Micro-targeting : a hockey story that could help you sell baseball tickets

In the summer of 2002, the Dallas Stars, Stanley Cup skaters just three seasons earlier, faced the long off-season of a team that had failed to make the playoffs. The unacceptable situation prompted them to enter a competitive free-agent market armed with two potential difference-makers : a big salary budget and a targeted marketing campaign. And when we say targeted, we mean really targeted. The campaign aimed to influence three people.

Ancillary targets included the wives and agents of Bill Guerin, Scott Young, and Philippe Boucher, but the campaign’s main aim was to convince the players to play in Dallas. We took research about what each player valued (family needs, a Stanley Cup, familiar former teammates, et al) and molded it into a package that included a fully-menued DVD, a top-of-the-line player for it, and a print piece. Custom-leather boxes delivered to their houses preceded in-person visits and phone calls from team personnel. The result : the Stars signed all three of their top targets and vaulted back into a more preferred and familiar role as Cup contenders.

No, the Stars didn't win the Cup that year. A freak injury to Guerin and a hot Jean-Sébastien Giguère helped derail their season in the second round. And no, the micro-targeting campaign was almost certainly not the most important factor in the signings, given the sizes of the salaries in play. But post-signing feedback indicated that it did help move the needle in the favor of the non-playoff team from football country.

Now comes the promised insight about how the previous three paragraphs could help sell baseball tickets. Actually, micro-targeting can help sell any kind of tickets, but we specified baseball because those reps currently have renewals they need to close ASAP. Your database manager engages in a certain amount of micro-targeting. Your website folks likely try to customize content as much as they can, too. Software like Hubspot aims to automate content delivery based on prospects' characteristics. If you're a sales rep, you should know about the communication your prospects get through those channels. But the most important micro-targeter is you.

As a sales rep, you know details about prospects the best online marketers in the world would love to have : a direct line to the customer plus intimate knowledge about what makes him or her tick. And hopefully exactly the right things to say to keep them engaged with the brand. Heck, you even know his or her name. So take advantage of your advantages.

It starts the same way the Stars' campaign did : with research. What do you know about your customers? Have you been to every one of their LinkedIn pages? Do you know what their companies do and how that industries are doing? Who do they take to games with them? And perhaps most importantly, you need to find out where their passions lie. Game tickets are an emotional purchase, not a rational one. Do they have a favorite player? Odds are they've been a fan of the team longer than you have, so make sure you know their favorite moments in team history as well they do. In fact, know them better. If you share something with them they didn't know, it builds your credibility and builds positive feelings about making that emotional purchase you need them to make. Collect stories from long-time team employees, broadcasters, or reporters.

Getting a handle on details, stories, and hot buttons puts you in a position to deliver something else online marketers love : targeted content marketing. It helps slide those renewal prospects down the sales funnel.

Like with the Stars, sometimes success still comes down to factors outside your control. People lose jobs or move or have enough children that they can't go to 81 games a year any more. But if you've handled up on your micro-targeting, you'll have set yourself up to overcome anything this side of a hot goaltender.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

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A historic World Series? Like, really historic?

With the World Series about to be decided, it occurs to us that you could make a case that it features the most history-rich matchup possible for a non-Yankees Fall Classic. The Cardinals have won the most titles of any team other than the Yankees, and the Red Sox, believe it or not, have won the next most of any team in a single city. They've won 7, albeit clustered among just 3 decades. The Dodgers and the Giants probably have the strongest case for intruding on this theory. However, when evaluating the matchup, it has to be AL vs. NL, so those two are really competing against the Cardinals for the vague and mythical title of "most historical."

Subjectivity runs rampant here. Do Rogers Hornsby, the Gashouse Gang, Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith, and Albert Pujols really outdo Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, and Kirk Gibson? Or John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Bobby Thomson, Willie Mays, and Buster Posey? Yeah, who knows.

And on the AL side, we might feel Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, David Ortiz, and Mike Napoli (pictured in a less bearded time) exude more romance than Connie Mack, Eddie Collins, Jimmie Foxx, Reggie Jackson, Jose Canseco, and 9 combined Series titles in Philly and Oakland, but if you preferred the Athletics, you'd have a case.

And, of course, if the Cubs ever make it back to the Series, even if they're playing the Albuquerque Isotopes thanks to a recently implemented promotion/relegation system, you could make a case for their presence being the most historical happening of all.

Enjoy baseball.