2019 was a year of many firsts and many takeaways for not only Sports Tech, but also and majorly, for fan experiences and engagements. How to engage fans and continue to keep them engaged seemed to be the big question for 2019.
We sat down with Pico’s very own Quinton Porter, VP of North America and Roi Mozer, COO and Founder, their biggest takeaways from 2019 and their words proved more than insightful. Check it out!
1. What was the biggest change you saw in Sports Tech in 2019?
@Quinton Actually, the biggest changes I've seen are on the athletic performance side (wearables, mobile apps, performance analysis, etc). In comparison, advancements in tech on the business side (marketing, fan engagement, smart venue, etc) have been relatively slow in my opinion. Within that, I'd say marketing tech has been the slowest, which is partly why I was so attracted to joining Pico.
The biggest change has been the tie between mobile ticketing and venue tech leveraging data to create better business decisions and fan experiences. As far as marketing, so many teams are still using the same strategies they've been using for the last 10 years.
@Roi The biggest change in my mind is on the team/organizational side, and the fact that they are much more open to tech solutions, in terms of driving their conversions and hitting their KPIs. The fan, and how to monetize the fan better, is at the top of their minds.
Teams are all in on how to make and create better experiences for fans, and tech is here to support that. Shortening the lines at the entrance, food/drink delivery to their seats (SeatServe), and of course creating 1:1 conversations with their fans with Pico ;)
2. How do you see Sports Tech evolving in 2020?
@Quinton I think the biggest opportunity in Sports Tech is in the area of digital communication between teams and their fans. Social networks, mobile apps, websites, etc provide great ways to reach fans and for fans to consume content, BUT, if teams want to drive real business results on these channels they can't measure success from just Likes, Comments, ReTweets, and Clicks and then rely solely on Paid ads for conversions.
They should be converting their own fans!
The problem is teams don't actually know who those engaged fans are the way Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc do. If teams can evolve to claim their own data on their online fans and treat them as the unique individuals they are, they'll see a massive improvement in their ability to convert fans on these channels.
Secondly, I see an evolution to more use of the private communication channels and less focus on public channels. So a shift from more Facebook Posts to more Facebook Messages, less Tweets and more DMs, using data to personalize those interactions.
@Roi More of the same above … And finding new ways to monetize the fan experience in a non-intrusive way.
3. How would you sum up Pico's biggest breakthrough of 2019?
@Quinton We found our identity. Pico has always been about monetizing digital channels using personalized 1:1 communication... What we realized is that the reason we can do this so effectively, the actual HOW itself, is a value-proposition in its own right. It's also a major pain-point for teams (whether they know it or not), so it became our core value. This is the fact that our fan-engagement tools are uniquely able to identify high volumes of online fans who were otherwise completely anonymous to the team, and we learn about each fan in ways that directly support the team's business objectives. This makes us much more of a need-to-have solution than a nice-to-have source of incremental revenue.
@Roi Pico’s biggest breakthrough of 2019 was probably sitting with potential clients and opening their eyes on how easy it can be to know more about their fans on the social sphere.
4. Where do you see Pico at the end of 2020?
@Quinton I see Pico being the first to come up when anyone in the industry either talks about growing/deepening fan databases or about using 1:1 private channels and personalization. We're still pretty new, especially here in the States, but after another year delivering results for our partners and growing our list of clients, everyone who works in Marketing, Business Intelligence, Sponsorship, etc will know Pico, what we do and what we deliver.
@Roi I see Pico expanding to new sports fields, dominating the markets we're in and running towards new markets such as China, Australia, India, and hopefully entering new industries.
2020, we are ready for you!
Quinton Porter Roi Mozer
0 Comments