The Lookouts are a Minor League Baseball team based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Our marketing team was looking for a new way to increase fan engagement, since our fans already get a ton of emails they don’t open.
Our goal was to not only find a better way to reach all our fans at once, but to also target our conversations with them as well. We wanted to be able to segment our conversations between promotions, merchandise, specials, and more to different audiences.
Our other local partners, including the Chattanooga Football Club, were already using Text Request, so it made sense to look into using them.
Text Request was incredibly easy to pick up. We recently had a hiring fair, so we started by texting our season ticket holders to ask if they knew anyone who would like to apply. Fans who responded would get a text with the application link. If an applicant started but didn’t complete an application, we’d later text them a reminder to do so.
We then created templates for promotions, plus add our fans to Groups that we could send targeted texts to later. These included Groups for our fans who regularly attend our Star Wars Night, or our Dogs of the Diamond event for pet owners. We also sent a mixture of texts regarding promotions. Some texts that go out for a specific theme night will have a call-to-action—like purchasing tickets—while some will simply provide info about upcoming events. If we have any merchandise specials or ticket packages, we will also promote these via text.
All our messages are scheduled in advance, and we're able to pay close attention to which ones do the best using analytics. Scheduled texts help us plan ahead and prevent any scrambling at the last minute. It also helps us be strategic in when and how often we contact fans.
Text Request has been huge for reaching a new crowd of people that otherwise would not have engaged with us—including members of Gen Z, who are more inclined to only text message and not check their email. It’s increased our amount of completed job applications, plus given us a new way to promote our merch.
Fans love that our texts give them everything they need and not having to jump through hoops to know what we offer. The messages we sent them helped us bring in an additional $5,479.78 in ticket sales during the 2023 season.
