And yet … The St. Louis Cardinals manage to keep packing Busch Stadium. At a time when many other teams have banks of empty seats, it's a packed house under The Arch. It's a situation that gives a clear home field advantage, with commentators talking about the crowd at the "10th man" on the team.
You don't get many better examples of the power of customer advocacy. How does my home town team do it?
ONE: Be a winner. It always helps to have a good product. More World Series titles (11) than any team but the Yankees, 19 National League titles and they've made it to post season play eight of the 13 seasons so far this century. They've built an expectation of quality. And the distribution of their excellence over more than a century means quality wasn't an ephemeral blip in one decade. If they're down, a fan always expects them to come back. Giving us a reason to stay through thick and thin.
TWO. Transcend your market. Baseball is so much more than sport in St. Louis. It's practically a religion. Children have their growth measured with annual photos in front of the Stan Musial statue. Every important local company has a box in the stadium and regularly does business there. Local businesses theme their own campaigns in alignment, while a large percentage of the population seems to be in branded clothing regularly. Pre- and post-game activities are long-standing family rituals, with some … like the visit to Ted Drewes for frozen custard on the way home … stretching back for generations. This all happens because the team works hard to be a member of the community, not just a sports franchise. Players are expected to get involved with local charities; many of the greats settle in town permanently and become local legends. Student discounts and special events grab 'em while they're young. Regular charity nights bring the less fortunate in for free, and celebrate good deeds on the field before the game. All good sports franchises try to accomplish this, but I've never seen it work as well as in my home town.
THREE. Stoke up good will. You need to treat people just as well in the bad times as in the good. I grew up in the 70s, one of the Cardinals' rare stretches of mediocrity on the field. But all of the community outreach continued. I remember regularly meeting players at local events, entering the Fredbird colouring contest every year (for a chance to win free tickets) and receiving all sorts of incentives to come to the stadium. If only I'd kept my Ted Simmons bobble head. In the '90s … another stretch without post-season play … excellent PR efforts put the management with the public, having open and honest discussions about how they were changing the team and building for the future. And they were good on their words.
Wouldn't it be amazing if corporate internal comms departments could build up just a fraction of the passion that ardent fans feel about their sports teams? Looking at how some of the great franchises do things is fine place to start.
