Benham Publishing Businesss Magazines February 2014 | Page 38

PatronsView Kirklees Stadium Development Ltd (KSDL) are the latest Patrons to join the Chamber The team behind The John Smith’s Stadium (JSS) advise how they use social media and how they suggest to members that it generates business… As a forward thinking organisation, the team at JSS know the importance on engaging with customers via social media platforms. Active ‘tweeters’, JSS have found that communicating through the likes of Twitter and Facebook helps build relationships, allows for direct targeting through profiling and builds a personality around the brand that customers and potential customers can interact with. Gareth Davies Managing Director Kirklees Stadium Development Ltd 01484 484128 [email protected] www.johnsmithsstadium.com The team are realistic and recognise that for them, social media shouldn’t be used in isolation as a sales tool. However they have found that using associated social campaigns generates awareness of events and ultimately drives ticket sales by building positive brand perception and recognition. When formulating a social media plan you must have clear, measurable objectives and every business may have different objectives. For JSS the objectives of using social media is to create awareness of the facilities on offer and events throughout the year. The Stadium is not just for Football and Rugby, it is a community hub for the whole of Kirklees to make use of. The campaigns drive interested users of social media to the website where details of events and activities can be found. JSS also value the importance of monitoring activity, which they do via social media management and monitoring software, which allows them to be in complete control of campaigns - from forward planning to ‘of the moment’ interactions. It also allows insight into the bigger picture, to see how campaigns impact upon the audience, what works well and what may require 38 CLOSEUP Winter 2013 some tweaking to increase positive results. As well as social media marketing, email marketing is extremely important when targeting groups of potential new customers and engaging with current ones. JSS rightly sees data as an essential marketing tool and recognises the importance of directly engaging with the right audience on devices increasing in popularity, such as mobile and tablet devices, used more frequently to make purchases. As 45% of people are now opening and reading emails on mobile devices, we know that now is the time to be moving forward with digital engagement. To ensure we are connecting with customers, look out for JSS’s mobile site which will be launched early in 2014.