With less than fifty days until the world’s largest sporting event, the FIFA World Cup 2014, club presidents worldwide are focused on one thing: ensuring that their stadiums are packed with spectators. As the necessity of optimizing communication with their fans increases in this globalized, competitive market, here are four primary ways in which club managers can acheive success with an FRM (Fan Relationship Management) approach:

1. The supporters: customers like no other.
   
   Even though we can identify the classical schema between a company (the club) and a client (the fan), two variables differentiate this relationship from a traditional company-client association: passion and loyalty. The fan is widely recognized to be a loyal customer by nature, as very few of them have allegiance to other teams. Because of these two variables, fans have a strong desire to voice their support for their favorite club. This high level of fan engagement means that sport teams are usually advantageous in initiating communication with their fans, who serve as their valuable brand ambassadors.
   
   
   
   Ignoring the voice that fans lend to a sports club can prove to be a grave mistake for the club executives, seeing as the fans know better than anyone that they will always be loyal to their team — even after the departure of the management team and players. A French proverb demonstrates this perfectly: “Players and executives leave, the fans remain.”
2. The clubs: internationally recognized SMEs.
   
   Los Angeles Lakers, New York Yankees, and Paris Saint-Germain. The reach of these brands extend far beyond their respective cities; they’re recognized as some of the biggest brands in the world. Nonetheless, these organizations are companies by their statutes, predominantly SMEs with less than a hundred employees. In order to take steps towards a social CRM, these SMEs need business and technological guidance on rapidly workable solutions to understand not only the identity of their supporters, but also their expectations. It is with this in mind that Manchester City football club enlisted Bluewolf’s services to better respond to their fans. By integrating their digital marketing strategy and improving their visibility on social networks, the Citizens were able to better communicate and engage with their supporters.
   
   
   
   At Paris Saint-Germain, this multi-channel approach has proven to deliver value. According to a Gartner study, the Parisian football club — a pioneer that initiated a FRM strategy in 2004 — exponentially increased the number of cardholders from 20,000 to 80,000 active program members in just a few months. Revenue from supporters increased by €500,000 in the first year due to cross-selling and up-selling of tickets merchandise, while the qualitative and quantitative improvements of the customer database lead to a €40,000 saving in marketing and campaign costs. Each campaign proved to be profitable, thereby increasing the average price per ticket by 30% as more empty seats filled up.
3. Social media: key factor of success that impacts the clubs’ economy.
   
   With the increased focus on communication with fans, absence on social networks is now a media brake and an economic disincentive for sport teams. An active internet community is now an essential element for companies and sponsors when signing sponsorship contracts. Therefore, this online presence impacts not only the revenue generated from these deals, but also the sales made by the manufacturer itself. Thereby, it is no coincidence that the biggest sports sponsorship contract was signed between Manchester United and Nike for a $1 billion deal: the Red Devils are among the top three most popular clubs on Facebook with 47 million fans.
4. What is more social or mobile than sports?
   
   Sports present the ideal arena for implementing a social marketing strategy, as fans want to connect with their favorite team at all times: to watch live interviews, keep up with competitions around the globe, and follow transfers of players announced and promoted on Twitter. Additionally, teams must remember to include a mobile dimension in order to facilitate continual engagement with fans across mobile platforms. Some ambitious teams and sponsors have even implemented a gamification project to reward their most active supporters with prizes. For instance, teams like Chelsea FC, Queens Park Rangers, and Manchester City have taken a playful approach to their CRM with the mobile application, Score Predictor, which allows them to develop and maintain relationships with their fan database.

Organizations in any field need to put in place an effective strategy for managing relationships with their supporters. This extended analogy of sports clubs deriving value from their FRM efforts reflects the necessity for all organizations to engage deeply and continuously with their supporters. Interested in learning more about our approach to customer engagement? Download our guide, The Essential Guide To Customer Obsession to learn key principles to become customer-obsessed.