Scouting the Crowd – How Marketers are Redefining Sports Fans

www.tourterraba.com (Our Costa Rican tour website)

“Backpacker Bob, Professor Penny, Momma Mary, Single Steve.”  My grad school professor read aloud the list of characters as we sat in a Costa Rican restaurant preparing for our trip home to the States last January.  They would be our fictional audiences for a website we would have two weeks to develop and they sounded to me like something out of a children’s book.  

            In the marketing world we were told they are called personas, and the idea is simple.  Create real life characters for each target market of consumers that might be interested in our “tour Costa Rica with an indigenous tribe” website, with clear needs, desires, and interests and figure out how to effectively market to each.  While the gimmicky character names and stories resulted in a few eye rolls initially, they became an effective tool as time went on for why every decision we made mattered.  Would we need a website responsive to mobile?  Yes, Backpacker Bob would only be able to access our content via a smartphone.  Would we want video content on the site?  Yes, Single Steve would want to show his friends the cool waterfalls and rappelling activities available.  Would we need a questions and answers section?  Yes, Momma Mary would want to know things like safety, nearest hospitals, and what to bring before loading her kids in the car.  Each persona encouraged our team to think of the needs of its represented audience and how to improve the overall experience of our site.

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  I hadn’t thought much about the use of personas since my role as marketing lead in Costa Rica, that is until this week, when I traveled to Tampa to visit with Emily Miller, in-game entertainment coordinator for the Tampa Bay Rays.  During our discussion about the great work the Rays have done in their small market to get fans in the seats and create an advanced inner stadium experience, Emily brought up personas as clutch to the baseball marketing business.  “Pat Parent, Fred Fanatic, Sally Socialite,” the names brought a smile, reminiscent of my time in Costa Rica, only here they were the basis for every marketing decision at the Rays.   

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  Fred Fanatic fills most of the weekday attendance, his passion for the game frees the clubhouse from providing extra frills.  He’s a stats reading, play watching, score-keeping traditionalist whose love for baseball brings him to the stadium as often as he can.  Access to game recaps, scores for other concurrent games, and materials on the history of the team, as well as the in-stadium Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame, and season ticket packages are provided by the Rays to keep Fred returning weekly if not nightly. 

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  Sally Socialite represents the young professional. She appreciates a ballgame for networking, time with friends, or even just an evening out.  She wants and expects to stay connected to her social networks via her smartphone while at the ballpark, and whether it’s a date night or a girls’ night out, she looks for other concession/merchandise specials and outside entertainment to maintain her interest.  For this demographic the Rays have embraced social media with fan-generated content, check-ins, “tweet ups,” free t-shirts, and company sponsored events.  The organization was also the first to extend the Major League Baseball experience to include an after the game concert series culminating in a more lucrative night out package.
 

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Finally, Pat Parent seeks something affordable, fun, and engaging for her kids.  She looks for good deals, family-friendly activities, and experiences her kids will enjoy.  The Rays have reached out to this demographic on Sundays, with kid centered activities for a whole day at the park with group deals for parking, autographs, promotional gifts for kids, popular mascot involvement including a team created DJ Kitty character, opportunities for kids to run the bases after the game, and kid-centric in stadium activities.

Personas have become an easy tool for marketers to remind the rest of the organization who the target markets are and why the strategies they’ve implemented will be effective.  They can be transferable to any business or industry and while they may seem a bit rudimentary they allow the organization to think from the prospective of a representative group member about what his or her demographic's needs might be and how to target content, products, and sales calls in a far less overwhelming way than considering every individual customer.  Consider utilizing these tools when presenting to executives, they are easy to recall, visually entertaining, and often an effective brainstorming tool to encourage conversation and strategic thinking about ways to reach more customers in more unique ways.  Do you use personas in your industry?  Are they successful?  Let me know!