Fan Experience Strategy
How we helped a traditional sports club to also inspire its fans beyond the pitch.
The Customer
The 1. FC Köln (also known as “Effzeh”) is a sports club founded in 1948. With around 140,000 members, it is the seventh-largest sports club in Germany. Its fan base extends both regionally and nationally. With a deep-rooted tradition in German football, the Effzeh is a symbol of sporting passion and commitment.
The Challenge
Cheering, celebrating, buying tickets, jerseys, scarves and much more - the Effzeh is supported emotionally and to a large extent financially by its strong fan base. How can a better service offering inside and outside the stadium consolidate this foundation and at the same time open up new international target markets?
Our Work
Our strategic work still helps Effzeh today to make informed decisions about which services they should improve or offer. We also defined the requirements for the IT architecture. A 10-point plan and an app prototype provided tangible and realisable service recommendations.
Our Approach
Our approach was based on a detailed analysis of quantitative data, which we supplemented with qualitative data from a specially conducted fan survey. Together with the contact persons and managers of all departments, we developed a deep understanding of the fan culture and the most important contact points and used this knowledge to draw a fan experience map with all fan journeys.
Target group segmentation through personas
The fans of 1. FC Köln were divided into 5 segments. We developed a persona for each segment in order to understand their context, wishes and needs in the further process.
Strategic optimisation of the fan journey
Based on our analytical groundwork, we were then able to develop customised ideas on how the fan journeys could be improved in the interests of the target group.
Personalised fan experiences
In conclusion, we documented in the experience map and beyond which services should be offered and prioritised for development via which channels in which phase of the customer life cycle.
The Result
Thanks to us, 1. FC Köln has a clear strategy for targeting fans and retaining them in the long term. Current and future projects are focused on expanding the IT architecture for the comprehensive identification and behavioural analysis of fans as well as the further development of digital offerings and the improvement of the fan experience.
