With a repository of reliable customer data, the outreach possibilities are (nearly) endless. And SportsDataIO knows the value of accurate data better than most. The provider of sports data feeds that power sports betting organizations like FanDuel, Fanatics and Betr had been building its customer data engine using Copper for nearly a year and a half — and they were ready for more. Their journey to build out marketing outreach took them to Mailchimp and its two-way integration with Copper.
We recently chatted with SportsDataIO’s Marketing Manager, Sam Pearson, to learn more about their vision for nurturing relationships using Copper X Mailchimp.
Putting the right data in the right places
With sports betting and fantasy sports becoming increasingly popular across the U.S., there’s been a high demand in the industry for quality and accurate data. To match this growing demand, SportsDataIO's team primarily focused its efforts on sales, with little traditional marketing — until recently. “We’re just now starting to implement and push forward with traditional marketing tactics to support the sales team in a new way that we haven't done before,” Sam explains. Having originally joined the company in a business development role, he has transitioned into marketing management and now owns the initiative to develop a marketing program that helps further fuel their sales efforts.
Naturally, this role took him to where the data was: their CRM system. “We call Copper our source of truth for all organizations and people. It’s our home base for pretty much everything when it comes to customer relationship management. All of our opportunities are based out of there and you can see all the sales rep interactions there.” With so much valuable data, Sam’s focus is on initiatives that will enable their team to make more analytical decisions based on those insights. And syncing their customer data with Mailchimp was at the top of the list.
“The basic integration between Mailchimp and Copper was really straightforward and easy to set up.” -Sam Pearson, SportsDataIO Marketing Manager
With the two-way Mailchimp integration set up, Sam and his team are working on cleaning up and organizing their data better before pushing it into Mailchimp. After using other email marketing platforms that didn’t offer a native integration with Copper, SportsDataIO's new efforts with Mailchimp will allow for better data integrity and control over how they manage their data between platforms.
“In the past, we haven't necessarily had very strict standards on the proper way of creating People and Company records,” Sam explains. The Mailchimp integration presented the perfect opportunity to refine categories and segments before building out their new email marketing program. Making CRM data hygiene a priority now will help them drive success with these upcoming marketing initiatives.
Using Mailchimp for targeted newsletters and cold nurture
For nurturing their current customer and prospect base, the goal is to personalize the content they’re sending each segment. “We're going to be able to create a lot more custom messaging for different marketing outreach. We'll be able to slice and dice the data with Mailchimp a lot better than before,” says Sam.
With a range of industries represented in their client base, some of SportsDataIO’s segments include fantasy companies, sports betting organizations, media properties, and sports betting affiliate brands. Beyond industry, Sam plans to segment based on contact type (current client, prospect, high-touch, target accounts) to help inform the type of communications they’ll send. He anticipates having about 20 segments across over 10,000 contacts in Mailchimp.
The first goal is to create targeted monthly newsletters for each segment. These personalized monthly emails will share content and updates with the goal of keeping SportsDataIO on people’s radar.
“We're excited about being able to customize messaging that makes sense for our customer base where they're receiving interesting and relevant information. It’ll help us stay top of mind through long sales processes and in between annual renewals.” -Sam Pearson, SportsDataIO Marketing Manager
With clearly defined segments, the team will be able to create extremely personalized newsletters that address the needs and pain points of each specific audience. Sending relevant content for people to engage with each month will help SportsDataIO stay connected with contacts that have gone cold. This way, when they’re ready to renew or switch vendors, that contact will be primed to reach out.
Up next: Automated follow-ups
Sam is also curious to explore automated workflows that trigger email sends after a certain milestone. Cold leads are a prime example. After there hasn't been contact between the sales rep and a contact for six months, they could be added to a recurring follow-up email cadence where they’re sent a “just checking in” email every couple of months. This is just one example of the potential ways that SportsDataIO can build workflow automation into its Mailchimp email outreach.
Defining success with Copper X Mailchimp
At the end of the day, “Copper is the starting point for everything to be built off of. It's a great way for us to stay on top of proposals and potential contracts that have been sent out and to nurture leads down the line.” And now, with Mailchimp added to their toolbox, Sam and the SportsDataIO team will be able to accomplish these nurturing activities at scale.
For Sam, initial success with the Mailchimp integration will look like getting all the segmentation dialed in and having newsletters with specific messaging running to large groups of people. “From there, we’ll be able to see the growth.” We can’t wait to see how SportsDataIO continues to customize their email marketing with the Mailchimp integration.
If you’re curious to try out Copper and Mailchimp together, it’s easy. Sign up for a free, 14-day trial and test it out yourself – no credit card needed.
