The Partner
The UANL Tigres of Liga MX, known as the “team of the decade” for their recent successes, is a Mexican professional soccer club based in Monterrey, Nuevo León. The club has spent 60 years in Liga MX, the top tier of the Mexican soccer league system.
With the ambitious goal of becoming one of the top three Mexican clubs of preference in both Mexico and the United States, the Tigres have implemented the Tradable Bits platform to engage fans beyond their 40K-capacity stadium. They aim to retain their hardcore fans, while earning direct relationships with new audiences - including over 1M fans on social and millions of fans with exposure to their club worldwide.
To achieve this, Club Tigres have designed targeted interactions that consider the fans’ familiarity with their brand and the content that best suits their interests. Below, we dig into their overarching fan engagement and data strategy, then examine one award-winning campaign as an example.
The Strategy
Miguel, Head of Marketing for Group Tigres, explains two main goals for the next few years:
1. Retain Hardcore Fans to make them ambassadors of the brand
2. Attract new audiences by nurturing fans across all degrees of fandom
Miguel shared the following,
We have a happy problem. Our stadium seats are all sold out to season ticket holders. There’s no chance to buy a single seat, because we have 41K seats and they’re all occupied. So for the fans that can’t make it to the stadium, how do we make them feel a part of the community?
Because of this, the Tigres have a unique view of fandom. They view fans as positioned at various places along a spectrum, with one side representing fans extremely close to the brand (i.e. season ticket buyers that are highly engaged) and the other side representing fans within their addressable market.
Their goal with Tradable Bits was twofold:
1. Start collecting a database of “true fans” who are those who want to hear from the brand. These marketable fans could come from anywhere along the spectrum (i.e. close or far away from the brand).
2. Nurture this database of fans using digital engagement campaigns saturated across their marketing channels to reward fans, uncover more about their preferences, and slowly commercialize those “far away” fans.
The Benefits: How Club Tigres are taking advantage of their fan data
1. Leveraging Data for Commercialization/Monetization
I. Growing their Women’s Team Ticket Holders/Special Matches
While the season ticket sales are sold out for the Tigres Men’s team, they can use their fan data to uncover the fans that would be interested in their Women’s team matches, or in special friendly matches. It’s by design that their Women’s team is important to their overall institution, and they can use data to introduce their fans to their women’s team more efficiently.
II. Driving Revenue to Retail Stores
As the only team in Mexico with 6 physical retail stores, the Tigres use first-party data, like zip codes, to direct fans to their nearest store using special offers or promotions.
|||. Enhancing Sponsorship Opportunities
As of today, Club Tigres is reaching 10X the fans in their stadium with their digital database. They can tell their commercial partners - it’s not just about the 41K fans in the stadium, but 10 to 20 times that amount of fans that they can segment effectively to uncover the best opportunities for their sponsors.
2. Enhancing the Fan Experience
“Our goal is to improve the fan experience, and Tradable Bits helps us do just that. The information provided by their platform helps us understand fan preferences, make informed decisions, and provide greater value to our audience," Miguel explained. Through this targeted approach, the Tigres are able to cater to more specific fan interests, such as favorite players or preferred pets, and tailor campaigns and prizes accordingly. In doing so, they are providing fans with what they really “want”, while gathering more in-depth marketing insights.
The Winning Campaign
- 40K new fans.
- 100K impressions.
- 1 Memory Match.
The Campaign: Club Tigres created a Memory Match designed to reach and educate more casual fans as part of their goal of reaching new audiences. The campaign was created in less than 48 hours, and true to the brands’ identity, it features athletes from both the Men’s and Women’s teams.
The Distribution: Launched across their social media platforms, this six-month campaign was supported by an “always-on” paid media strategy to reach fans outside of their core following.
The Prize: The prize - a signed jersey - appealed to fans at all levels of fandom, regardless of location. The mechanics of the game (i.e. placing top on the leaderboard) also led to repeat plays.
The Results
The Memory Match earned the Tigres over 100K impressions and expanded their owned audience by 40K new fans. 40K fans who are truly eager to receive information and engagements from Club Tigres out of their love for the brand. 40K fans that are 1 degree closer to the brand than those who just comment on social - their “true fans.”
In addition to the success of their winning campaign, the Tigres have been adding to their database of “true fans” with consistent engagements - both in the stadium and across their at-home audiences. To date they’re reaching 10X their stadium capacity with their digital database, placing them in a great position for commercial growth.
The Conclusion
Implementing the Tradable Bits’ 40+ campaigns, the Tigres have positioned themselves to expand their reach well beyond their existing fan base. The platform has enabled them to collect fan-specific characteristics, which are crucial for understanding and marketing to casual fans. These targeted campaigns have set the Tigres on their way to commercializing millions of other interested fans around the world!
Interested in learning more about how to use first-party data to drive audience engagement and conversion? Get in touch with our team today.
Happy fan marketing!