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Baseball Builds Customer Loyalty, Enhances Fan Experience with SAS® Marketing AutomationMajor League Baseball Advanced Media wins SAS Enterprise Intelligence Award11 April 2005 - Major League Baseball Advanced Media has improved customer loyalty and enhanced the enjoyment of its fans cost-effectively with marketing automation and advanced customer analytics from SAS, the leader in business intelligence. In recognition of its efforts, SAS today presented MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, with the 14th annual SAS Enterprise Intelligence Award at this year's SAS Users Group International (SUGI) meeting. SAS presents its Enterprise Intelligence Awards annually to organisations that have demonstrated productivity gains, cost or time savings, or achievement of organisation or business goals through the use of SAS® software. The award was presented to MLBAM for the company's overwhelmingly successful use of SAS software to warehouse and analyse customer data, resulting in higher retention rates and enhanced fan experiences. "MLBAM's success reinforces our belief that SAS provides the most powerful business intelligence solutions on the market for improving the quality and profitability of customers, products, services and business processes," said Jim Davis, SAS' senior vice president and chief marketing officer. "SAS provides MLBAM with the business intelligence capabilities required to provide the best possible experience for baseball fans."
Advanced reporting and predictive analytics prove winning combination
One of MLBAM's goals is convincing more of those billion visitors to register so they can be presented targeted offers in real time to enhance their interactions with baseball, both online and offline. By having a greater number of registered visitors, MLB.com can also increase retention rates among users who subscribe to various online services, including live games on MLB.TV and MLB.com Gameday Audio. "Someone once asked me what we know about the average baseball fan, and the answer was that we know they like baseball!" said Justin Shaffer, MLB Advanced Media's director of operations. "But with a solution like SAS, we realised that we know much more." SAS helped MLB.com learn more about the fans visiting the site, thanks to the diverse range of data coming from both the clubs and MLB.com – online and offline. Customer information runs the gamut, from merchandising and ticket sales at the ballpark to everything MLB.com collects via clickstream that shows what each customer is doing on the Web site at any given time. The goal is to learn how to target fans with the right offer at the right time and place via the Web site, personalized e-mails, instant messages, and SMS alerts. It also helps with cross-selling and up-selling efforts by enabling MLB.com to suggest products based on what's in a fan's shopping cart at checkout, and their previous purchase history. "We chose SAS because we wanted a solution that could bring all this data together and provide us the best interface for real-time analysis and to handle predictive modelling," Shaffer said. "SAS helps us figure out the best way to view our fan data and customer data to improve their experience at the ballpark and online."
Understanding fan behaviours is crucial
"Fans don't have to spend money; we want them to interact with us daily for all their baseball needs," said Kristen Fergason, marketing director for MLB Advanced Media. "We can learn more about behaviours while still being able to share opportunities with them based on the visitors' interests, such as a customized jersey or that their favourite players are going to visit their town on a specific day." On a typical day during the Major League Baseball season, the site posts hundreds of original news stories. But MLB.com also takes additional steps to encourage fans to visit the site daily. Automatically targeting specific audiences to let them know about information that might interest them is one way to keep them engaged. Instead of sending an e-mail blast to New York Yankees fans with the latest news about third-baseman Alex (A-Rod) Rodriguez, Fergason said she'd rather target anyone who's ever read an A-Rod story or bought A-Rod merchandise. Specifically targeting those fans increases the likelihood that they'll respond. "One of the reasons we chose SAS was so we could access our in-house information," Fergason said. "Before SAS, we'd ask our tech guys for this kind of information, and there would be a lag in getting an answer back. On the Internet, everything can change in the blink of an eye, so you need information instantaneously. With SAS, we have online access to real-time information."
About SAS Enterprise Intelligence Awards
This award was created to spotlight organisations that best exemplify the use of SAS intelligence to enable decision makers across the company to act with the highest level of confidence and knowledge to meet business goals. "What sets apart organisations worthy of this award is their ability to apply SAS intelligence to unique business problems and achieve results that are vital to their business success," said Deb Orton, manager of SAS' Customer Knowledge Centre. Those results come in the form of productivity gains, cost or time savings, or achievement of organisation or business goals. "The Enterprise Intelligence Award is a critical component of our overall strategy to continually highlight the success of our customers," said Orton. "It's a win not only for the customer who takes home this prestigious award. It's also a win for SAS in that it builds our relationships with our own customers and makes us visible in a very positive light at the highest levels of the customer organisation." The announcement came at the 30th annual SAS Users Group International (SUGI) conference. More than 3,000 SAS users from around the world attended this year's SUGI in Philadelphia.
About MLB Advanced Media LP
SAS is the leader in business intelligence software and services. Customers at 40,000 sites use SAS software to improve performance through insight into vast amounts of data, resulting in faster, more accurate business decisions; more profitable relationships with customers and suppliers; compliance with governmental regulations; research breakthroughs; and better products. Only SAS offers leading data integration, intelligence storage, advanced analytics and business intelligence applications within a comprehensive enterprise intelligence platform. Since 1976, SAS has been giving customers around the world
The Power to Know®
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