We created a Data Strategy in 2021 together with our partners that would help us to interact with fans, retain current fans and grow towards a database that is of value for clubs, partners, sponsors, and tv-broadcasters.

The main objectives:

• Increasing (direct) reach
• Increasing engagement
• Creating value for Eredivisie, clubs & partners
• Improve skills and know-how.

To be able to create such a database, KORE was brought in to supply the Orange Box as the data warehouse, together with Single Sign On for the website and the integration with Maileon. From that point on, we worked on adding more data sources to fulfil their goals. Each data source requires a different approach to onboarding, welcoming or segmentation.

With the data strategy in place, the next step was to integrate the data strategy into the marketing strategy. This is where the power of a data warehouse together with an omnichannel email tool would come into play. Our marketing strategy has all the elements of an omnichannel strategy where Social media, the website, data capture tools and email all work together to create great campaigns that resonate with fans. The marketing funnel works with the HHH-model: Hero – Hub – Hygiene. These campaigns all work together to grow, maintain, and activate fans in the database all year long.

For this case, we’ll focus on the Line-up and Round-up campaigns which are in the Hygiene part of the funnel. Hygiene – Match round-related campaigns (every match round) to keep fans engaged around match days. With campaigns like the Line-up & Line-up Quiz and Round-up campaigns. With the data organised, strategy in place and Maileon ready to go, the next phase is to connect the design and elements to content. This is where Maileon has proven its value with its blocks, and integrations.

The challenge was to keep fans entertained. A key marker for us and our partners is the number of opens. That is the indicator for us that fans are interacting with the Eredivisie brand and the clubs.

The blocks are mainly used in the line-up campaign for the games to come and in the round-up campaign with highlights and results of the match round. These emails contain the blocks with information about upcoming fixtures and the results after a match round, generated with the feeds from the X:APP Platform.

In the 2021-2022 season, we worked hard to get the right frequency, content and target audiences for the line-up and round-up campaigns. With regular A/B testing, we managed to slowly but steadily increase the open rates of both campaigns. By the start of the 2022-2023 season, we were using the blocks in every match round.

The open rates went up from 41%  to 51% for the Line-up campaigns, while the Round-up campaigns went up from 72% to 80%. Stunning results!

Contributing factors:

• More relevant content – personalising the items in the email;
• More and accurate statistics – integrating the data feeds;
• More interactive elements – make the campaigns fun to read and interact with;
• Better segmentation – keep selecting the right audience for the right campaign.

Overall statistics:

• Total of: 276 campaigns
• With approximately in total: 2.760+ content items
• Total Emails Sent: 20.200.000 emails
• Average List Size: 62.000 fans
• Average Open Rate: 52%
• Average Click to Open rate: 2,84%
• Highest Open Rate: 90%
• Highest Click to Open rate: 28%