According to sponsorship tracking and digital analytics firm, Silverline, event directors will apply years of hard-earned knowledge about their participants’ preferences and behaviours to deliver a fine-tuned race-day experience and attract and retain just the right sponsors.
However, Silverline adds that ‘While they may know from experience how many porta-potties to rent before 2,000 triathletes approach the starting line and what type of band and beer will be most enjoyed by exhausted and jubilant marathoners at the post-race party, there is much more they can learn about their participants’ digital journeys before and after events.’
‘It is data that can help make the race more of a partner with its sponsors in helping reach the right contestant with the right massage at the right time.’
By using predictive data analytics, event directors can get important insight into their participants’ patterns of social media and online activity digital behaviours on the way to the starting line and after the race. Silverline notes that ‘With the right analytics, event directors can know how and when their participants research, engage with, and buy their sponsors’ products and services so they can effectively integrate sponsors’ messaging at just the right time to influence these purchases.’
Jayme Goldberg, SilverLine CEO, believes that the discovery and application of audience insights can help event directors prove value. “Event directors are at a critical crossroads to meet the evolving expectations of their sponsors, or risk being replaced by other options that better serve their engagement and ROI demands,” Goldberg said.
“There is a widening gap between the sponsorship deliverables event directors are accustomed to providing, and what brands need to validate a successful program. They want the proof of influenced behaviour that only data analytics provide.”
SilverLine helps event directors discover [sponsorship] brands and categories that ‘might not have occurred to them unless they had the data.’ For example, data analytics might indicate that participants of a certain marathon over-index at three times the national average for eating a certain brand of yogurt.
Leveraging these analytics can map changes to an event audience’s behaviours and purchases over time. From this, race directors can show that their participants actually made real purchases, underscoring the sponsor’s ROI.
“Event participants socialize every step of the athlete journey on Facebook and Instagram,” added Jayme Goldberg. “They’re the star character in a story – a challenging and rewarding experience built around training, traveling, gearing up and competing. The more event directors know about the kind of information and guidance they’re seeking, the better they can serve and motivate them, earn their loyalty and encourage them to bring their friends.”
She continued, “Delighted participants, who have a fully-supported experience, and engaged sponsors who understand how a sponsorship investment propels their business are the two most vital components of a successful event. Data analytics help event directors win both.”
SilverLine’s proprietary data analytics measure preferences and content consumption and predict purchasing behaviour for ‘millions of active lifestyle athletes participating in more than 650 mass-participatory running, cycling, triathlon and obstacle race events’.
The company generates first-party data leveraging website and social media data to ‘build detailed, hard-to-get psychographic and behavioural information about active lifestyle enthusiasts and their experiences.’ SilverLine then enriches these first-party profiles with up to 2,000 offline behavioural attributes to give partner events and brands an actionable profile of their customers’ content consumption and purchasing habits.
SilverLine adds that its data allows brands to predicatively influence purchasing decisions in core vertical categories such as footwear, apparel, gear and wearable technology; and extends to non-endemic categories including travel/hospitality, automotive, food and beverage, insurance and financial services, and more.
