Stellar Play: Single Game Buyer Upsell

What you need

Data and Integrations

A single ticketing integration is all that is required, though this Play scales very well with additional integrations.

• Ticketing data

For added value, include:

• Email Service Provider Pull and Push
• Social Media Push

StellarAlgo Tools

• Segment Builder
• Segment Analyzer

For added value, include:

• StellarAlgo’s Customer Product Migration
• StellarAlgo’s Machine Learning Toolkit: Event Propensity Scoring

When to run this Play

The Singl Game Buyer Upsell Play can encompass part of a season, but is ideally run as a central pillar of your seasonal strategy.

• Early-to-late season is where the quick wins can be found; lapsing fans are more predisposed to come out and more opportunities exist to convert them.
• One-off and campaign level execution should focus on late season.

Single game buyer upsell activations can be planned as frequently as after each home game. When these shorter campaigns are built as part of a season-long strategy, you can quickly learn and optimize your copy and creative, timing, promotions, etc., to understand what resonates and drives higher conversions with specific fan segments.

Scope and effort required

This Play is highly flexible; upsell efforts can be run as a one-off marketing activation, as a series of activations within a broader campaign, or as a series of campaigns with activations planned throughout the season.

Strategy Sequence

1. Opportunity Identification

Opportunity identification is where you will identify the number of fans that could potentially be activated during this Play. This will help you to assess whether undertaking this strategy is a worthwhile investment.

To identify the opportunity for your current season, we will determine the count of single purchase buyers. Using the Segment Builder, identify:

• Fans who have only purchased a single game ticket for one event in the current season.
• Exclude fans who have also purchased package products.

After applying these filters, you will be left with the total possible fans that could be activated.

2. Baseline

Capture a baseline to compare to season-to-season. This will also help you to answer the question “How did we do?” after running the Play.

The single purchase buyer vs. the multi-purchase buyer ratio is the simplest measure of performance, representing the ratios of single game buyers who have purchased only one event in a single season (single purchase buyer ratio) and those who have purchased two or more (multi-purchase buyer ratio).

To obtain a baseline, we will use a very similar pattern to the Opportunity Identification step, identifying both your single purchase and multi-purchase buyer ratios.

For three to five historical seasons, use the Segment Builder to determine your single purchase buyer ratio:

• Identify which fans have only purchased a single game ticket for one event in the season (exclude fans who also purchased a package product).
• Identify how many fans purchased a single game ticket (any number of events; also exclude fans who purchased a package product).

Complete the same exercise for multi-purchase buyers. For three to five historical seasons, use the Segment Builder to determine your multi-purchase buyer ratio:

• Identify which fans have purchased a single game ticket for two or more events in the season (exclude fans who also purchased a package product).
• Identify how many fans purchased a single game ticket (any number of events; also exclude fans who purchased a package product).

3. Plan

Timing

Single Game Buyer Upsell execution is best done soon after a buyer registers attendance, with an ideal window of 24 to 72 hours following the event.

For some teams, such as MLB teams, where multiple home games are played in quick succession, a Single Game Buyer Upsell campaign will be executed upon directly after each homestand.

Copy, Creative, and Template

A standard template is recommended for the Single Game Buyer Upsell approach, starting with boilerplate copy and creative with messaging tailored to the event for each of the follow single game buyer segments below.

There are three different levels of fan progression captured in this Play:

1. 1. Convert single game buyers from the current season who have only purchased one event to purchase more than one game;
   2. Convert two-game single game buyers to three games;
   3. Once at three-game buyers, continue to communicate ticket offers but you have achieved the final group of single game targeted buyers; this group is now the foundation for smallest package offering.

With boilerplate marketing collateral established, you can now broadly execute against Single Game Buyer segments with timing nailed – the StellarAlgo Platform will surface segments that the boilerplate collateral can broadly serve.

Copy and creative can be taken a step further to incorporate details of recent event(s), highlighting memorable moments, imagery, and any themes / promotions that may have driven that first event attendance during the season.

Segment Variations

If you are eager to segment further, you can add additional criteria to your approach to get even more tailored:

1. 1. Event Propensity

StellarAlgo’s Machine Learning-based Event Propensity Scoring can be leveraged to further segment your fans. To use Event Propensity Scoring, add one or a few Event Propensity lead lists for the games of focus during your marketing campaign.

1. 2. Purchase-Timing

A common filter addition may be to focus on last-minute approaches to leverage a sense of urgency. To use, filter fans based on last minute purchase behaviors, select fans who have historically purchased their tickets at most 5 days before the event.

1. 3. Opponent-Specific

Opponent-specific buyers can be identified to further tailor your approach. You can filter fans based on the opponent of their historical ticket purchases.

The complete, unlocked Play provides StellarAlgo partners with a checklist of activities mapped to each part of the season to help you plan ahead and execute successfully.

4. Execute

Single game buyer execution is driven using a pattern similar to the baseline measurement approach, with some minor adjustments to ensure you are pulling single game buyers who have yet to buy more than one event in the current season as opposed to measuring historical performance.

Target Segment Definition

• Following the same pattern as the baseline, current season single purchase buyers are the target for this season.
• Also, consistent with the baseline, exclude all package purchasers (e.g., fans who purchase full season, half season, mini plan, flex plan, etc.).
• Only include fans who have purchased a single event in the current season to ensure you’re targeting the fans you want to upsell.

Segment Execution

Save the segment(s) you identified with the ticket sales, product, and event goals to ensure the conversion criteria panel of the Segment Analyzer is as accurate as possible. You can always adjust the analyzer to tell the broader upsell story when appropriate.

The tracking period should be set for the period matching the campaign execution.

The complete, unlocked Play provides StellarAlgo partners with Platform-specific details to empower you to execute successfully.

5. Measure

Season-to-date performance tracking

It is recommended to measure your performance at regular intervals throughout the Play.

Measurement follows almost an identical pattern to the baseline measures but also incorporates purchased before criteria to achieve a season-to-date number that can be used. This pattern can be applied to historical periods to build comparative timeframes.

Campaign Measurement

Campaign performance measures follow our standard marketing optimization approach.

Upsell segments represent an excellent opportunity for A/B or simpler Target/Control testing.

End-of-season results

Results at the end of the season are measured in the same manner as historical baselines: calculate the multi-purchase buyer ratio and compare to your baseline and industry trends.

The complete, unlocked Play provides StellarAlgo partners with step-by-step directions to calculate your fan acquisition rate, as well as many other valuable measurments.

6. Results Capture

• Identify which strategies or tactics were most effective at upselling fans.
• Compare current season ratios with baseline ratios.

The complete, unlocked Play provides StellarAlgo partners with additional data and strategies to help you achieve desired results.