The Dallas Mavericks (often referred to as the Dallas Mavs) are an American professional basketball team. The Mavs are not just succeeding in sports but also with their digital fan experience. The team’s owner embraced technology early on and, possibly unusually for a sports team, implemented a CTO position many years ago.
The Dallas Mavs have been heavily investing in online marketing and employees that think outside the box, to create an engaging experience for fans inside and outside the stadium.
Create quality content with interactive engagement
In a podcast, Mavs CTO David Herr explains how the emergence of social media was a game-changer for the team, allowing them to engage with fans on a whole new level. The Mavs saw a huge increase in engagement rates on posts that tried to connect with their followers instead of those that were only providing information. Since then, the core of the Mavs’ marketing strategy has been to produce high-quality content, connect with fans and try to understand their needs and what they’re interested in.
The following tweet is a good example of creating engaging content. Mimicking a popular meme, the Mavs ask their “MFFLs” (“Mavs Fan For Life”) which of their players’ facial expressions best represents how they are doing.
By addressing the “Mavs Fan For Life”, the team is taking an interest in long-term fans and reaching out to them specifically. The Mavs social media team has identified the main target groups and is tailoring social content specifically for them.
Any sports team will always strive not just to win but to also make and keep the fans happy. One way of doing that is to make their life as easy as possible. There should be no barriers to obtaining information, interacting with the team or even finding your seat in the stadium. And social media can help with that.
The Mavs made social media a firm part of their overall communication strategy. They use it as a fast and easy way to connect with fans in real-time even when they’re not currently in the stadium, continuously publishing new high-quality content on their social media channels.
To utilise already published social content on the website, they implemented a social hub on the Dallas Mavs homepage. The social hub collects all relevant social media posts from various social media channels and displays them unified in one central place. The feed on the website blends perfectly with the team’s CI.
Having a social hub embedded on the website has multiple advantages for the Mavs:
- It makes it easier for website visitors to follow the social posts in one place (even for those fans who aren’t regularly on social media)
- It offers a good overview of the social content for the press
- It adds a constant fresh stream of content and an interactive element to the website
- It is efficient because social content can be reused almost automatically
The Mavs have also integrated social content in their mobile app. On the home screen, they feature tweets right next to blog posts with their latest news. Whenever users open the app, they have the latest news at their fingertips. The Twitter feed integration invites users to interact with the team on social media.
The Mavs have created a fluid experience that connects offline and online touchpoints. Inside the app, you can buy tickets and select a seat in the stadium based on a 360-degree view. On the game day, the app sends notifications about traffic and the best route to take to the stadium. In addition, there’s detailed information on players, coaches, and games.
The Mavs philosophy is to offer their fans more than they ask for. With the social hub, they offer them a way to engage with the team and stay informed about the latest news. The social hub blends in perfectly into the smooth brand experience across all channels, both offline and online.
Photo Credits: Dallas Mavericks