by setting up measurable and monitorable goals.

Try our DEMO for free!

We are continuing with our “10 components you need to include in your sports marketing strategy today” series and today’s focus is on leveraging your social media platforms. This is the 6th component we are discussing so if you have missed the first 5, make sure to listen to those too.

According to Nielsen, 47% of people who watch sports on TV or via digital platforms simultaneously watch other live content. Among these different multi-screen viewing activities, social media engagement makes up 32% of this total number. And this number is even higher for Gen Z, where social media stands for 46% of their viewing activities. So it then goes without saying: making social media a part of your sports marketing strategy should be a given. By being present and playing an active role in your supporters’ favorite social media platforms, you are able to:

1. Open a window into the lives of your supporters and understand their specific needs, preferences, and behaviors.
2. Maximize fan engagement by interacting with them on social media, for instance via accounts that belong to your club or athletes.
3. Leverage the social media data you have collected about your supporters to find and create new monetization opportunities.

However, there is a huge mistake that most sports organizations make when it comes to social media. From small clubs to big ones such as FC Barcelona, this mistake is indeed a common one. Many sports organizations actually make the mistake of not converting their followers into contacts in their database. Let’s take FC Barcelona as an example. Out of more than 350 million social media followers, Barcelona only had less than 3 million contacts.

Not converting your social media followers to contacts in your database can limit your sponsorship value and the effectiveness of your communications. So you won’t be able to segment or target effectively, personalization becomes near impossible if you don’t understand your fans. And you can’t understand your fans if they are not even in your contact database.

So how can you make sure that you increase your social media followers while simultaneously growing your contact database? Remember we said that content is king? That’s what you need to leverage to grow your social media followers and contact database. However, it is crucial that you direct your social media followers to one of your own platforms. Here are a few examples of such content:

1. Giveaways where your supporters have to sign-up and leave their contact information
2. Another amazing way you can grow your contact database is to run competitions
3. Promote gated content on your social media. This will require fans to once again, sign-up in order to access the content
4. Subscriptions are another fantastic way of gaining more followers while growing your contact database. Do you have a newsletter or a blog? Are you maybe a bigger organization with a digital newsroom or do you offer regular public relations communications? Then why not create a subscription call to action? Something along the lines of, “subscribe to our newsletter and never miss a thing we do ever again”.
5. Give discounts and vouchers - Everyone loves discounts and vouchers, especially nowadays where “entertainment” is becoming more expensive and sports tickets are becoming more and more expensive. So why not offer your followers discount codes if they sign up for something on your website or any other platforms you own?

In summation, leveraging social media is crucial for every sports organization’s growth.

Try our DEMO free today!

In this episode, we’re excited to welcome Stef McLaughlin, the Commercial Manager at Lewes Football Club. This pioneering club is renowned for its commitment to gender equality in football. Lewes FC is breaking new ground with its inclusive approach, from breastfeeding facilities in the stands to offering a diverse range of healthy vegan options on match days.

Join host Lorraine Moalosi as she sits down with Stef to explore her role at Lewes FC and how the club pushes the boundaries of traditional football culture. Discover the innovative steps Lewes FC is taking to broaden the horizons of the football community and make the sport more welcoming to all.

Tune in to learn how Lewes FC sets a new standard for inclusivity in football and hear firsthand about their groundbreaking initiatives that are changing the game.

Today we are focusing on why you should prioritize Over the top streaming (OTT) platform as part of your sports marketing strategy. This is the 5th component out of the ten that we will be deep diving into as part of our “10 components you need to include in your sports marketing strategy today”. If you missed the first five, be sure to listen to those as well.

Unlike traditional TV, an OTT platform allows sports organizations to offer streaming content to their supporters via their preferred devices, such as mobile phones or tablets. According to Nielsen’s 2022 global sports marketing report, “as connected devices gain momentum as the great amplifier of content, access to content continues to expand, with 40.7% of global fans now opting to stream live sports events through digital platforms.” This simply means that the usage of OTT will only keep on growing.

OTT is a compelling component to include in your sports marketing strategy especially if you are:

1. A women’s sports organization - We have often spoken about the lack of visibility for women in sports here on this blog. Thanks to the advent of digital platforms such as social media and over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms, women's sports were estimated to gain a 96% increase in visibility. Here are a few examples: The UEFA, YouTube, and DAZN deal that aimed to "bring fans all over the world closer to the action than ever before". Eleven securing global rights for the Thai women's league and working with the Football Association of Thailand "to champion the competition to fans across the region and globally". Somyot Poompanmoung, president of the Football Association of Thailand was quoted saying:  “We’re excited to work with Eleven on a new chapter for Thai women’s football, and this agreement will give fans unprecedented access to the Thai Women’s League domestically, across South East Asia, and worldwide. Over the next three years, we have a great opportunity to increase the visibility of the women’s game, including the ability to engage new fans via a free-to-watch game every matchday.” OTT is a perfect example of how technology can become an important way of making innovation inclusive. It solves the real issue of the lack of visibility of women's sports.
2. A smaller sports organization with great ambition but not necessarily great resources such as high negotiating power with TV stations.

The benefits of using an OTT platform are many, but to name a few, using OTT can help sports organizations:

1. reach a younger and wealthier audience – generation Z
2. target your audience with hyper-personalized content and ads – and if you own the platform, you will also gain better data
3. Retarget your supporters – OTT is a great channel to use for retargeting your supporters with ads that are relevant to them.

So if you want to create a sports marketing strategy that is successful and sustainable, as well as leverage your marketing campaigns and deliver hyper-personalized supporter experiences, then you should make your OTT platform a priority.

Try our DEMO free today!

An increasing number of supporters expect to receive some form of content during the off-season. Moreover, with the rapid increase in content creation and consumption across different platforms and channels, the demand for additional sports content has also grown. According to Nielsen’s 2022 global sports marketing report: “the demand for content related to a live event (match announcements, highlights, recap videos, etc.) is almost as high as it is for digitally delivered events themselves.” 

That’s why this episode of the podcast is dedicated to delving deeper into the fourth component of our “10 components you need to include in your sports marketing” series. And this component is - Content is King.

The interest in sports content (both related to and not related to live sports events) is becoming more important, especially among the younger generation. This is a crucial piece of information since the same generation, Generation Z, also is the biggest global consumer cohort – with a spending power of a whopping $140 million in the US alone.

Examples of content that sports organizations can leverage to get their highest fan engagement to date, include:

• Videos centered around pre-game events, post-game events, and some behind-the-scenes footage in practice, for example
• Video on Demand content that can be delivered specially to individual supporters upon request. You can do this through both traditional television broadcasting and over-the-top streaming platforms
• Another type of content that sports organizations can leverage is content generated by the supporters themselves. This content is usually created and shared via social media, with TikTok and Twitch having the highest usage rate gains in comparison to other platforms between April 2020 – August 2021.
• Fantasy sports games are another fantastic way in which sports organizations from leagues to clubs, can use content to engage fans. Fantasy sports allow a fan to act as the owner of a team and give them the power to cut (drop), sign (draft), and trade the players of their choosing. Where points and standings are given based on an athlete's true performance in games.

There are different types of content that you can really leverage to increase fan engagement to the highest it has ever been in your sports organization. Some other types include sports scores, statistics, game summaries, sports news, photographs, video and audio files and or podcasts, and other similar sports-related information and services, in text, multimedia, or any other format.

As you can see, there is a mountain of opportunities for content creation that sports organizations can leverage and monetize.

But how can you achieve this in a way that guarantees results beyond your expectations?

By collecting relevant data about your supporters, using a Sports Customer Data Platform so you can uncover the necessary insights about your supporters in order to understand the type of content your supporters want and the channels and/or platforms they would prefer to interact with your content. Once you have uncovered these insights, you will be able to deliver hyper-personalized content to your fans from the same platform, the sports CDP.

Try our DEMO for free today!

Meet August Berg an academy coach at BP FC here in Sweden. He is also a sports CDP advisor here at Data Talks with a passion for helping sports organizations engage with their fans better than ever before.

We sat down with August to discuss:

1. the importance of academy football
2. the challenges academy football face
3. changes needed to make academy football the best it can be
4. and of course, we discussed August's journey in academy football and why it was important for him to get involved in the business side of sports by working at Data Talks as a sports CDP advisor.

About Data Talks:

Data Talks helps you to create a world-class supporter experience, based on your data. With their leading-edge Customer Data Platform (CDP), you can build personalized fan engagement by collecting, analyzing, and acting on your data. First, you collect supporter data from scattered sources, such as websites, email, social media, apps, ads, plus more, into one place. Then you get a 360° profile view where you can discover valuable insights. Last but not least, you act on your insights using automated campaigns to create an outstanding supporter experience!

Try our DEMO for free today

We are living in the fastest-changing communications technology landscape than ever before. New software and applications are sprouting up like mushrooms. Think about it, fifty years ago, the majority of people did not have email addresses. But nowadays it’s virtually impossible to conduct any kind of process in your sports organization without an email.

Less than twenty years ago Facebook didn’t exist. But now it has been downloaded by at least 5 billion people. That is more than 60% of the world's population. Humanity has become more technological. So, “if you can’t beat them, join them”, right?

This is where working data-driven comes into play. Whether you are a league, federation, or club, a men’s team or women’s team, no matter the region of the world you find yourself in, working data-driven is key to the success of your organization.

One of the biggest challenges to working data-driven that sports organizations face is having data stored in many different sources. For example, your merchandise stats would be on one platform while your ticketing data would be on another. This is a huge issue because:

1. It takes a lot of effort and time to make sense out of your data let alone derive any kind of useful insights from it
2. You can’t share this data easily with the rest of the team, especially those from other departments as you would have to individually access each source to do. Once again, quite consuming and laborious.
3. It’s had to make innovative and proactive decisions about the future of your organization if you can’t really get the full picture from all your data since it’s scattered all over many sources.

So the most important step towards working data-driven is ensuring that you get a reliable single source of truth that can show you actionable insights from your supporter behavior. And this reliable single source of truth is a sports CDP. If you have already done your research and know the impressive results you can get with a CDP, today we want to give you practical tips on how to ensure that your entire organization has a data-driven culture. If you are not quite at this stage yet, don’t worry, we have you covered. We have many resources on our website to help you catch up to speed, find link in the description below.

If you want to ensure that your entire sports organization has a data-driven approach to everything, here are some practical tips:

1. Start at the top - Top management needs to understand the importance of working data-driven and then embrace this fully. They need to lead by example and set that expectation of working data-driven.
2. Communicate why you’re going data-driven with the rest of your team - Making changes and adopting a “because management decided so” approach does not work. Instead, you have to communicate your vision with your team.
3. Improve data transparency - You simply cannot preach a culture that is unattainable. This is a strong CDP use case because a CDP keeps data organized, unified, updated, and stored in one place. Moreover, the CDP can be integrated with other systems such as your ticketing system, and Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). And this data can be shared easily with other departments and the rest of the team.
4. Measure the before and after - It’s one thing to tell people that something works and it’s entirely another to show them.
5. Applaud your team - Embracing change can be very difficult. So if your team has done incredibly well in implementing all the changes, you have to encourage them by celebrating them.

Try our DEMO for free today!

We are continuing our “10 components to include in your marketing strategy series”. Today we are looking at component number 2, personalization. We will briefly discuss what personalization is, and why it’s important that you include it in your marketing strategy. But first, a couple of statistics:

• 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them.
• 71% of consumers feel frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal - so for a sports organization such shopping experiences including buying tickets and merchandise for example. If that experience is impersonal, 71% of your supporters will be frustrated.

So then the question becomes since consumers are adamant about getting relevant and personal experiences, how can your sports organization ensure that they do this for their fans?

That’s where personalization comes in. Personalization is the process of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate the specific needs, wants and preferences of individual supporters and/or groups of supporters. This process is crucial because it helps deliver the right message to the right supporter at the right time and through the right channel. Therefore ensuring that all your communications with your supporters are relevant and indeed personal.

Just as the statistics we began with suggest, personalization is important because it increases supporter satisfaction which is more likely to lead to an increase in their loyalty and engagement with your organization. Which ultimately leads to higher revenue. Happy fans happy days.

We have helped one of our customers, AIK, generate 6 figures with one campaign within 2 weeks targeting only 2% of their supporter base. Do you know what the secret was? Personalization. Because our customer’s communications with their supporters were relevant and personal, their supporters engaged overwhelmingly with the campaign.

In order for you to do this right, that is, continually create and deliver world-class supporter experiences that are personalized, you need a sports customer data platform. That’s what our customer built their campaign with. With the sports CDP, you can cover all your bases from beginning to end. How, well, let’s break down personalization - getting the right message to the right supporter at the right time and through the right channel.

• To get the message you are sending to your supporters right, you need to first understand them. A CDP provides you with a 360-degree supporter view that helps you understand your supporters in and out. This 360-degree supporter is only fully possible with the CDP and no other software.
• Secondly, just because you have a message does not mean that message is appropriate for everyone. A CDP will help you understand which message to send to which supporters.
• Thirdly, timing is everything. Could you imagine sending your supporter an email asking them to buy a season ticket when they have just purchased one? Your organization would come across as pushy. A CDP will help you know when to send your communications so you can always get the timing right.
• And finally, some supporters prefer buying tickets online while others prefer buying offline. A CDP will help you figure out the right channel to reach your supporters through.

That is what we mean when we say, get the right message to the right supporter at the right time and through the right channel - the very definition of personalization. And just like our customer AIK understood, the sports CDP is your best friend if producing results beyond your wildest expectations through personalization is what you want.

Try our DEMO for free today!

Meet Lucy Mills

From working with the FC Barcelona Foundation and Impact Youth Foundation Ghana to being a member of the Board of Directors at Lewes Football Club, UK, and a  Contributor to the International Working Group on Women and Sport, and co-founding READY - a community of industry professionals coming together to learn about innovation, technology, and Web 3.0, Lucy Mills is indeed leaving her mark in the sports industry and contributing to the betterment of sports for all.

Because Lucy is so multi-faceted and has contributed to the sports industry through such varied projects, we could not fit everything into this podcast. So we limited our scope to focus on:

1. her work with the F.C Barcelona Foundation 
2. how she is contributing to sports as a member of various boards across different countries
3. how sports organizations can contribute to equality within the sports industry
4. why she has dedicated so much of her time and efforts to serving the sports industry

Don't forget to connect with Lucy on LinkedIn and direct whatever questions you might have for her to her. She is always keen to connect with more people.

This is something that our customer AIK have seen incredible results from when they generated 6 figures during one marketing campaign. So how did they do this? 

Well, as I mentioned, the first step was implementing a CDP. Once they had their data in the CDP and understood a bit more about their supporters, they created what we call segments - that is, groups of supporters that share one or more characteristics and attributes that you identify through the segmentation process. AIK actually only decided to target a segment of their supporters which accounted for only 2% of their entire supporter database. Next, they sent them personalized communications via email urging them to buy season tickets. But they didn’t just stop there, for those who didn’t buy the tickets, AIK sent them a follow-up personalized email reminding them to buy the tickets. Essentially, retargeting them ensuring that their supporters did not miss out on the opportunity to buy season tickets.

Adopting a supporter-centric approach means putting your supporters at the center of everything you do. Whether it’s your pricing, or communications, let your supporters be at the heart of it. Once your supporters see how much you value them, their likelihood of sticking by you, through thick and thin, is much higher. So in a nutshell, the benefits of adopting a supporter-centric approach include increased loyalty from your supporters and higher revenue.

But how can you adopt a supporter-centric approach in a way that you are guaranteed to reap unparalleled results? The answer is of course by using a sports customer data platform. The CDP works by collecting your supporter data from various sources, both online and offline, and then unifying it and cleaning it to remove any duplicate data - thus giving you a complete and unified 360-degree view of your CDP. Thereafter, you can analyze this data to identify patterns in your supporters' behavior such as purchasing behavior and we behavior. The CDP does not just stop there though, it will then help you to act on this data.

In a nutshell, the sports CDP will help you adopt a supporter-centric approach by helping you to firstly, understand your supporters better so you can meet their needs, then secondly reach your supporters better when you segment your supporter data, thirdly, the CDP will help you communicate with your supporters better through personalization, fourthly it will also help you Increase your engagement rate with fans through retargeting, among other things.

So if you haven’t already, start adopting a supporter-centric approach to your marketing strategy today so you can enjoy higher levels of loyalty from your fans and indeed higher revenue too.

As we have previously discussed, strategy is important because it is your roadmap to achieving all your organizational goals and beyond. Today we will expand on this by giving you 10 key components to include in your marketing strategy.

1. Adopt a supporter-centric approach - this means putting your supporters at the center of everything you do. Whether it’s your pricing or communications, let your supporters be at the heart of it. Once your supporters see how much you value them, their likelihood of sticking by you, through thick and thin, is much higher.
2. Personalization is the second component to include in your marketing strategy This means delivering the right message to the right supporter at the right time and through the right channel. - Personalization is indeed another way of being supporter-centric. This will not only drive supporter loyalty but it will increase your revenue.
3. Third on the list is, working data-driven - how can you possibly be supporter-centric or deliver personalized messaging if you are not working data-driven? So consider this your first point of action before you proceed with anything else. We will include some resources in the description about how you can get started on working data drive.
4. Content is king - so this is yet another component to include in your marketing strategy. From content about live games or past games to supporter-generated content, supporters are hungry for more thanks to the hyper-digitalized world we live in. So, give your supporters what they want!
5. Next up, you have to prioritize OTT - traditional broadcasting and live matches are still great but OTT is another amazing opportunity. Especially for small sports organizations and underrepresented groups such as women in sports. OTT gives you back the power to reach your supporters and show them your games.
6. Number six, leverage your social media platforms - this one is great because by now the majority of sports organizations understand the importance of social media. You can reach your fans directly and interact with them without much delay. Hopefully, you are well on your way with this component.
7. Influencer marketing is another vital component to include in your marketing strategy. This has become crucial and can be evidenced in sports such as boxing. Influencer marketing is great because it helps you create excitement about your games while also offering a personal feel that younger fans often find easier to relate to.
8. Eight, you have to incorporate new sponsorship opportunities - “According to Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising Study, 81% of global respondents either completely or somewhat trust brand sponsorships at sporting events.” So embrace new partnership sponsorship opportunities such as Crypto/Blockchain/NFT, Automotive, and Insurance because the chances of a high return on investment are high.
9. This next component is one that you should approach with great care and consideration. Do your research first to ensure that you get it right. This component is, to make social justice a key component of your marketing strategy.There is a great opportunity for sports organizations to address social justice issues on their platforms. Issues such as diversity, equality and inclusion are very crucial to sports. Why not look around and see if there is any impact you can make in this area.
10. Last but certainly not least, You should prioritize women's sports - by making women in sports an essential part of your sports marketing strategy, you are at the same time ensuring that women’s sports receive more exposure – across your own channels and beyond. If you don’t know where to begin with this, why not collaborate with us on our initiative women in sports: beyond the hashtag? Find details in the description below.

Meet Alba Pardo, co-founder of Women in Action Sports Network.

We sat down with Alba to talk about:

• being a woman in action sports
• all the exciting changes happening within the sports industry
• the importance of community building
• practical tips to help sports organizations to build strong and inclusive communities

Alba and the team over at Women in Action Sports Network have an Entrepreneurs Bootcamp happening in Spring 2023!  "In just 3 days, we’ll define your business vision, identify your ideal client or customer, build your strategic plan to create a thriving business that meets your lifestyle goals and honors what’s most important to you.

Whether you’ve been in business for years and need a revamp or whether you’re just starting out with your first iteration, you’ll walk away clear-headed, excited, and with the tools and community to accelerate your business immediately"

The question we are answering is, should you invest in a sports CDP if you have a limited budget? The answer straight away is a resounding yes. Although this might sound counterintuitive, it’s those with limited budgets that especially need a sports CDP. Why?

Because a sports CDP is going to help you:

1. Increase your income - so why would you choose to not invest in something that is going to help you reach your bottom line faster? These are all these ways you can increase your income with a CDP
   1. You can leverage your supporter data to boost your sponsorship value. And we all know that sponsorship is one of the biggest income generators for sports organizations. Using data insights from your sports CDP, you can find your supporters’ brand affinities and use these as proof of return on investment when approaching potential sponsors.
   2. Better segmentation and personalization will help you sell more tickets and merchandise. The biggest hurdle sports organizations face is continually filling out the stadium. And if you are a smaller club without a big name/brand behind you, it may be even harder for you to sell merchandise. With a CDP, however, you will get to do precise segmenting that will help you know who you are targeting with your tickets and then through personalization, you will be able to communicate with them effectively. You will therefore be able to generate more income by selling more tickets and merchandise and filling out the stadium at every given opportunity.
   3. Most sports organizations make the mistake of thinking, “our fans will buy tickets because they love us and they want to”, but the truth is, there are a lot of things competing with you for your supporters' attention. Instead of buying a ticket to one of your games, your supporters could be going to the museum, or cinema, streaming a movie, whatever the case. And just as much as you have a limited budget, they have a limited budget. But the CDP can help you with this. With a CDP, you can keep track of the supporters who have already bought tickets and those who haven’t so you can keep reminding them to purchase a ticket. When you make it easy for your supporters to buy tickets by sending them reminders with links to make the process easier, the chances of them actually engaging with you are much higher. And in this case, higher engagement can lead to higher income when more and more fans buy tickets.

So in a nutshell, having a limited budget is not an excuse to not buy a CDP rather, it’s all the more reason you should buy a CDP. So you can make more money.

Today, we're diving into a topic that's crucial for any club looking to dominate on a global scale: international expansion. Specifically, we'll explore how you can leverage supporter data to identify and target untapped international markets, creating tailored campaigns that truly resonate. By the end of this episode, you’ll have practical insights into how to use gamification, segmentation, and A/B testing to grow your global fanbase and boost your bottom line.

To kick things off, let’s talk about why data is your best friend when it comes to expanding internationally. Unlike a one-size-fits-all approach, data allows you to understand the nuances of different markets—what motivates fans in one region might be completely different from another. Take for example, a club like Bayern Munich. By analyzing supporter data, they could discover that fans in Southeast Asia are particularly passionate about youth development. With this insight, Bayern Munich could tailor content, merchandise, and even partnerships that highlight their FC Bayern Campus, which would resonate strongly with this audience. But data does more than just tell you what fans like; it helps you reach them effectively through strategies like gamification, segmentation, and A/B testing. 

First up, let’s talk about gamification—a fun and engaging way to draw in new supporters. Imagine launching an app-based game where international fans can “manage” their own version of your club, making decisions on transfers, line-ups, and match tactics. The game could be tailored to introduce club history, player stats, and match highlights, gradually turning casual players into passionate fans.

For example, Bayer Leverkusen could create a campaign where fans from targeted regions, say India and Indonesia, earn points for engaging with the club’s content, buying merchandise, or attending virtual events. These points could be redeemed for exclusive digital content, discounts, or even a chance to meet players virtually. Gamification not only attracts new fans but also provides you with valuable data on what motivates these fans, enabling you to refine your strategies further.

Next, let’s discuss segmentation—a critical tool for identifying the right supporters to target with your campaigns. The key here is to group your international audience based on specific attributes like age, location, spending habits, or engagement levels.

Let’s consider VfL Wolfsburg, which might discover through data that they have a significant number of highly engaged fans in China who frequently engage with digital content but have never purchased merchandise. A segmented campaign could target this group with a special offer: a limited-edition Bayern Munich jersey that celebrates Chinese New Year, bundled with a virtual meet-and-greet with a popular player.

In this case, the segmentation attributes would include:

Location: China

Engagement Level: High digital interaction

Purchase History: Low merchandise purchases

The relevance? The offer ties directly into the cultural context of Chinese New Year, combined with the emotional appeal of meeting a player, making it more likely to convert these highly engaged but non-spending fans into buyers.

Finally, we can't overlook the importance of A/B testing. This is where you take your segmented audience and test different versions of your message to see which one resonates best.

For instance, let’s say you’re RB Leipzig, and you’re trying to increase ticket sales for a pre-season tour in the United States. You might A/B test two different email campaigns: one that highlights the opportunity to see new star signings in action, and another that emphasizes a family-friendly experience with activities for kids.

By running these tests, you can determine which message drives more conversions. If the family-friendly message performs better, you now have...

In this episode, we will give you a concise guide on how you can win over Gen Z fans.

1. Focus on World-class fan experience in and outside the stadium -this is something that we touched open in our previous episode with Julia Roca Valverde. Instead of just the game, as was previously the norm, focus on the entertainment value as well. A sport that is doing this well over in the United States is boxing. Which is now one of the top three fastest-growing sports in the US. Boxing uses influencers as a marketing tool to generate buzz and excitement about the sport. This buzz is often felt both online and offline, both in stadium and outside of the stadium.
2. Prioritize your OTT platform - stop just relying on traditional broadcasting. OTT is where the magic happens too. Did you know that the Spanish football league LaLiga has streamed a whole match on TikTok? This generated 733,000 total viewers while the conventional broadcast on TV channel yielded an average audience of 678,000.
3. Take advantage of technology - we have come such a long way with technology it would be a shame if you did not use this to your advantage. Technologies such as NFTs, VR broadcasting, and virtual fan clubs increase entertainment and engagement value for fans, thus increasing loyalty.
4. Engage through social media and influencers - we mentioned TikTok earlier. Use social media to your advantage. Use it to listen in on what your fans want, what they are talking about, and so forth.

But remember, doing any of the above will only have limited results if you are not working data-driven and with software that has you covered in all areas. Areas such as deep insights on your fans' web behavior and purchase behavior. You won’t really know what your fans want and therefore cannot give whatever that is to them without a sports CDP.

We sat down with Julia Roca Valverde - a world-renowned Event Manager & Ticketing Strategist.

She has worked extensively in Sports Management, Ticketing Strategy, Event Production, and Coordination with events such as the Davis Cup. She also founded The Spanish Ticketing Association and is a lecturer at the EU Business School for the MBA and BA programs of the EU Virtual Campus.

For our interview we discussed:

1. How to create fantastic events
2. How sports organizations should approach their ticketing strategies
3. Julia's experience as a woman in sports
4. Changes Julia would love to see in the sports industry

Julia has graciously offered to chat with anyone who messages here on LinkedIn so if you have any questions at all, make sure to connect with Julia. 

The two most commonly used marketing technologies today are a Customer Data Platform (CDP) and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Across countries, regions, and industries – most people understand the power of using these marketing tools. However, if we had a penny for every time someone mistook a CDP functionality for that of a CRM, we would have a billion dollars in the bank by now.

Main takeaway:

The difference between an organization powering all their marketing strategies with a CDP versus just using a CRM is way too vast. You cannot develop good relationships or manage your relationship with your supporters well (the primary purpose of a CRM) without first knowing who they are. Nor can you sustainability power your organization with only manual data collection. Well, not if you want to grow anyway.

Read the blog: The key differences between a CDP and CRM you need to know about today

Try the CDP Demo for free

"... when I identified all of those cases, I began my quest for a solution that could deliver this. And so today, here we are with Data Talks CDP, a CDP that has delivered beyond our expectations" Kevin - Business to Consumer Manager Västerås IK. 

There are many CDP vendors out there today. That’s because, across many different industries, everyone who is interested in future-proofing their organization while simultaneously maximizing revenue has realized that the solution to this is the CDP. Now just because someone knows how important a CDP is to any organization, does not mean that 1) if they claim to be a CDP vendor, they are legit. Additionally, even if a CDP vendor is legit, it does not necessarily mean that they know how to support you in using the CDP to optimize all results including fan engagement, ticket and merchandise sales, and sponsorship value, among other things. This is especially true if you are in the sports industry and want to implement a CDP. Word of advice, you should not just pick any odd CDP vendor.

Main takeaway: 

Due to unique insights gained from the experience of working extensively with sports organizations across different markets and countries the sports CDP vendor is able to give you best practices and use cases of the CDP in a way that produces results.

Try the Demo for FREE

Meet Robert Vilahamn

From founding Vilahamn Standard Soccer Academy in Uganda to being the Head Coach of BK Häcken, a team in the highest division of women’s football in Sweden, and being a Partner & CEO för Gignation, Robert's career spans many fields and industries. However, it is his passion for women’s sports and sports in general that has brought him to our Podcast.

Some key takeaways from our conversation include:

1. It's very important for the other 50% of the population, men, to be allies of women in sports
2. We should not compare women's football to men's football at all.
3. The language we use, such as, "hit like a girl", "kick like a girl" and "run like a girl" can have very detrimental effects. And as such, we should do away with such phrases and most importantly, such attitudes.

Listen to this episode to learn more from Robert's experience. 

Key takeaways:

1. It is important to have a contact database and not just followers
2. The larger your contact database, the more revenue you are likely to make, especially in the way of sponsorships.
3. You can grow your contact database by getting started with email marketing

Excerpt: Do you want to know how you can generate 6 figures from one campaign just like our customer AIK did? Then you have come to the right place. Because today we are going to be learning about how you can grow your contact database. We will look at one very powerful way you can grow your contact database today. Anyone can get started right away. Whether you are a small sports organization with limited resources or you are a world-famous sports club. Listen to the very end so you come away, one step closer to six figures for your own organization.

Growing your contact database has become increasingly important nowadays. In recent months, many of us in the sports industry read about how Barcelona lost out on a higher sponsorship deal with Spotify because, although they had about 300 million social media followers, they only had about 3 million contacts in their database. Which is about only 1% of their total followership. From just this case alone, we learn that:

1. It is important to have a contact database and not just followers
2. The larger your contact database, the more revenue you are likely to make, especially in the way of sponsorships.

Excerpt: One of the most crucial sports CDP use cases is getting data insights. These insights are important to the success of your organization. Using a sports CDP, to power this process of getting data insights will help you in two main ways: 1) It will help you gain intelligence that you can use to drive all your decision-making processes. Such intelligence includes a better understanding of your supporters. This is what we call active intelligence - the in-the-moment awareness about every aspect of your business, your sports organization in our case, from real-time data designed to trigger immediate insights and actions.

The second way that a sports CDP can give you insights is by giving you actionable data insights. These are specific and relevant insights that lead to actions that can increase efficiency, revenue, and profits. For example, having a better understanding of your campaign performance and your supporters' behavior in this context.

So, what are the organization-wide benefits of using data insights from a sports CDP? 

1. You can monetize your data for better revenue. You can do this by leveraging your contact database to negotiate higher sponsorship value for example. Thus effectively increasing your organization’s revenue. Using data insights from a sports CDP will tell you the brand affinities your supporters have so that you can approach the right potential sponsors right from the beginning. Thus improving efficiency in how you do sponsorship campaigns.
2. Increased upsells and cross-sells is another benefit of using data insights from a sports CDP. When you have your data in front of you and understand the buying behavior of your supporters, you can know which ones to target and retarget, for instance. This goes beyond trying to make the first sale but rather extends to knowing what each supporter wants from you. Through personalization, you can create messages that provide upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
3. On that note, using data insights from a sports CDP will help you with better product development. Products in sports? Yes! The experience you give your supporters at your matches, either online or offline is a product. The merchandise you sell, a product. The stories you tell about your organization online, that is a product. We know that you can wait to get reviews or wait till you see the sales of tickets or merchandise to see how well your products are performing but why be reactive when you can be proactive? We believe strongly that, better supporter experience means better business. And a sports CDP fully supports this. With it, you can do a data drill down to find out, who is buying, what are they buying, when are they buying and how? In this way, you can find new ways to optimize your supporter experience both online and offline.
4. Last but not least, you getting insights from a sports CDP will lead to faster and better decision-making across all departments. Remember the active intelligence and the actionable data insights that we spoke about at the beginning? Just having these alone is a benefit. So straight off the bat, having a sports CDP leaves you better off than other organizations that do not have one. Why? Because knowledge is power. And what you know or don’t know makes all the difference. With insights from a sports CDP, you are always ready for action because you always have specific and detailed information about everything that is going on, thus saving you time and money. You get to make better decisions, quicker.

Our next guest, MARIA CAICEDO CABRERA is the director of America de Cali official sports training school in Bogota. At just 25 years old, she has many qualifications under her belt including a bachelor's in psychology, a Master's degree in executive coaching, sports, and high-performance psychology, and an MBA! Having just recently relocated back to Colombia from Spain, Maria is ready to make an impact in her country, to use her own words.

Connect with Maria and keep the conversation going here

If you would like to find out more about what America FC and Maria's organization are up to, you can check them out below:

1. www.escuelamerica.com  
2. Instagram 
3. Facebook

In this episode guest host Karen Ramirez, founder and skipper of Sporting Sheroes, tackles the critical issue of media visibility for women’s sports.

Karen explores the current state of media coverage, highlights key findings from the Women’s Sports Trust Visibility Report, and discusses the challenges and opportunities for enhancing the profile of women’s sports. She shares practical tips for athletes, teams, and clubs to boost their media presence and engage with fans more effectively.

Tune in to discover how you can contribute to driving greater recognition and support for women’s sports, and join our community in the movement toward more equitable media coverage.

We sat down with the co-founder of Winners FDD - Fiona Green and discussed all things working data driven in the sports industry. So listen to this episode if you want to learn more about:

• Challenges and benefits of working data driven
• Implementing a successful data strategy
• Representation of women in sports and data industries
• Overcoming imposter syndrome 

Excerpt: we also want to give you something more concrete for you to refer to. So, we have listed a few resources below in the description box to help you with specific strategies. For example, a first party-data strategy - is for those who want to make collecting first-party data their priority. An omnichannel guide for those who want to give their supporters consistent and seamless experiences, both online and offline. We have also included Cult Branding’s overview of 52 Marketing strategies.

Going into specific use cases might help us all understand what a strategy looks like so why not dive right into that? We will underpin these use cases by using actual examples of what some of our customers were able to achieve by having a solid strategy. You can see these in more detail on our website www.datatalks.se.

Let’s first look at how AIK generated 6 figures during one marketing campaign - yes you heard right, 6 figures during one marketing campaign.

Every strategy begins with a goal so what was AIK’s goal? To get as many of their supporters as possible to buy a season ticket. What did they do?

1. They prioritized having a 360-degree view of each of their supporters by using a sports CDP.
2. And then they divided their supporters into three segments and began to send personalized emails to each supporter segment.

And what were the results? More than 600 000 Euros were generated from a campaign targeting only about 2% of their entire supporter database. And all of this was created in the space of 2 weeks.

Now let’s look at how Västerås IK took its digital marketing journey to the next level!

We have often spoken about the importance of working data-driven and going digital. One sports organization that took our advice in its stride is indeed Västerås IK. Their goal was to simply be more data-driven and digital. And what did they do? They integrated their ticketing and merchandise providers in their sports CDP to get a 360-degree view of their supporters. And what have been the results? Västerås IK now understands each of their supporters better and are in a great position to send out hyper-personalized messages to them in order to increase ticket and merchandise sales and increase fan engagement. All of this in 3 months

Last but not least, let’s look at how IFK Göteborg boosted their revenue on their Christmas campaign and Black Friday Campaign.

So what was their goal? IFK Göteborg wanted to increase their transactions and revenue for the Christmas and Black Friday periods. So what did they do? After successfully integrating their merchandise suppliers into the CDP, they created two target segments and send them personalized emails. And the results were a ten-fold and 13-fold increase in revenue from the Christmas and Black Friday campaigns, respectively.

It’s worth noting that all these three organizations use a sports CDP to power their strategies. Anything other than a CDP leaves too much room for error since the results of whatever you do cannot be forecasted before you embark on your goal neither can they be effectively measured, and/or monitor during and after your campaigns.

The word strategy is a commonly used among sports organization but this word is often misunderstood. So in today's episode we dig into the meaning of strategy and then discuss why it's important to have a strategy in place.

Excerpt: 

So, what is strategy? The management study guide defines strategy as a “ A general direction set for the company, sports organization in our case, and its various components to achieve a desired state in the future.” Let’s break this down a little bit.

At its core, strategy simply means asking yourself what you want to achieve, when you want to achieve it and how you can achieve it. Let’s first look at the what  - what do you want to achieve. For most organizations the answer will be higher revenues, for example. But instead of leaving this “goal” vague like this, you want to get specific. For instance, an organization could say, we currently have a monthly recurring revenue of 200 000 and we would like to increase that to 300 000.

From being a professional football player and goalkeeper for the likes of Kungsbacka DFF and Paris St-Germain to being a community manager, and a co-founder, to graduating from the Football Business Academy in Switzerland and transitioning to Sponsoring and women’s business development side of things at Paris St-Germain. And now being director of Women’s football at N3XT SPORTS - Arianna Criscione has contributed a great deal to the sports industry.

We had the privilege of sitting down with Arianna and discussing women's football, changes in the industry, digitalization, and strategy, among other things. Listen to this episode to get practical advice on, not only how you can support women's football but also on what you can do to take your sports organization to the next level using strategy. N3XT Sports' report - Enabling women's football to disrupt the industry is also available to download.

If you would like to connect with Arianna, you can do so here 

Transcript

You often hear about collecting data but do you know what data you are meant to collect, why you are meant to collect it, where to collect it, and the best practices for collecting data? Today we are here to shed some much-needed light on all of this. 

First question: What is data? There are many different kinds of data one can collect but in today’s context, we are focusing on supporter data. Supporter data refers to information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual supporter.

Depending on where you get this data, it can either be classified as zero-party data, first-party, second-party or third party data. The difference in all of this is in who you collect this data from and how. For example, zero party data you get from direct interaction with a supporter for example. Think quizzes, surveys, and those sorts of interactions. First-party data gives you insights from the analytics and the web behavior of your supporters. Second-party data is another organization’s first-party data that they share with you. While third-party data is information collected by companies that don't have a direct relationship with supporters. First-party data is the data you should be aiming to collect.

Why should you collect supporter data in the first place?

Because then you can analyze this data and act on it. This is crucial for any organization, and sports organizations are not an exception. Collecting data allows you to work in a data-driven manner. This in turn helps you:

• Sell more tickets and merchandise by delivering hyper-personalized supporter experiences
• boost your sponsorship value by approaching sponsors which your supporters have a high affinity for
• Increase fan engagement and loyalty by delivering the right message to the right supporter at the right time and through the right Channel
• Basically, filling out the stadium at any given chance

It might seem counterintuitive to invest in a sports CDP when you have a small marketing budget. The most natural thing would seem to be tightening up your belt. However, we actually would advise against that because that would do more harm to your sports organization than good. Instead, we advise you to invest in a sports CDP because it will help you:

1. Sell more tickets and merchandise
2. Attract sponsors
3. Increase fan engagement
4. Fill the stadium at every given opportunity

Learn how you can maximize your marketing budget spend with a sports CDP today.

Did you know that fan engagement is much broader and more meaningful than just getting likes on your social media channels? That you can actually activate your fans so that they can create positive sentiment, thoughts, and connection with your sports organization on your behalf? Learn how you can increase fan engagement with a sports CDP. 

There are so many marketing trends out there and we know that it can be difficult to discern the facts from fakes. That's why we have been used our expertise in the field of sports marketing plus our experience in the industry and research to find bring you the five sports marketing trends you should follow today

There are many fantastic opportunities available for women's sports today so listen to today's episode to discover a few that you should be taking advantage of today.

Excerpt: "Women’s organizations are notoriously understaffed, underutilized, and underfunded. The marketing push and funding that they get is no different either. So of course whatever marketing solutions they choose to invest in should maximize their budgeting spend by helping them:

1. Build for long term sustainable growth
2. Increase ticket and merchandise sales
3. Fill the stadium at every given opportunity
4. Negotiate better sponsorship and partnership deals
5. Grow a following and increase fan engagement
6. Turn supporters into advocates"

Women in sports: beyond the hashtag - a Data Talks initiative which aims to help improve the visibility of women in sports.

Are you a woman in sports?

Or do you know a woman in sports?

Then consider taking part in our initiative or sharing this initiative with a wonderful woman in sports that you may know.

Excerpt: "When you segment well, you benefit from a sharper focus on your supporters, better internal alignment, and more effective marketing plans, all of which contribute to stronger results. So think of segmentation as your building blocks to:

1. Selling more tickets and merchandise
2. Increasing fan engagement
3. Filling up your stadium at every single game
4. Building high-value partnerships and sponsorship deals, amongst other things"

In this episode, we teach you how to take the guesswork out of your segmentation because less guessing equals more accuracy which equals better results. And at the end of the day, results are what matters!

In this episode, we’re joined by Carl-Erik Moberg, the CEO and Co-Founder of TicketCo, a leading company providing digital ticketing solutions for sports organizations, events, and venues. Carl-Erik’s entrepreneurial journey began at just 16 years old, when he launched his first venture in waterskiing courses and event ticket sales. Since then, he has successfully managed over 20 restaurants and venues and expanded TicketCo across Europe.

Join your host, Lorraine Moalosi, as she chats with Carl-Erik about his inspiring journey, the innovations driving the ticketing industry, and the strategies that are shaping the future of sports and event ticketing.

Happy International Women's Day to all women!

We see you, we hear you and we celebrate you.

This year's women's day theme is #breakthebias

So in this episode, we talk a little bit about what that means for the sports industry. But we don't just stop there. We also look at three amazing sports organizations that have been working hard to propel women's sports forward. This is a topic that we are passionate about.

Check out our women in sports initiative: Women in sports: Beyond the hashtag to see how you can get involved.

"This episode does not aim to oversimply the complexity of the issues faced by women in sports and women’s sports organizations but rather aims to discuss the most pressing issues that we have identified. These issues are readily solvable, that’s why we chose to focus on them."

We focus on:

Number 1: Lack of funding and support

Number 2: Limited media coverage

Number 3: Limited marketing spend

Data Talks has recently launched the Women in Sports: Beyond the Hashtag initiative which aims to increase visibility for women in sports and women's sports organizations. Read more about it here to see how we can help you (if you are a woman in sports). Alternatively, you could read more to see what steps you can take to help support us and our initiative for women in sports.