Tickets.com Partner Spotlight: Turnkey Intelligence

Turnkey knows what sports fans are thinking

Philadelphia Business Journal
by John George

HADDONFIELD, N.J. — If the owner of a National Basketball Association team wanted to find out what fans think of the music played in the arena during the breaks in the action, Turnkey Intelligence could tell him.

If that same owner wanted to know whether the guy who logged on to the team’s Web site would be a good candidate for a six-game ticket plan, Turnkey Intelligence could answer that question, too.

The Camden County consumer research and analytics company, founded in 1996, is in the business of gathering and analyzing market intelligence for professional sports leagues, teams and their sponsors.

Turnkey Intelligence is part of Turnkey Sports & Entertainment, a Haddonfield firm that also operates a separate search firm that specializes in placing executives with teams.

Turnkey’s client list includes 55 professional teams in the four major sports along with the leagues themselves, NASCAR, Madison Square Garden, and Subway Restaurants. Locally, the Philadelphia Eagles, Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Union are all on Turnkey’s roster.

“Working with the sports teams and leagues has given us a lot of exposure,” said Haynes Hendrickson, senior vice president at Turnkey. “Working with sponsors is the growth area for the company. Sponsors are coming to us to evaluate the value of their sponsorships.”

The company’s main product is its market research tool called “surveyor,” which is used to collect data from fans before and after they attend sporting events. This year, the company surveyed more than 550,000 sports fans about everything from what they think of their experience at an event to whether they know about or use sponsors’ products and services.

“Teams hire us to be their research department down the hall,” Hendrickson said. “It doesn’t make sense for them to hire people to collect the information we can. All the research we do is customized for the client.”

Turnkey also performs research for Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal, a sister publication of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

In October, Turnkey launched Prospector G2, a lead generation and sales force automation tool designed to help sales departments identify, score and prioritize their best leads.

Turnkey founder and CEO Len Perna said within this decade, sports teams have started to realize the importance of collecting information about their fans, and many have amassed huge lists of potential buyers of ticket packages. What teams haven’t had, Perna said, is a way to separate the casual fan who may go to one game a year from the more ardent fan more likely to react positively to a call about a ticket plan offer.

“The conversion rate has fallen to under 1 percent,” Perna said. “That means a team will make 100 calls to get one sale. They waste a lot of time and money. Prospector helps weed out the bad leads.”

The technology uses algorithms based on an individual fan’s demonstrated level of interest and his or her ability to buy ticket packages. Factors taken into account include past ticket-buying history, online behavior on the team’s Web site, survey results, incomes and discretionary spending, and other demographics.

“A team may eventually get to all 10,000 people they have on a list, but we can direct them to the best 250 to start with,” Hendrickson said.

The fee for using the Prospector software is $4,000 per month and 10 cents for each potential lead that is scored.

Prospectus G2 is the company’s second attempt at such a product. The key difference in the new version — developed over four years at a cost of more than $1 million — is the licensing and commissioned-based deals Hendrickson negotiated with companies including Tickemaster, tickets.com, and database marketers Acxion and InfoUSA to gain access to all the needed data to make proper analyses.

Perna said the original version failed because the company did not have the same level of detailed information it now has through the partnerships.

“When you roll out a new product in tough economic times it’s important to be able to demonstrate value,” Dean said. “Our challenge is to show our customers how this will help grow their business.”