• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 4, 2009

The National Hockey League connects with fans through email every day, and sends 62 newsletter versions weekly. Online Media Daily spoke with Amie Becton Ray, senior manager of direct marketing at the NHL, about the league's email strategy and the impact on hundreds of thousands of fans receiving messages specifically created for them.

OMD: How often does the NHL send communications to fans?

Ray: NHL's email list includes nearly one million fans. There are 62 versions of the weekly newsletter sent each Thursday. We began sending targeted newsletters in the fall. This lets us send each person specific information about their favorite team, depending on where they live. The newsletter is very editorial-focused with top headlines and player schedules and stats, but it does include ad placements.

We send targeted email campaigns daily, but not to all fans. It depends on the campaign's goals. Take, for example, the Ticket on Sale campaign targeted to displaced fans -- those who live outside their favorite team's home market. About 60% of our fans are displaced.

The Ticket on Sale campaign is when all the single game tickets go on sale for every arena and team. We send a specific message to the displaced fan about when their favorite team will come to where they live. It has been one of our most successful campaigns.

OMD: What is the NHL's biggest challenge in reaching fans through email?

Ray: Finding the resources has been the biggest challenge because we're sending email daily -- although not all will have multiple versions. There are 30 teams in 30 markets. The Ticket on Sale email campaign had 930 versions, for example.

OMD: What has been the NHL's most successful email campaign?

Ray: The Ticket on Sale email campaign has been successful, as well as the displaced messaging about NHL GameCenter LIVE, which is our online video product. If your game isn't on national or local TV, you can watch it there. It lets you watch all your games on your computer.

OMD: How do you make a decision on the email strategy to use?

Ray: Some campaigns lend themselves to precise targeting, while others don't. If you're advertising a specific product that doesn't have team variations, or the Winter Classic, which is two teams playing but it's a national event.

Fans respond better to some messaging in the evening during the games, while others seem to respond during the day. We do a lot of testing and keep track of what works. For example, our Web traffic shows that as a percentage of visitors we have more people buying from our shop during the day, but more people watching video at night. This tells us shop messages need to go out early.

OMD: Do you rely on Web analytics and Web traffic stats to determine when to send the emails?

Ray: We have a great department that gives us a lot of information to help us make targeting decisions. They use Google Analytics, Omniture and a few others to tell us the perfect time of day and provide information on the week flow, such as when we can expect heavy traffic, taking into consideration year-over-year statistics. Our business is cyclical. So, the campaigns are built and run based on days we know many eyes will be on the site.

The email program is e-Dialog, which lets us create a grid and merge the content into the template. We integrated the Omniture tracking into that. Our analytics department gets back Omniture data off email clicks, too. The open and click rates for targeted campaigns are typically twice what they are for general emails and newsletters.

When we transitioned from sending one version of our email newsletter to 62 versions, the team versions doubled in open and click rates. The first newsletter didn't have different content in each, but the header displayed the person's favorite team.

Our fans are very passionate. They seem to respond best when we put their favorite team in front of them. It has helped to improve our open and click rates.