Hi everyone! My name is Amy Chesebrough and I’m excited to be a contributing author on our Customer Analytics blog. I’m a journalist by degree, but admittedly this is my very first blog post! For the past 7 years I’ve been fortunate enough to manage field marketing strategies and campaigns for a lot of fun industries: casinos, hotels, sports, media, travel/transportation and communications. Is it just me or does anyone else think that gone are the days where analytics are just for the number crunchers?

It’s a brave new world where the value of analytics is being discovered by corporations across all industries seeking to differentiate, innovate, cut costs, and thrive. In fact, the topic is Hollywood bound and high glamour in Moneyball, nominated for six coveted Academy Awards during this weekend’s annual Oscar celebration. Based on a true story, the movie highlights the 2002 Oakland A’s baseball team, and specifically their General Manager, Billy Beane, who went against the conventional wisdom of his experienced scouts to build a low-budget, winning team by trusting the science of analytics. He recruited 25 guys, out of 20,000 possibilities, who were perceived to be from the “land of misfit toys” by scouts because of age, bad pitching form, inability to catch, etc. But analytics told a different story -- they all had a knack for getting on base, and that offensive strategy wins games. The rest, as they say, is history and the winning record of the Oakland A’s is the proof in the pudding that analytics work!

Some analytic applications that I’ve seen with sports teams and leagues today relate to better understanding customer (fan) behavior and tailoring their experiences while at the venue. Segmented demographics can be targeted differently with marketing offers based on a better understanding of their lifestyles, what motivates them, and preferences discovered using customer analytics. The Orlando Magic is one such organization that trusts the science of analytics to build its customer base, turn casual fans in to avid fans, and provide a game-day experience that leaves them wanting more! Check out this video that talks about how Orlando Magic uses SAS to grow their fan base.

It’s also more critical than ever in today’s economy to demonstrate the value of attending a sports event in person as ticket prices rise. Another hot topic is dynamically pricing tickets. Analytics helps teams evaluate ticket sales and pricing as well as what drives a season ticket holder’s decision to renew. How do you get a single game buyer to come back to another game or consider purchasing season tickets? It all points back to improving the fan experience by broadening their sense of perceived value when the opportunity presents itself. And this doesn’t just hold true for this industry, but more broadly applies to businesses in every industry that strive to increase value of their products or services for customers. This different YouTube clip shares another Orlando Magic perspective on the topic.

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that in this day and age of all things social media, enthusiastic fans are easier to reach than ever as they interact online and on social networks. There is so much untapped data from this channel that can be analyzed to help teams and businesses better understand fan behavior and identify ways to reach ticket holders with meaningful offers. In fact, Super Bowl champs, the New York Giants, are a great example. They touted this year’s Super Bowl as the “first ever Social Media Super Bowl.” The Giants have focused on creating two-way communication to build fan interaction by doing things like running Facebook campaigns and streaming Twitter feeds into their telecasts and inside the stadium. As a result, by February 20, 2012, they had 260,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 2 million fans on Facebook. What an amazing opportunity to tap into this massive amount of data using social media analytics.

So, as the Academy Awards draw near, and we go to our respective Oscar parties or sit down with our popcorn to watch the red carpet parade and root for our favorites to win, I’ll be pulling for Moneyball, in part because it’s a great story with a present-day message that could drastically reshape the way companies do business, and in part (a little larger part) because I’m a Brad Pitt fan! Maybe Mike Stevens, CMO for the New York Giants, will be watching too! Just imagine how much more the Giants could do with a 360 degree profile of their fans, by combining their online and social media activity with their offline data. Now that’s customer analytics at its best!

• For more information on how SAS can help drive sports teams and leagues forward, visit SAS® for Sports.
• For executives, you can also hear from Orlando Magic live on stage at SAS Global Forum Executive Conference, April 22 – 25, in Orlando, Florida.

Please let me know what you think by adding your own comment below.  Thank you for following!