Five Secrets to Successful Game-Day Sampling–Part 1

Our company recently received from a sports venue one of the highest compliments possible in our industry. The pro sports team’s marketing department had met with its grounds crew/operations team the day after one of our mega-sampling events to review any issues that arose, complaints, etc. It went like this:

Marketing to operations: “So, did we have any operational issues with the big sampling event yesterday?”

Operations to marketing: “What event?”

Executing an event seamlessly without the occurrence of unexpected issues such as access rules being broken and excess trash on the grounds means that the operations crew might not have even known you were there. And from an operations perspective, that’s a beautiful thing! Keeping the venue happy is critical if you want to be invited back.

And this leads us to secret number one of a successful game-day sampling event:

Get to know the venue inside and out.

After the sports venue is signed for your event, make sure you take your event team and the field staff supervisors to the venue for a walk-through. Everyone needs to be clear on policies such as restricted access areas. Ask to be introduced to the gate personnel and the operations team leaders.

Exchange cell phone numbers with all key game-day contacts, and provide several copies of an event-team list to the venue so that key people’s names will become familiar. Ask that a copy of the list be provided to all gate personnel so that your team can enter and exit the venue with ease. With security at an all-time high at sports venues, it is critical that they know who you are.

It’s well worth the effort to go the extra mile and build good relationships with all the key people at the venue. Every venue’s management will share horror stories about event companies they will never invite back–and the reason is usually a combination of bad planning and bad execution. When an event becomes “work” for the venue, it is not likely to repeat the aggravation.

It’s important to schedule at least one comprehensive pre-event planning session with the venue. Among the points to address:

1) Know absolutely which brands have exclusive sponsorships with each sports venue to avoid conflicts. Make sure you get a complete list from the venue’s marketing department well in advance of your event.

2) If it is an outdoor sports venue, establish an approved alternative approach to game-day sampling in case of rain.

3) It’s wise to let the venue’s management know that you are looking out for their best interest. Fan safety is paramount. We make it very clear that we will turn down some clients’ requests to hand out certain items if they could become airborne objects during a game–but to accommodate them we will move that brand sponsor from pregame sampling to an exit sampling slot.

4) Work out a detailed logistical plan that covers everything from product storage and truck parking to details such as trash receptacles.

5) Providing a couple of extra staffers to handle additional pickup of discarded sample wrappers/containers is important for two reasons: It prevents the venue (and you) from getting irate calls from its operations crew, and it ensures that the brands you are representing are always seen in the best light–not lying on the ground.

Have a final strategy session with the venue the week of the event to be certain that everyone is completely aware of what was agreed to, what to expect, and how everything will flow on game day. We create and distribute maps, flow charts, and timelines to everyone.

When it comes to venue relations, overplanning and overcommunicating are key to avoiding game-day surprises–and critical to delivering a flawless event that will leave the venue’s operations team saying “What event?” the next day.

While we’ve thoroughly covered secret number one this month, in the coming months we’ll address the remaining four secrets:

Five Secrets to Successful Game-Day Sampling

1) Get to know the venue inside and out.

2) Have a deep understanding of the brand’s objectives.

3) Conduct critical client communications before, during, and after the event.

4) Ensure effective event-staff training–becoming the brand.

5) Carefully supervise and manage the event.

CHIEF MARKETER columnist Laurie Carlson McGrath is director of marketing with Schaumburg, IL-based marketing services firm PromoWorks (www.promoworks.com).