This week, the PGA Tour announced a partnership with experience management (XM) technology company Qualtrics to begin a multi-year transformation of the fan experience across all touchpoints on the tour.
The PGA Tour will use Qualtrics’ XM, including the Qualtric Social Connect and Qualtrics Customer and Employee XM products, to gain insights from how fans interact with digital platforms during the tournament and identify ways to improve the experience method. This, in turn, will help achieve the goal of building new fans, according to Travis Trembath, VP of Fan Engagement at PGA TOUR.
Improving the fan journey. “The journey of a contest participant has several stages, each of which can make or break someone’s overall experience – Line of sight from parking, dining, restrooms and grounds,” Trembath said. “Our goal is to improve every aspect and provide fans with a best-in-class experience from start to finish.”
The journey also includes different levels of engagement through digital experience (DX) touchpoints. For example, some fans use the PGA TOUR app on the go to check scores and tournament news. Other fans wanted a more engaging DX to complement the touring telecast on the second screen. Still others will be looking for stats and other content related to fantasy sports and betting.
“Partnering with Qualtrics will allow us to gain a deeper understanding of fan preferences across all of these channels and allow us to start optimizing our existing platforms for different types of fans who consume tours in different ways. experience,” Trembath said.
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Feedback front and center. What will drive the transformation? Feedback from fans. The tour has sent out a survey to ticket buyers and fan groups after the event. They also use social media listening tools. PGA TOUR will use XM products to build an overall fan profile to provide more comprehensive feedback and eventual improvements.
“One potential outcome of getting closer to our fans is that we may well discover new ways to engage fans that we haven’t considered or implemented before,” Trembath said. .
“We understand our fans are looking for a more immersive online and offline experience; they want more behind-the-scenes access and content from our world-class athletes,” explained Trembath . “The Qualtrics XM product will allow us to dig deeper and use a more systematic approach to understanding our fans’ preferences and experiences, and will allow us to connect the dots to build a more comprehensive fan base across multiple touchpoints behavior.”
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to implement Qualtrics XM. “The initial rollout will focus on identifying macro insights that can be used to improve the overall experience of fans around the world,” Trembath said.
As a second phase, PGA TOUR will integrate fan preferences into their first-party fan database, resulting in a more personalized experience.
“The Qualtrics platform will complement our Adobe digital marketing offerings and AWS data and analytics tools, improving our overall ability to learn and engage fans,” said Trembath.
Launch schedule . Several Qualtrics XM elements will be deployed this fall, including gathering feedback from websites, apps and social media.
Real-time feedback via the Qualtrics XM platform will be incorporated into some tournaments in Q1 2023. Tour will use insights to improve the instant experience. In addition, post-match feedback will be used to improve the experience for specific annual tournaments the following year.
“When we identify opportunities to improve the fan experience, we take immediate action,” Trembath said.
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The reason we care. Championship golf has many of the same touchpoints as stadium sports, even though the golf course is a more open outdoor venue. You have parking, tickets, deals, and of course the game itself. With a lot of downtime between swings, fans also have more opportunities to consume content on mobile devices. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to ensure that the experience is top-notch. Who is more authoritative than the fans themselves when it comes to how to improve the experience?
Golf fans who play the same game are seeing more technology on many high-end courses, so it’s reasonable to assume that they want the experience at play to continue to improve.
About the author
Chris Wood has over 15 years of reporting experience, B2B editor and reporter. At DMN, he served as an associate editor, providing original analysis for the growing field of marketing technology. He interviewed leaders in technology and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins to former Cisco CEO John Chambers, and Vivek Kundra, who was named America’s first federal CIO by Barack Obama. He is particularly interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the marketing world as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel discussion on “Innovation Theater” at the Fintech Inn in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused coverage on industry sectors such as Robotics Trends, The Age of Modern Breweries, and AdNation News, Wood writes for KIRKUS and writes fiction, criticism, and poetry for several leading book bloggers. He studied English at Fairfield University and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.
