How one of the biggest IPL teams achieved 75% growth in fan base in less than a year

Rajasthan Royals, popularly known as RR, is one of the eight IPL (Indian Premier League) franchises and also the winners of the first edition of the IPL held in 2008. With the massively growing fan base, RR recognized the need to attract fans/followers that are in their target market so that they can make sure they are speaking to real fans – more than just looking popular, RR wanted to ensure that they are being seen by the people who matter most.

With a focus on engaging with the right fan, via the right channel, at the right time, and with the right message, RR decided to move towards a centralized fan engagement automation solution, transforming the way they operate, engage with fans both on & offseason, and also drive multiple revenue streams.

Key Objectives for Rajasthan Royals

The Challenge

With all the digital assets in place and boosting a good brand presence on all the digital mediums such as Website, social media platforms, mobile app, RR was striving hard to improve their fan engagement game to reach the right audience, foster loyalty, and deliver a seamless omnichannel experience across channels in a meaningful way. Achieving synchrony in marketing operations required a powerful data system and a flawless communication strategy.

RR was also looking to build a robust revenue stream from merchandise sales and sales of sports-related certification courses. As an official marketing automation partner, Factoreal worked with RR in creating a single repository of fan data so as to integrate disconnected audiences from disparate data sources. Other goals included improving RR’s customer engagement over email and introducing new engagement channels to attract and talk to fans directly.

Fan Activation At Scale with Factoreal

RR selected Factoreal’s all-in-one automation platform as their marketing automation partner to put their fan engagement in hyper-drive and to achieve their marketing goals.

Factoreal marketing automation helped RR systematically address the fan engagement challenges with new technology, like targeting exact client categories, building WhatsApp chatbots, sending push notifications, etc. The Factoreal Journey Builder technology has allowed them to create campaigns for dynamically segmented audiences in order to meet business objectives – whether it’s selling match day kits or offering custom merchandise to ardent fans.

Since the time Rajasthan Royals partnered with Factoreal, they have been able to put all parts of marketing operations, analysis, and marketing automation under one roof.

Factoreal is also one of the few marketing automation platforms that support WhatsApp for Commerce. It has helped RR transform WhatsApp into a high-performing sales channel.

WhatsApp Marketing for Better Conversions

When RR speaks to prospects, WhatsApp messages are a huge part of the story they tell. The immense amount of data that RR captures is most relevant if it’s used in the right moment, with the right fan. Factoreal helped RR automate WhatsApp use cases like sending quizzes, updates, and merchandise promotions, RR now has countless possibilities to reach their fans over WhatsApp even during the off-season.

Hyper-Personalization for Top-Notch Customer Experience

RR manages a variety of data points about their fans. Creating dynamic segments perfectly helps them to further personalize the fan experience on a fan’s specified interest (whether that’s a specific game, player, merchandise, etc).

Factoreal’s audience builder tool uses the captured data to help RR target a known audience. The fans are automatically segmented and their user data is updated in order to send highly personalized campaigns.

AI-Driven Real-Time Fan Segments for Better Monetization

Factoreal’s one of its kind Fan Maturity Model helps RR with a deeper analysis at the fan-type level. For instance, a fanatic who has an off-season engagement frequency that is higher than zero spends 52 percent more than the casual fan who has no off-season engagement. The fan maturity model helps RR identify where to focus customer engagement activities in order to produce optimized financial outcomes.

The Results Speak for Themselves: High fan base, highest engagement

RR’s marketing team has been using robust data to launch highly-targeted campaigns based on fan behavior. Further, their fan engagement rates as measured by opens, clickthrough, and engagement rates demonstrate improved ROI.

Partnering with Factoreal has also helped the Rajasthan Royals to integrate their loyalty and rewards solution, track reward point accumulation & redemption, and automate customer journeys. With most teams still striving to learn as much as they can about their customers or fans, the adoption of Factoreal has placed RR one step ahead to build a lifelong relationship with its fans.