A successful partnership between a client and a SaaS vendor is recognised not by the original implementation but by how the client develops over the subsequent period. Salesforce has revealed how Indiana Fever has used Salesforce to significantly increase sales well over the average in what has been an extraordinary season to date.
Indiana Fever is a team within the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association). The association has seen a huge increase in various metrics across the season, including the highest attendance, most views, and highest level of merchandise sales from the WNBA store.
New players create a surge in popularity
The surge in popularity is in part due to the arrival of players like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Cameron Brink. They helped put college women’s basketball in the spotlight in their final NCAA tournament. The wider upsurge in interest in women’s sport has also helped.
For Indiana Fever, for whom Clark now plays, there was a desire to capitalise on this surge. It turned to the Salesforce platform, which it has used for many years to help drive better-personalised marketing initiatives.
The results are spectacular. The team has surged in popularity, and there have been improvements to the sales, service, and marketing initiatives within the organisation. The organisation now better leverages data from across the Salesforce Data Cloud to improve outcomes.
Those outcomes include becoming the leader in ticket sales for the current season. Over 2 million fans have attended home games since the season started in May. The volume of tickets sold this season is the highest ever and is 265% higher than last season.
Its season opener in May against Connecticut Sun, where Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debuted, was the most-watched WNBA game on ESPN platforms ever, with 2.1 million viewers. Merchandise has also flown off the shelves with an increase in Jersey sales of over 1,000%.
How did Salesforce enable this?
The sales force has worked with Indiana Fever for several years. In 2018, Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PS&E) and Salesforce developed a personalised marketing experience for fans. They used a combination of Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PS&E) and Salesforce. It also saw the companies sponsor Indiana Fever.
Since then, Indiana Fever has continued to iterate the platform. Today, they use Data Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, and Tableau. It aims to turn one-time ticket purchasers into lifelong fans, helping to ensure sustainable success.
By combining the tools on a single data cloud, Salesforce expects Indiana to engage better with its fans. It also sees it converting many from of those from infrequent attendees to regular attendees.
Using Data Cloud, Fever has built a unified, scalable data ecosystem. It consolidates data across multiple sources, including Ticketmaster, league data, and more. Marketing Cloud leverages Data Cloud to personalise emails and engagements across multiple channels, including web popups with customized offers.
These can include discounted offers on front-row seats for the next game, merchandise discounts, or access to exclusive events. Salesforce uses historical engagements to determine which offers will likely lead to further sales or upsells.
The Fever combines the power of Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, and Tableau to create and deliver a meaningful fan experience. If a fan flags an issue, the integration with Service Cloud creates a ticket. It initiates the process to resolve the problem, whether individuals or a wider issue, and tracks the interaction with the customer to resolution.
Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud drive fan engagement
Sales Cloud combines with Marketing Cloud to engage fans in post event surveys to gain feedback from fans after home games. Fans can rate their experience and flag issues, which might then automatically create a Service Cloud case. They also feed into a wider dashboard to replace the level of fan satisfaction.
Using the combination of technology, the Fever has seen a tenfold increase in fan engagement on the WNBA app and across the website. The Fever now has 1.3 million followers on its social media channels.
Marla Thompson, SVP of Cloud GTM Strategy at Salesforce, commented, “Since 2019, the Indiana Fever’s collaboration with Salesforce has guided this exciting team’s approach to fan interactions, creating a more personalized, engaging, and seamless experience.
“Now, as the Fever looks to capitalize on a wave of new fans, Salesforce technology is helping them scale their efforts, bringing data together with Data, Marketing, Sales, and Service Clouds to ensure every fan becomes a lifelong fan.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
The Fever has created a holistic experience management and delivery platform using the combination of Salesforce Solutions. It has also reacted quickly to the increase in popularity of WNBA. This is not about riding on the coattails of that success, but it is leading the way compared to other teams.
By proactively using Salesforce to deliver personalised experiences across every fan touchpoint, Fever has been able to increase revenues and maximise engagement. This is despite the team being placed only third in the Eastern Conference as of this writing. Greater team success could no doubt have seen even greater results.
