Creating a Winning Multi-Channel Campaign with Salesforce

Not everyone takes advantage of all the capabilities Salesforce Marketing Cloud has to offer, but when they do, magic happens. This was the case for one of our customers, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment (HBSE) – a global portfolio of sports teams and entertainment properties including the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils, and Prudential Center.

HBSE has been using Salesforce and Marketing Cloud for nearly a decade, but recently decided to incorporate Ad Studio and Social Studio into their digital marketing stack to engage their fan base and take their fan experience to the next level.

 
Connecting with fans and selling tickets with Ad Studio

Ad Studio is a tool that uses CRM data to personalize digital advertising, creating 1-to-1 customer experiences. One of HBSE’s goals was to sell Devils’ single game tickets to new database leads.
 
Within Marketing Cloud, they created a journey with two emails, and if they did not engage, they fell into the last step of a journey which was a Facebook or Instagram ad. After implementing this journey, they found their ads increased conversion rates by 7x, and generated 3.5x more revenue than just sending the emails alone.
 
Using Ad Studio, they were also able to quickly learn from their insights and tested two different avenues of retargeting their single-game buyers from previous seasons. In one instance they tried to remarket them tickets from matchups they attended in the past. For example, if the Devils were playing the Blackhawks, they would market to anyone that attended that game in previous seasons. 
 
They also tried targeting people based on the day of the week the game fell on. For example, if they attended a game on Fridays in the past, they would retarget that audience. Ultimately, retargeting based on the day of the week was much more effective than the match up.
 

Opening up new lines of revenue with Social Studio

Social Studio manages, schedules, creates, and monitors social media posts, and allows you to organize posts by brand, region, or multiple teams and individuals in one interface. HBSE uses Social Studio to monitor real-time data on engagement sentiment to help the social team gauge content performance, and also to provide social listening around launches and announcements to help pivot messaging.
 
One great example of how HBSE used Social Studio to guide campaign strategy is with a uniform launch for the 76ers. Every year, an NBA team gets to create a City Edition uniform that draws inspiration from the culture of the city. The Philadelphia-based 76ers were launching a Rocky-themed uniform and they wanted to know what people were saying about Rocky -- not only in Philadelphia, but around the world.
 
Using social listening, they learned that the music and quotes from the Rocky movies were what was the most iconic on a global scale and leaned into their messaging. On a local scale, the locations in the Rocky movies were important, and the team was able to stage multiple photoshoots with the 76er players in those places to get fans excited.
 
By leveraging Ad Studio and Social Studio, HBSE is not only taking their marketing to the next level, but also achieving strong results that are impacting their business and creating more loyal fans.
 
If you would like to learn more about how HBSE is maximizing their use of Salesforce, check out the entire webinar, “Growing a Brand with Salesforce: HBSE Customer Story” featuring HBSE’s Gab Dolceamore, Director of Digital Marketing & Fan Insights, and Meaghan Bedigian, Manager of Paid Media.