Hyper-Targeted Messaging for Multi-Gen Audiences

0:00This show is brought to you by the Global Talent Co, a marketing leader's best friend in these times of budget cuts and efficient growth. We help marketing leaders find, hire, vet, and manage amazing marketing talent for 50 to 70 % less than their U.S. and European counterparts. To book a free consultation, visit globaltalent.co. Hey, everybody, and thank you for tuning in. My name is Andres Figueira, and I'll be your host for the day. This show is brought to you by The Global Talent Company, a company that's connecting top remote professionals from Argentina, South Africa, and anywhere really with leading tech companies worldwide.

0:37So if your team is looking to hire world-class South American or South African talent, just make sure to head over to theglobaltalent.co and see how we can help. And also with me here today, I am speaking with Ellie Simpson, Director of Marketing at the Iowa Cubs baseball team. This team is the AAA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, priding themselves in providing affordable and memorable family-friendly fun. So how's it going, Ellie? It's a pleasure to have you here. It's going well. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. It's so cool to have you hop on the show, Ellie. And I must admit, I did know about the Chicago Cubs, but the Iowa Cubs is something that I'm discovering now and I was not aware of.

1:19So just to give the audience a bit more context of who you are and what you do, would you You'll be able to provide us a bit more of your background and just how you got to where you are. Yeah, absolutely. So my life goal has always been to work in athletics or live events. And so I'm very fortunate to be where I am today. I am a Drake University graduate. Go Bulldogs. Okay. And they really helped springboard my career. I started out being a mascot at Drake University. I was spec the Bulldog for three years. That's so cool. And getting to work behind the scenes really just ignited my love for what I do today.

1:50And marketing is something that really fits my personality. and seemed natural, a natural fit for me. So Iowa is home. I'm a small town girl, moved to the big city of Des Moines, Iowa in 10 plus years. Nice. Well, I must say I was also my high school's mascot. I was, I think it was called Charlie the Charger. I was a horse, but I totally get what being a mascot means and what it entails. So respect for that from mascot to mascot. I did not expect that. That is so cool. And Ellie, while you were in college, were you mainly interested in baseball or were you into other sports as well? Baseball and softball are my first loves, but I was open to really any sport.

2:32It's more for me about the community we create and the memories that we make for fans. So as long as I was part of that environment and providing that to fans, I would be happy anywhere. OK, cool. Now, and I must say, like baseball really hits home for me. No pun intended, but because I'm from Venezuela originally and that is really a baseball country. Like that is the main sport for us. And whenever baseball season comes upon us, I must say it's one of the best times of the year over there. Everybody's just so excited for the games and the eliminations and everything. It's just crazy how the country really, it perks up a lot.

3:06The people just get so excited for that moment in time. So it's really cool to just hear about your experience with baseball in the States. And OK, Ellie, just so that we can get a bit more understanding of what you do and everything, What's your approach to creating content and marketing for a team such as the Iowa Cubs, which isn't like the main Chicago Cubs, but I believe it must hang on the coattails of them and just use like the same branding. Could that be correct? Actually, no, they leave all the branding to us. We are our own brand. We're our own identity. Okay. The only control Chicago has is over their players because they are the ones that sign the contracts and negotiate everything with the players.

3:48We are the brand here in Iowa. So there might be a little bit of crossover once in a while, but we are our own identity. Okay, cool, cool. And in terms of balancing what you do for the team, have you ever had to decide between making promotional nights or then just actually needing to move the needle to create more buzz? Like, what do you feel works best to bring people to the stadium to watch the games? So I also manage and plan our promotions, to your point. So minor league baseball is known for their theme nights and their kind of kooky promotions, really. So we like to think we have a little bit of something for everyone.

4:25So whether you are a diehard baseball enthusiast, you'll probably see opportunities to get autographs from past players from the team itself during a meet the team night. Otherwise, we are super family friendly as well. And we'll host, you know, this last season we had Bluey Night. We had Princess and Heroes Nights. We have family packs that are super affordable for families that include tickets, drinks and food. So we hit all spectrums, we hit all age ranges, and we really want to make it a super friendly environment for any walk of life. Nice. Oh, I love that. And I also saw in the Ottawa Cups page, like, yeah, it's a family friendly environment that you want everybody to come and enjoy on game night.

5:02So that's pretty cool. Like being able to bring your whole family to that is something very special and very valuable. And Ellie, how would you summarize your marketing philosophy? Overall, my philosophy is especially it's evolved so much over the last couple of years. But right now I'm riding the idea of meet people where they are, whether they are brand new to baseball and it's their very first Iowa Cubs game or they're a diehard fan and they're ready to buy season tickets. I can't push season tickets on someone who's never been to our ballpark before. Right. So my big philosophy for the last couple of years has been meet people where they are.

5:35Don't try to force something. Share the story of who we are and how we want to make them feel and what they want to walk away feeling like after a game. and then it just skyrockets and expedites from there. You know, we can shift the narrative and shift the story a little bit deeper into baseball and who we are and why they should come back for one more game. One more game is another big one that we're pushing to right now. Okay, one more game. That's like the slogan of the campaign, just like come to one more game. In some respects, yeah, it is. Another approach that we've been taking too is we like to call it internally the Netflix approach.

6:08We saw you came with your family. We saw you came with your family to a game. You might like this. You might like Bluey Night coming up next week. Or we saw you rented a table of four in our Bud Club area. You might like our Mug Club, which is basically your first beer free on Thursdays. So we call it the Netflix approach. We saw you liked and watched this. You might like this. Wow. Okay. I love that. It's like understanding like where they are at in the place of the game or like where they sat or who they went with and then just making it tailored like the marketing to their own experience. That's cool.

6:40That should really drive a lot of conversions. And Ellie, well, I want to say sports industry, maybe mainly in baseball, since it's what you're doing now. But have you noticed any common marketing best practices from the industry that you disagree with nowadays that you prefer to stay away from? So this is actually a question I didn't have anything prepped for. It's like the one question I don't have prepped for. That was a really hard one for me to think of. I'll be quite honest. Okay. Okay. No worries. No worries. But I just wonder is if because I feel baseball and sports, usually how they're led with.

7:14It's a very it's kind of like an old school industry, I believe. So have you felt any pushback from how it should be done to versus how you believe you can do it and what you think will actually work? Yes. So baseball, we like to consider it a multigenerational event to go to and bring your families to. So we have to talk to all different types of walks of life, all different age groups. And, you know, our season ticket holder demographic does sway older. They have the time, more resources, which is great. We're very happy they choose to come spend their summers with us. So they are probably more of your traditional diehard, this is how baseball is supposed to be fan base, which makes sense.

7:51But then now we're starting to talk to Gen Zers who actually do have some income and are entering the workforce. And they communicate an entirely different way than our season ticket holder fan base would right now. So it's shifting. You know, the attention spans are shifting. Those younger generations, they like the quick hits. They like to be entertained. Whereas the older generation, they can sit and chit chat with anyone around them in the stands. It's true. It's true. And they must feel like the owners of the stadium since they've been going for so many years. And it's like maybe they have the same seats or something like that.

8:21And it could be like they're just regulars where they're going. They really are. They are our regulars and we love them. And Ali, and between the new Gen Zers that are starting to come versus the old school baseball diehard fans and with everything that you're doing, what do you believe is working best in your marketing mix right now? The short answer is digital. To narrow that down a little more, we see a lot of success through our email marketing. So through our newsletter, we see a lot of conversions on ticket sales for that one, more so individual game ticket sales, digital display ads throughout the season.

8:55So we'll make ads based on the theme night that's coming up or a certain promotion we want to push. We see some very strong conversions there, even more so than through our email. And then SMS has been strong for us, too, because with that one, our approach is to really hyper target people and be very segmented with that one versus sending something out to the general masses. So if we know there's an offer someone's really interested in, we're going to target them in SMS text. And that seems to move the needle as well. OK. Outside of digital, we have a very strong local media presence, which we're very happy to have all of our partnerships with our local radio and TV stations.

9:28So getting a lot of attention from their news anchors and on-air talent is huge for us in our market. Very blessed to have them have that relationship and have them be advocates for us in the market. Of course. Now, and being on television and on radio news channels, that caters to, I believe it's a much bigger and broader demographic. because who's not watching television? It might just be the mainly the regular old people, not old people, but like the main regular baseball diehard fans. But everybody is at one point or another watching TV. So that's super nice. That's super nice. And Ellie, have you tested any channels that you believe or you've seen that did not work?

10:08And if possible, could you give us like an example of something that you felt wasn't as productive or that drove the needle that much? Sure. Sure. So my approach to testing and experimenting really truly is going back to the bare bones of the basics of what's your goal, who you're trying to target and what are you trying to say? Okay. And I think an area that we're trying to break through is in our catering business. So that's something that's we're bringing back more strongly than before during like COVID times, for example, that really cut our catering business for obvious reasons. And so now this next year, we're really trying to hammer that home.

10:40And so now I'm being tasked with how do we talk to the right people? Where do we find them? Where do we meet them? And something I'm trying for this next season is a lot more LinkedIn, paid LinkedIn campaigns. Okay. Because we want to try to target corporations and companies and to bring their holiday parties out for the holiday season or fan appreciation or excuse me, not fan appreciation, but employee appreciation outings, things like that. So that one's been a big trial and error last couple of months. First thing I also tried recently for the first time was advertising on X. I'd never really done that before.

11:10And I know they just recently changed their platform. We did that for a Home Run Derby X Major League Baseball event that came to town and actually did see some good success with that one. But again, in terms of testing, that was something I'd never done before and was pretty excited to try and experiment with for the first time. Okay. Wow. So you're experimenting now with LinkedIn and paid promotions and advertising via there and on X that you felt you had a bit more to call, that you had a bit more success then with the Home Run Derby. Oh my God. I hear the words Home Run Derby and it's like, oh, I would love to be in a stadium just watching people bat out and knock out home runs.

11:43That is such a nice feeling. It was incredible. I had so much fun. I can only imagine. Like, I love the feeling of baseball stadium. It's just weird because like, I've also played soccer. I've seen soccer games. I've gone to basketball games, which are pretty cool. But baseball specifically, and I think it's because I'm from the Caribbean. It's just, it's different. It's amazing. I can't say I like a sport more than baseball, but because for me, it's even the most entertaining to watch, even with so many pauses. I really feel it. It's so nice. It's so nice. You're going to watch the best of the best do the hardest thing in the world is hit home run after home run after home run.

12:20So there is something magical about it, I'm going to call it, because you just get to see such an elite level of performance from these athletes. It is unlike anything else. And that's exactly it. It's like if you're there batting home run after home run, and it's like these people were in the flow state for like an hour or two, just batting out home runs. It's like, I would need to practice the whole season and to maybe bat one, two, if I'm having a hell of a run, but okay. Okay, Ellie, I would also love to know how is your budget allocation across marketing channels? Like, do you need to prioritize?

12:52Like you've mentioned, like TV and radio really works well for you guys. So is that one of the main expenses you have for your marketing budget? Or if you could walk us through how you allocate your resources, that would be amazing. Yeah, absolutely. So for additional context, before I started with the Iowa Cubs in January of 2024, they didn't have a director of marketing. Yeah, I'm kind of the first of its kind within the organization, which is awesome, but also super intimidating at times because I could lay some foundations and I get to do a lot of the trial and error work, but it's exciting at the same time.

13:25So with that being said, our media budget was determined by our AGM and he did a great job with it and he leaned very traditional. So more of the TV, more of the radio, little more of the print, which is great. Don't get me wrong. But as we've seen in the digital age, it's become more competitive. We need to be in that space as well. So we've had a lot of conversations about where is that next slide in terms of our budget. We do still spend a good amount on radio and TV because it does work for us in our market. It is effective. Des Moines is, we're a medium-sized market overall. And we do still rely pretty heavily on TV and radio within just the market period, regardless of who you are, what you do.

14:03Right. Which is great, honestly. But I am shifting the narrative internally to say, let's go more digital. Let's put a little more behind digital. Here's what we can do. Here's some ROIs we've already seen the last two years that I've been with the organization. Here's how we can apply it and advance it moving forward while also maintaining the integrity of our traditional advertising as well. Of course, of course. And I totally get it. Like, what's the expression? It's if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But nowadays with this digital age, I get it that that newspapers and TV and radio might work.

14:35But digital is just so much faster and you can reach much bigger audience with doing things digitally that I believe it is something that must not be overlooked. But I totally get why those old school channels still work. And mainly because I feel the Iowa Cubs is more of like a hometown team and people from Iowa are the ones that want to and are invested in how they're doing and how it's going. So I feel that is something that everybody in town must watch at some time or hear. So that's why it must also be very effective to keep those channels alive as well. And the Chicago Cubs have such a deep roots in Iowa just because they're one of the longer standing baseball teams.

15:13OK. Period. in. You could back in the day on the radio, listen to it on WGN. And that's what everyone's grandparents were listening to back in the day. So we hear so many stories of probably people about my age saying, yeah, I grew up listening to it on the radio, grandpa out in the shop or out in the farm or just waking up, watching Cubs games together as a family. And like I said earlier, it's a multi-generational sport and it's a multi-generational fan base. So I was also in a blackout zone too. So we don't get it. The Midwest sports teams all that often either. So you are a Chicago Cubs fan.

15:47More often than not, you are tuning into Iowa Cubs too as well, because you're invested in the farm system. And it's the closest thing we have to a professional sports team because we are in the blackout zone as well in terms of broadcasting. Oh my God. I love that. So it also has a lot of tradition with it. Like it comes with tradition from the older generations as well. It's so wholesome hearing these stories like for a team like the Iowa Cubs. And okay, Ellie, I want to shift the perspective now a little bit and I would love to know a bit more about how your marketing team is looking like today.

16:14I know you told me you're the first in your position for the Cubs, but do you have a team as well or are you just like a one woman army? I do have a team. We are an extremely diverse team though. So I have, his actual title is Digital Media Manager, but he also produces our in-game production. So he does everything from our graphics, graphic design work, for print, social, in-game. But then he's also directing the show too. So everything for Marquee TV, we get about 15 to 20 games on Marquee TV. It's a network out of Chicago every season. And so he's helping direct those. He's directing the cameras, PA system, visual effects from the video board, everything you see in-game, he is running that as well.

16:57So he wears so many different hats. And he's just like, oh my God, this dude does everything. Yes, he does it all. I'm amazed by him every day. I have a video manager, which is pretty much his right hand man, too. She is phenomenal. She goes down and shoots in-game content for us of fans, of awesome plays. She'll cut highlights for us. She works with the media with us, too, on that. She also directs games as well. So anything that involves a camera, she is our go-to gal. Nice. And then last one I have is our media relations manager. And so the easiest way to describe what he does is he's the liaison between the front office staff and the clubhouse.

17:36So he's the one working most closely with Chicago, talking about like player transactions, roster moves, lineups, game notes, game recaps, really diving into that part of the business, more of the baseball operations and logistics side of it all. Okay, I get that. I get that. And Ellie, the roles for all these people, and I imagine that they are not remote, right? Like the Iowa Cubs must not have a remote style setting for work, right? It must all be in-house and physically there. Definitely in-season, for sure. We are in-house every day, even on game days. We still work nine to five and then work the game in the evening.

18:13So it is a lot of hours, a lot of time spent together, but we become a very close family very quickly. I can only imagine. It's like sharing a season with your co-workers and all just on board, making it work. and I couldn't even imagine how it would feel if the Iowa Cubs won. I'm not sure what the tournament or something is, but it must be like so beautiful. I'm feeling all that work pay off and then just having to also market victory. It must be crazy. It is a lot of fun. I mean, we look at every win as a huge success for the team, for our brand. We have obviously no control over the performance of the team.

18:46That's on them. But what we can control is the fan experience. So regardless if there's a win, we want to make sure the fans walk away having a good time. That's lovely. That's lovely. It just makes me want to go even more to an Iowa Cubs game someday. Well, we do. No, of course. If I'm ever in the States and I'm close and I'm in season, I'll hit you up just to see if I can get to meet you guys. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our broadcaster, too. So our broadcaster does fall within our team as well. And so he's calling every game. He's traveling with the team each and every week. So he's the voice of the Iowa Cubs for us, which is so cool.

19:19Nice. Now, that is very important. And from building this team out, Ellie, were you in any part in charge of choosing who got each position or did you arrive to the company or to the team? And were these people already there? Because I would love to know how you've decided that the marketing team should be built out. So it's about half and half. So our digital media manager and our video manager were already there. Actually, the video manager and I started about the same time. So we're on the same timeline in terms of hiring. But for our media relations manager and our broadcaster, did have a little bit of a hand in hiring those as well.

19:51Got to sit in on the interviews and really looking for someone that can complement who we are as a front office staff, but also is the best of the best in their craft and what they do. Okay, got it. Got it. Got it. Awesome. And okay, now moving on to another topic. And this is a trending topic nowadays. And I would just love to know in your industry and in the sports world how it's being used right now. And that topic is AI. Ellie, how are you guys leveraging AI in your day to day or maybe to I'm not even sure to review metrics or something like that? Could you give us a bit of more of an insight into how you guys are leveraging AI?

20:28AI is tricky in the sports world, at least from our experience. So currently, our sales staff is using AI to help foster and communicate with potential new leads for tickets, whether it's season tickets, flex packs or like a mini pack of tickets. and just getting the conversation started with people. So then AI can then filter that back to our sales staff and they can carry on that conversation after AI is filtered out if they are interested or not. That's really the most we've dabbled in it. We've heard a lot of feedback from other teams that they've had fans go into, for example, ChatGBT and say, is the XYZ game on today?

21:08Is it canceled today? And ChatGBT will say, yes, it's canceled, but it's sunny and 75 degrees out. So it's not the most reliable source of information for game to game updated information because it has to learn. So someone has to tell chat, GVT or AI this information. So if at most it's trying to read our website, who knows what capabilities MILB slash MLB has given to allow chat, GVT and AI to read the website. Right. So it could be pulling outdated information about a previous game that got canceled when in reality the game's still on. So I've heard that from a good handful of teams already.

21:44about the reliability of AI in terms of quick hits like that for updated game information. Okay, so there needs to be more of what's it called? I believe nowadays it's not SEO, but AEO, and you need to get AI to actually understand what can be found in your page and to properly read it. But my question here, and it's just for me to gain further understanding, does the MLB have control over what AI can read in your websites? Or is that up to the Iowa Cubs to create a better or easier to digest page for AI? As far as I'm aware, I know I don't have the control over our website. Okay, okay, okay. So if I had to guess, it'd be minor league baseball has the full control over that, but to what extent, I have no idea.

22:29Okay, okay. That's something very interesting. I had not thought about that. I might just start to dig into that later, even though I'm not in the baseball industry. Now I'm just curious. So curiosity killed the cat. I'll let you know. Okay, and Ellie, I know we're almost at the end of the interview, I have just like one or two more questions and I can let you go. But I also would love to know if you've seen or you have any specific marketing tactic that you're using for the Iowa Cubs that you feel other sport brands aren't using and that they might be sleeping on that. Do you believe that you've done anything in that area or in that way?

23:03Transparently, I'm going to say not yet. Okay. So coming in as director of marketing, I had a lot to learn at the foundational level of how things have already been done, but within this last season, understand where we want to go. So I think this next season is going to be a big shift for us in being even more strategic and segmenting more and more targeted in our approaches to everything we do. We are really going to focus on the customer journey more so than I think ever before, truly because we didn't have the resources, both from a technology standpoint and a bandwidth and personnel standpoint to be able to do any of this.