Millions of fans and consumers around the world engage with La Liga’s digital platforms on a daily basis.
This provides those in the Spanish competition’s digital strategy department with a rich depth of data to analyse and dissect.
La Liga has continued to emphasise collecting data in recent years and in turn has generated significant benefits for clubs, broadcasters, sponsors and fans of Spanish football.
The Spanish competition, through its digital strategy department, construct differing data-driven strategies with the overall intention of boosting fan engagement and fan loyalty.
Recently speaking at the Nextv Sport Europe conference, La Liga head of consumer strategy Olivia Archanco further explained: “We work on data-driven strategies that make the complex matter of big data simple. We analyse data in a structured way that helps us generate user information that can be used to build awareness, engagement and conversion, while at the same time earning greater loyalty of fans.”
Building customer loyalty
La Liga deliberately splits the users who engage with it digital platforms (such as the official competition website, its app or its OTT service LaLigaSportsTV) into three sperate categories. Those categories are guests – who navigate without signing up, prospects – who provide some demographic information and lastly, registered users.
Registered users, either through filling out an online form or signing in through their social media profile, disclose information that improves La Liga’s data ecosystem and further shape the league’s consumer strategy.
“With all this information from the different platforms that we manage, we are getting a very detailed picture of the fan,” Archanco said.
“We know if they are following a club, if they are season ticket holders, if they play our Fantasy game or if they are watching other sports on the OTT.”
Through this approach fans receive an efficient digital experience with La Liga as these data-driven strategies are more likely to show a user content or information that they are interested in.
“The information is used for personalisation purposes,” Archanco continued.
“We engage better with consumers when we know their age, the city where they live or the interests they have. We can direct fans towards conversion and, through those, can provide better services that are much more targeted and personalised. We do this in a natural way, not aggressively and not spamming people.”
Benefits for commercial partners
In addition to satisfying fans, this approach also brings significant returns for sponsors, broadcasters and other commercial partners.
“The more we know about our users, the better we can strategise and activate with wider stakeholders,” Archanco said.
“For sponsors, they are traditionally looking to generate more awareness and they ask for exposure, but this is changing,” she added.
“In this sense, we feel we are able to provide an added value as we can not only generate awareness but also engagement. We can generate leads and clicks and, on top of that, we are also helping them to generate conversation.”
In a recent example which showed how effective this can be, assisted by the competition’s business intelligence (BI) and analytics teams, one of the league’s sponsors ran a new campaign using user data from sources like Facebook, leading to thousands of customer orders. The campaign was a huge success and also saved the partner 90 percent of the cost when compared to spending in previous campaigns.
Ultimately, insights generated by La Liga highlight an asset that can benefit partners all over the world. The competition’s global network delegates, who give the league a physical presence in over 80 countries, are collaborating with BI and analytics teams and providing additional local insights that complement the data.
This information can help sponsors or broadcasters guide their own content and better position their local offerings.
“Through personalisation, we are able to provide different content for different countries or segments,” Archanco explained.
Support for clubs to become data-driven
La Liga itself is also supporting clubs who might not have the resources to efficiently gather and analyse data themselves.
“We have learned how to play the music and now we want to share it with the clubs as well,” Archanco stated.
“They can just jump in and they don’t have to invest and reinvent the wheel. We help them to go very fast.
“Instead of investing years and years in building all this infrastructure and investing a lot of money on it, what we offer clubs is almost a plug-and-play functionality,” she continued.
As well as this, the Spanish competition offers consultancy services for clubs who are interested, helping them create campaigns and acquisition strategies.
Agencies, who specialise in developing narratives and improving storytelling are also available to clubs.
“We are working to help the digitalisation process so that we can reduce the gap between the big clubs and the rest,” Archanco said.
“We think that this is going to affect the competition because we’re helping clubs to be more innovative and to build a better narrative with their consumers and fans. They will gain more support, more income and get closer to the bigger teams. I think this is something that will benefit the whole of La Liga. It’s good for everyone to be on a more equal footing.”
Forming part of Infront X’s expertise is the way they have delivered fan experience for sporting organisations. One of their leading projects has been with 2020-21 UEFA Champions League winners, Chelsea FC.
The SPFL were seeking new ways to keep their fans engaged in a time where the league was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.