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.”
Showing posts with label turnkey intelligence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label turnkey intelligence. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tickets.com partner Turnkey tackles ticketing with new technology
Sports Business Journal
Eric Fisher
Turnkey Sports & Entertainment this month is introducing Prospector, a ticketing software program it believes will dramatically change how teams seek to fill their buildings.
The program was developed over the past four years at a cost of more than $1 million. It uses inputs such as individual ticket purchases, survey responses and merchandise buys, and blends that data with a variety of demographic, housing and income information on those same fans to create detailed ticket-sales leads that are scored by their likelihood of success.
The software’s custom-built algorithms also allow for customization to rank sales leads for fans’ likelihood to purchase different ticket packages. For example, a high-income fan might score high as a candidate to purchase a luxury-seat package and score lower as a candidate for a smaller, value-oriented ticket package. But if survey data also arrives indicating a propensity by the fan to bring his family to games and participate in youth-oriented promotions, the lead scoring for that person could change, and the sales pitch as a result may then veer away from the more-corporate seating options.
Turnkey successfully beta-tested the effort with the Texas Rangers and Miami Heat earlier this year and will launch the program with at least 18 pro teams over the next several weeks, including the Dallas Stars, Minnesota Timberwolves and Kansas City Royals. The effort seeks to reverse years of declining ticket-sales trends. Pro teams in the early 1990s commonly were able to close sales on 3 percent to 4 percent of their outbound sales calls, but they’ve seen that rate fall below 1 percent in more-recent years as people grow more resistant to any sales call, particularly calls not customized for them.
“The key factor is boosting the close rate back up to where we were 20 years ago,” said Len Perna, Turnkey chief executive. “It’s the only thing that will work. Staying at 1 percent just isn’t going to get it done, so this is about creating tools that will enable more efficiency and improving that close rate.”
To create Prospector, Turnkey needed to strike a series of licensing and commission-based deals with a large group of related parties, including Ticketmaster, Tickets.com, and database marketers Acxiom and InfoUSA. Others, including Veritix and MLB Advanced Media, are also being sought out.
To that end, the Turnkey effort seeks to collate and analyze data that exists at these various outposts or has been voluntarily provided and perform analytical functions that in many instances now occur in a more rudimentary fashion. Many pro and college teams for years have sent lists of names to companies such as Acxiom for additional data enrichment and analysis, but such a process often has been time-consuming and performed in large batches.
Prospector, conversely, performs such analysis daily and on an individual level, more akin to the type of extensive and rapid consumer profiling common in the retail industry.
“This has definitely made us a lot more intelligent and efficient,” said Andy Silverman, Texas Rangers executive vice president of sales. The Rangers posted the highest percentage attendance increase in the American League this season and now are fully deploying the Prospector system in preparation for 2010.
The Heat, similarly, posted during its offseason sales period for the 2009-10 season seven times more ticket-sales revenue from its highest-rated Prospector-generated leads than from those at the bottom end of the scoring.
“This looks like it’s a really slick product,” said Glenn Christian, an Acxiom sales executive who works exclusively with sports teams and properties. Turnkey will act as a reseller of Acxiom data. “There are still some teams that are going to want to have raw data and data enrichment from us, but what they have done to get their secret sauce in there is really interesting.”
Teams will pay a monthly licensing fee to use the service, with an introductory rate of $4,000 a month. The participating teams’ data will be stored on Turnkey’s servers, and the data can be both uploaded to the clients’ computers and woven into teams’ existing CRM systems.
As with any new product, there are some issues continuing to be worked out. The Rangers are among the teams purging buys from ticket brokers from their Prospector analysis, as broker behavior is typically very different from individual and corporate buyers.
The product also promises to create a bit of a management issue, as ticket salespeople at individual teams may start clamoring for only highly rated sales leads as opposed to lower prospects. The Prospector system allows for a variety of view levels, though, depending on organizational seniority and responsibility.
Turnkey is a research partner of SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily.
Eric Fisher
Turnkey Sports & Entertainment this month is introducing Prospector, a ticketing software program it believes will dramatically change how teams seek to fill their buildings.
The program was developed over the past four years at a cost of more than $1 million. It uses inputs such as individual ticket purchases, survey responses and merchandise buys, and blends that data with a variety of demographic, housing and income information on those same fans to create detailed ticket-sales leads that are scored by their likelihood of success.
The software’s custom-built algorithms also allow for customization to rank sales leads for fans’ likelihood to purchase different ticket packages. For example, a high-income fan might score high as a candidate to purchase a luxury-seat package and score lower as a candidate for a smaller, value-oriented ticket package. But if survey data also arrives indicating a propensity by the fan to bring his family to games and participate in youth-oriented promotions, the lead scoring for that person could change, and the sales pitch as a result may then veer away from the more-corporate seating options.
Turnkey successfully beta-tested the effort with the Texas Rangers and Miami Heat earlier this year and will launch the program with at least 18 pro teams over the next several weeks, including the Dallas Stars, Minnesota Timberwolves and Kansas City Royals. The effort seeks to reverse years of declining ticket-sales trends. Pro teams in the early 1990s commonly were able to close sales on 3 percent to 4 percent of their outbound sales calls, but they’ve seen that rate fall below 1 percent in more-recent years as people grow more resistant to any sales call, particularly calls not customized for them.
“The key factor is boosting the close rate back up to where we were 20 years ago,” said Len Perna, Turnkey chief executive. “It’s the only thing that will work. Staying at 1 percent just isn’t going to get it done, so this is about creating tools that will enable more efficiency and improving that close rate.”
To create Prospector, Turnkey needed to strike a series of licensing and commission-based deals with a large group of related parties, including Ticketmaster, Tickets.com, and database marketers Acxiom and InfoUSA. Others, including Veritix and MLB Advanced Media, are also being sought out.
To that end, the Turnkey effort seeks to collate and analyze data that exists at these various outposts or has been voluntarily provided and perform analytical functions that in many instances now occur in a more rudimentary fashion. Many pro and college teams for years have sent lists of names to companies such as Acxiom for additional data enrichment and analysis, but such a process often has been time-consuming and performed in large batches.
Prospector, conversely, performs such analysis daily and on an individual level, more akin to the type of extensive and rapid consumer profiling common in the retail industry.
“This has definitely made us a lot more intelligent and efficient,” said Andy Silverman, Texas Rangers executive vice president of sales. The Rangers posted the highest percentage attendance increase in the American League this season and now are fully deploying the Prospector system in preparation for 2010.
The Heat, similarly, posted during its offseason sales period for the 2009-10 season seven times more ticket-sales revenue from its highest-rated Prospector-generated leads than from those at the bottom end of the scoring.
“This looks like it’s a really slick product,” said Glenn Christian, an Acxiom sales executive who works exclusively with sports teams and properties. Turnkey will act as a reseller of Acxiom data. “There are still some teams that are going to want to have raw data and data enrichment from us, but what they have done to get their secret sauce in there is really interesting.”
Teams will pay a monthly licensing fee to use the service, with an introductory rate of $4,000 a month. The participating teams’ data will be stored on Turnkey’s servers, and the data can be both uploaded to the clients’ computers and woven into teams’ existing CRM systems.
As with any new product, there are some issues continuing to be worked out. The Rangers are among the teams purging buys from ticket brokers from their Prospector analysis, as broker behavior is typically very different from individual and corporate buyers.
The product also promises to create a bit of a management issue, as ticket salespeople at individual teams may start clamoring for only highly rated sales leads as opposed to lower prospects. The Prospector system allows for a variety of view levels, though, depending on organizational seniority and responsibility.
Turnkey is a research partner of SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Turnkey Intelligence Strikes a Deal with Tickets.com
Surveyor Research Platform and Prospector Ticket Sales Automation Platform To Seamlessly Integrate with Tickets.com’s ProVenue®
Haddonfield, NJ February 2, 2009 – Turnkey Intelligence, LLC and Tickets.com have finalized a long-term agreement to exchange data for the benefit of their roster of shared clients. This new deal, effective immediately, enables sports and entertainment companies to be better informed faster about the attitudes, opinions and preferences of their ticket buyers.
“Tickets.com has a great, open systems environment,” says Haynes Hendrickson, Senior Vice President of Turnkey Intelligence. “Tickets.com accounts will get Turnkey’s nightly data feed with consumers’ survey responses, creating a more holistic view of each customer,” said Hendrickson. “Survey data is critical on the micro level in renewing each customer and equally vital on the macro level in seeing ticket buying patterns and emerging trends,” said Hendrickson.
The deal also includes a nightly ticket transaction data feed the opposite way - from Tickets.com to Turnkey. Turnkey’s Prospector system uses ticket transaction history along with 140 other factors in a sophisticated algorithm to score and rank leads for season tickets, premium seats, suite sales and other inventory. “The problem in the digital age isn’t finding leads, everybody’s drowning in them - it’s identifying the good ones.” said Hendrickson. “Nobody can afford enough staff to call every lead. Selling is expensive. Prospector separates and prioritizes the best leads from the waste-of-time leads,” said Hendrickson.
“Our partnership with Turnkey is another example of how we will continue to deploy proven technologies into the ticketing industry,” said John Rizzi, director of product strategy. “We’re pleased that our data feed functionality enables clients to leverage details about their fans through Prospector.”
Turnkey has also just completed two (2) separate, additional data enhancement agreements, one with Acxiom Corporation for consumer data and a separate agreement with InfoUSA, for business data. Turnkey has built a seamless, nightly data exchange module with each company to further feed and inform the Prospector algorithm described above.
Turnkey Intelligence is the sports and entertainment industry’s leader in consumer research. Turnkey's clients span major brands like Chrysler, Clorox, Honda, MasterCard, Greyhound and properties like the NBA, NFL, NHL, IRL and more than two-thirds of all major league teams in North America. Clients utilize Turnkey’s software and services to make better-informed business moves involving sponsorship and ticket sales. Turnkey Intelligence is a subsidiary of Turnkey Sports & Entertainment, the holding company that also owns and operates Turnkey Search, the industry's leading executive search firm. For more information visit www.TurnkeySE.com
Tickets.com is a leading provider of fully integrated event ticketing solutions and services for thousands of top arts, entertainment, and sports organizations worldwide. Delivering the latest in ticketing technology, Tickets.com offers the advanced ProVenue® ticketing platform, which serves the core of a comprehensive suite of integrated features, products, and services that help clients enhance ticket sales, marketing efforts, and overall customer experience. A privately held subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media, LP, since 2005, Tickets.com is headquartered in Costa Mesa, CA, and has regional offices across the U.S. and around the world. The company also sells tickets directly to consumers at www.tickets.com.
Haddonfield, NJ February 2, 2009 – Turnkey Intelligence, LLC and Tickets.com have finalized a long-term agreement to exchange data for the benefit of their roster of shared clients. This new deal, effective immediately, enables sports and entertainment companies to be better informed faster about the attitudes, opinions and preferences of their ticket buyers.
“Tickets.com has a great, open systems environment,” says Haynes Hendrickson, Senior Vice President of Turnkey Intelligence. “Tickets.com accounts will get Turnkey’s nightly data feed with consumers’ survey responses, creating a more holistic view of each customer,” said Hendrickson. “Survey data is critical on the micro level in renewing each customer and equally vital on the macro level in seeing ticket buying patterns and emerging trends,” said Hendrickson.
The deal also includes a nightly ticket transaction data feed the opposite way - from Tickets.com to Turnkey. Turnkey’s Prospector system uses ticket transaction history along with 140 other factors in a sophisticated algorithm to score and rank leads for season tickets, premium seats, suite sales and other inventory. “The problem in the digital age isn’t finding leads, everybody’s drowning in them - it’s identifying the good ones.” said Hendrickson. “Nobody can afford enough staff to call every lead. Selling is expensive. Prospector separates and prioritizes the best leads from the waste-of-time leads,” said Hendrickson.
“Our partnership with Turnkey is another example of how we will continue to deploy proven technologies into the ticketing industry,” said John Rizzi, director of product strategy. “We’re pleased that our data feed functionality enables clients to leverage details about their fans through Prospector.”
Turnkey has also just completed two (2) separate, additional data enhancement agreements, one with Acxiom Corporation for consumer data and a separate agreement with InfoUSA, for business data. Turnkey has built a seamless, nightly data exchange module with each company to further feed and inform the Prospector algorithm described above.
Turnkey Intelligence is the sports and entertainment industry’s leader in consumer research. Turnkey's clients span major brands like Chrysler, Clorox, Honda, MasterCard, Greyhound and properties like the NBA, NFL, NHL, IRL and more than two-thirds of all major league teams in North America. Clients utilize Turnkey’s software and services to make better-informed business moves involving sponsorship and ticket sales. Turnkey Intelligence is a subsidiary of Turnkey Sports & Entertainment, the holding company that also owns and operates Turnkey Search, the industry's leading executive search firm. For more information visit www.TurnkeySE.com
Tickets.com is a leading provider of fully integrated event ticketing solutions and services for thousands of top arts, entertainment, and sports organizations worldwide. Delivering the latest in ticketing technology, Tickets.com offers the advanced ProVenue® ticketing platform, which serves the core of a comprehensive suite of integrated features, products, and services that help clients enhance ticket sales, marketing efforts, and overall customer experience. A privately held subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media, LP, since 2005, Tickets.com is headquartered in Costa Mesa, CA, and has regional offices across the U.S. and around the world. The company also sells tickets directly to consumers at www.tickets.com.
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