ECAL’s Top Trends In Calendar concludes! ECAL’s special 4-week series has showcased the latest techniques and strategies used by the most progressive brands in calendar marketing at ECAL. Our final episode focuses on trends in Personalisation.

Remarketing & Personalisation

ECAL’s most sophisticated clients are accessing the ECAL ‘link click’ activity data on a real-time (or daily) basis to inform them of user behaviour, interest and intent. This information is used to help build user profiles and personas, as well as for effective re-marketing campaigns by clients, and for the personalisation of future communications and web journeys.

Premier League: Summer Series USA Tour

In 2023, for the first time, the Premier League held a Summer Series pre-season tournament in the USA, with six clubs taking part in matches across five East Coast cities.

ECAL was able to play our part in supporting this major event initiative with geo-specific messaging to fans located in the United States dedicated to promoting the Summer Series, directly in their personal digital calendar. Fast and actionable access to user location (at city level), preference, activity and behavioural data from ECAL, in conjunction with a host of data points from other owned and operated products of the Premier League, was used to help gauge demand and inform follow up communications to user segments promoting ticketing and attendance at the event, with great success. In fact, Premier League generated over 120k unique pre-registrations for tickets via the website.

The Summer Series @PLinUSA campaign garnered over 120 million impressions on social platforms instagram and twitter, 1 million followers across all PL platforms and featured 10 bespoke collaborations or captures with NBC.

Sophisticated brands like Premier League also have the ability to personalise the content and advertising you see when you next visit the website, based on your known profile, or in some cases a lookalike profile. For instance, a fan in the United States would likely see a banner promotion for the Summer Series. A known fan who had already synced to calendar, but not yet signed up to Fantasy Premier League would likely receive a prompt to do so.

Language & Content

Fandom is no longer limited by geography. Fans can support and follow their team from anywhere in the world, and they expect a personalised and relevant experience. For major sporting leagues and teams, finding new and better ways to engage with a global fanbase is critical to growth and a major battle ground for hearts, minds and share of wallet.

ECAL’s advanced Sync to Calendar technology engages a global audience on two fronts – by language and content.  ECAL’s smart displays have a language auto-detection feature, that detects a user’s preferred language preference and presents the entire ‘sync to calendar’ journey in over 30+ languages to suit. The events content delivered into a user’s calendar can also be localised, by language and details. Commonly, users will receive localised broadcast details for an event in their calendar to drive tune-in, and if an event is local, then the user will likely see the relevant ticketing information with direct access to purchase tickets to help drive attendance.

Check out how FC Barcelona and the LPGA use ECAL to capture, engage and service fans right across the globe through localised language and content.

Barcelona FC

FC Barcelona are big! How big? 342 million followers on social platforms big! To better service and engage their global fan base, FC Barcelona relies on ECAL to deliver it’s match information to calendar in multiple languages incl. Spanish, Catalan and English. ECAL’s advanced technology detects a user’s language preference, and provides the entire ‘sync to calendar’ flow, and their calendar events content in their preferred language.

LPGA

The LPGA, one of the world’s longest-running women’s professional sports associations is delivering localised broadcast information and ‘in-market’ ticketing information to golf fans right across the globe. Tour Events in calendar are packed with relevant tournament information and local television and / or streaming details. For local in-market audiences, fans are encouraged to ‘Catch the action up close and personal’ with a strong drive to ‘Purchase your tickets now!’ with one-click direct access to buy straight from the calendar.

ECAL’s Top Trends In Calendar continues! This special 4-week series showcases the latest techniques and strategies used by the most progressive brands in calendar marketing at ECAL. This week we focus on trends in Commericalisation.

Ticketing

Ticketing is one of ECAL’s most popular use cases, and when done well, can double the normal ticket purchase rate. Very often, when an event such as a music concert is announced, a fan is excited to attend but is simply not ready to buy. Or indeed, an event may be announced, but tickets may not yet be on sale. ECAL’s solution for ticketing allows fans to easily sync single upcoming events into their personal calendar, or their favourite events by category or type (e.g.: favourite sports, teams, music events by genre, events at a venue or in a city etc.). Dynamic updates and sophisticated logic keeps fans informed of any relevant ticket on-sale dates, special ticket alerts or offers, latest event details, ticket pricing, and even ticket status, with direct access to purchase directly from the convenience of their personal calendar.

Knowing when and where to purchase event tickets can be a stressful experience, just ask any parent of a Taylor Swift fan! ECAL’s calendar marketing software allows publishers to communicate directly with an engaged audience, and present the right information, at the right time, to drive action and response.

ECAL’s ticketing solution also extends to the post-purchase journey, adding events just bought straight into the buyer’s calendar, complete with all the latest information to make the most of their event experience, with direct access to upgrades and add-ons. Equally, ECAL’s ticketing solution is used for member groups, to inform them of important ticket access or ballot windows, and to deliver member specific information around an event, such as dress regulations,  access to menus, book dining, guest passes and so on.

Check out how Premier League giants Arsenal FC and Tottenham Hotspur FC use ECAL to engage and service their membership groups with Ticket On-Sale Dates and Ticket On-Sale Window events into the user calendar.

Arsenal: Ticket On-Sale Dates

There’s no bigger ticket in English Football than watching the Gunners at The Emirates. Each match at the venue is fully ticketed, with Arsenal providing certain Members with a designated window to enter a ballot to attend a Premier League, FA Cup or European Cup match. Knowing exactly when and how to enter the ballot is super important for Members wanting to see their team in action. Arsenal’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ service provides Red Members with the opportunity to receive these ticket on-sale events directly into their calendar, each with specific match information and direct access links to Arsenal’s ticketing site to enter a ballot and secure tickets.

Tottenham Hotspur: Ticket On-Sale Window

For Spurs ‘One Hotspur’ members, they need to know the exact windows for ticket purchase and ticket exchange, specific to their membership type. Depending on the level of membership, members have priority ticket access to upcoming Spurs fixtures, and receive ‘On-Sale Window’ events so they know exactly when and what tickets they can purchase. These entires are packed with the relevant fixture information, with purchase dates, price category and one-click direct access to purchase. This is a hugely valuable service for members, who often find it very difficult to keep track of these ticket access dates.

Latest Accomodation Deals

ECAL boasts a global partnership with online accommodation booking giant, Booking.com. Under the banner of ‘Stay ‘n Play’, the ECAL platform is able to deliver the latest accommodation deals for an upcoming event, for that date, near that venue, directly into the user’s calendar event. For professional sports teams, venues, festivals, community sports and ticketing clients particularly, this is a wonderful way to enhance the event experience and offering for fans, and to unlock an additional revenue stream from success accommodation bookings.

Stay n’ Play messaging is integrated into existing client events, and can be delivered as standalone entries, providing detailed accommodation information, recommended properties, pricing, property ratings and reviews, with a direct link to browse and book the best available stays…  from hotels, homes, apartments and other unique places to stay.

The ‘Stay ‘n Play’ offering also includes the option for clients to host embeddable booking widgets on their website, to extend the reach and impact of the accommodation booking service to site visitors. Stay ‘n Play is a free feature for Professional level clients of ECAL, and a sure-fire way to drive the passion and participation of fans, and drive new commerce.

AFC Bournemouth: Stay ‘n Play after the whistle

AFC Bournemouth fans can take their support beyond the pitch, by booking accomodation near to the venue, and taking advantage of the very best deals, directly from their calendar. Cherries match entries include ‘Stay ‘n Play’ “after the whistle” promotional messaging, with a direct action link straight to the ‘Stay ‘n Play’ booking portal, to browse all the best accommodations deals nearby.

Ticketek: Make a night of it!

Australia’s leading ticketing provider, Ticketek, delivers a dedicated, personalised ‘Stay ‘n Play’ event entry into the calendar of a ticket buyer, two weeks prior to attending the event. Ticketek encourages fans to “make a night of it”, and provides additional support, to help enhance the overall event experience. These entries are specific to the upcoming event, and list the very best accommodation deals available at the time, for this particular event, near to the venue. Fans can easily browse the range of accommodation options available, and proceed to book online via the ‘Stay ‘n Play’ branded portal, powered by Booking.com.

ECAL’s Top Trends In Calendar continues! This special 4-week series showcases the latest techniques and strategies used by the most progressive brands in calendar marketing at ECAL. This week we focus on trends in Engagement Drivers.

Pre-event Engagement

Fan engagement for sports teams and leagues not only builds an emotional tie between the team, its players and its fans, but through this engagement, fans can fast develop a meaningful, valuable and long-lasting connection to brand, from which a community of passion and purpose builds. The calendar is an important communication and support channel to capture the attention of fans, not only to alert them of when and where their team plays next, but to engage and enrich the fan experience in and around these events. For sports leagues and teams, the pre-match period is a wonderful opportunity to connect with high value, passionate fans, to support gamification initiatives, drive fans on-site, increase web traffic, increase time on-site and facilitate multi-screen in-event activity.

Check out these pre-event promotions by two of the very best brands in world football, Aston Villa FC and FC Barcelona.

Aston Villa: Match Predictor

Have your say and predict the score! English Premier League club, Aston Villa’s weekly ‘Match Predictor’ promotion asks fans to put their football nous to the test, predicting the outcome of every Villa fixture for the chance to win. Fans connected to Villa’s digital calendar service receive pre-match entries one hour prior to kick-off, prompting entry into the match day competition via the website with a direct link in-calendar.  Fans visit the site earlier, stay for longer and are intrinsically rewarded for their participation. To enter, fans must have an Aston Villa digital account, and so also works to convert fans into becoming Digital Members.

‘Predict Now’ was Aston Villa’s number one engagement link in Season 22/23 (23.5% of total clicks)

FC Barcelona: Match Day Challenge

Spanish football giant, FC Barcelona’s engagement with fans begins well before kick off with its ‘Match Day Challenge’.  Fans can take part in ‘Guess the Score’, the ‘Game Quiz’, and ‘Rate the Game’, in order to complete the challenge, accumulate points and win exclusive prizes every match day. Match entries in the calendar include a ‘Match Day Challenge’ promotional blurb and call-to-action, supporting FC Barcelona’s push to engage fans early, increase in-game activity and drive their ‘Culers’ online registrations. Are you ready for the Challenge?

Post-event Engagement

Ultimately, fans love it when their team wins! They want to re-live the highs of victory, and the calendar is an important channel to continue communication with fans following the final whistle. ECAL’s dynamic calendar service along with it’s smart business logic, can automate additional content into calendar before, during or after the event. Delivering ‘Scores & Highlights’ directly into the users’ calendar post-match is a hugely popular feature, that works to drive engagement with increased site visits and video views, with greater opportunity for conversion to your paid video subscription service.

Check out how leading sports brand Liverpool FC engages fans after the final whistle with scores and highlights.

Liverpool FC: Scores & Highlights

Liverpool fans can relive the excitement of their team’s win (or draw) thanks to ECAL’s automated ‘Scores and Highlights’ service. Liverpool’s connected calendar audience receive automated ‘ICYMI’ (in case you missed it) entries delivered the morning after the match, complete with final scores and a strong call-to-action and direct link straight to ‘LFCTV Go’, to watch the latest video highlights packages.

ECAL’s ‘Scores & Highlights’ feature is very popular with major brand clients, from the world of football, car racing and other sports and entertainment. Clients can double their normal rates of in-calendar engagement with this feature.

ECAL’s Top Trends In Calendar is here! This special 4-week series showcases the latest techniques and strategies used by the most progressive brands in calendar marketing at ECAL. This week we focus on trends in Audience Building.

Pre-Promotion Campaigns

The release of the season schedule has become a highly anticipated event for fans, and presents an important opportunity for brands. It not only keeps fans engaged during the off-season, but a well-orchestrated, well-hyped schedule release event builds excitement and anticipation for the season, and keeps the brand front of mind for longer. Fans with renewed hope and expectation for the season ahead are keen to know the schedule, and plan their lives accordingly! For brands, it is a critical opportunity to connect and engage with high value, passionate fans with the official digital calendar service, powered by ECAL.

The very best brands are taking this a step further, with a pre-promotion campaign launched up to seven (7) days prior to schedule release. Standout, takeover creative and editorial messaging encourages fans to sync their calendar now to receive the schedule first, as soon as it’s released, straight to your calendar. This strategy has proven hugely successful in growing your connected calendar audience, whilst working to create a buzz and positive virality around the upcoming schedule release. So, two days of typical promotion turns into two weeks. Check out these pre-promotion campaigns by two of the very best brands in Premier League and International Cricket Council.

Premier League: The Season Starts here!

The Season Starts here! The Premier League’s ‘Unmissable drama, Made Unmissable’ standout creative was launched with a site takeover campaign beginning four days prior to the official fixture release. This campaign included a site splash page, home page banners, ‘run of site’ banners, social media and editorial promotion. Many thousands of fans took the opportunity to connect their calendar ahead of launch day, and spread the word via the ‘social share’ feature on the ECAL success screen.

This pre-promotion campaign accounted for 35% of total new subscribers over the schedule release period.

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ICC Cricket World Cup: First Access

The ICC’s pre-promotion campaign ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup fixture release was launched five days prior, with a striking ‘run of site’ banner campaign. Despite a qualification tournament still in progress, the ICC ‘Sync to Calendar’ promotion promised fans to ‘First Access‘ to the Cricket World Cup fixtures upon official release. The 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup kicks off in India on the 5th October.

Online Member Sign-up

Single Member ID architecture is a growing trend across many leading brands, aimed at providing instant access to a range of premium features, with greater personalisation, more relevant content and deeper engagement.  Keen to convert largely anonymous fans to known and more engaged online members, brands are increasingly looking to provide premium features behind a sign up / sign in form. Your ECAL digital calendar is one popular service that can help you achieve your goal of online member conversion. Ultimately, the size of your calendar audience is likely to be less than normal, but if brands believe in the benefits of building a high value committed online membership, it’s definitely a popular feature that works well to turn the tide of users in adopting your online membership concept.

Check out how leading brand Liverpool FC ‘gate’ their users to sign up / sign in to access their ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature.

Liverpool FC: Join MyLFC

Liverpool FC launched its ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature, as part of the growing benefits of its free MyLFC online membership account. With the ability to detect logged-in and logged out users and adjust the ‘state’ of the ‘Sync to Calendar’ button, site users are prompted to ‘sign in’ or ‘sign up’ to ‘MyLFC’ to sync their favourite Liverpool fixtures and events to their personal digital calendar.

Read More >

Major sports in the UK, particularly football, are well served by ECAL, with the Premier League, The FA, and Barclays Women’s competitions all relying on the world’s leading calendar communications, marketing and data technology.

Last week it was the English Football League’s turn, with the highly anticipated release of their 2023/24 Sky Bet EFL fixtures. For Football fans right across the United Kingdom and abroad, it was a chance to plot their side’s road to promotion (or relegation 👀), lock in key derby dates and upcoming Cup ties.

The ‘Get Ready for Fixture Release Day’ pre-release campaign was pivotal in growing the EFL’s connected audience across the three Sky Bet Competitions. ECAL Founder & CEO, Patrick Barrett explains:

“The EFL’s systematic approach in pre-promoting their digital calendar service across the EFL site network proved to be a highly successful pre-emptive strategy. The ‘Get Ready for Fixture Day’ promotional campaign featured on the EFL website, and on each Club site with distinctive team creative, including mastheads, splash pages and run of site banners.  As a result, thousands of fans took the opportunity to connect their calendar ahead of launch day, so they receive the fixture first as soon as it’s released – straight into their personal calendar program.”

Once connected, ECAL’s advanced technology keeps fans up-to-date and connected always. Users receive the latest match information, with direct access to the match centre, shop, standings, social media and much more, increasing awareness, engagement and sales.

The official EFL ‘digital calendar’ service is the only way to keep up-to-date. Don’t miss a moment this season, sync your favourite EFL team fixtures here.

 

EFL ECAL

For football fans across the globe, the release of the new Premier League season fixture is a highly anticipated event. It’s a chance for fans to plan their year ahead, lock in the blockbusters, mark down the rivalries, book weekends away, and reimagine hopes and expectations. After all, the season starts here!

For ECAL, Premier League’s official ‘digital calendar’ provider, the global release to millions of passionate football fans requires a well-crafted and co-ordinated strategy with the League and teams.

The pre-release promotional window is one sure-fire way to build excitement and anticipation for the release, and to cleverly grow your calendar audience. ECAL Founder & CEO, Patrick Barrett explains:

“Premier League does a wonderful job in building the official fixture release to a much-anticipated event, and driving users to ‘sync to calendar’ to receive the fixtures first. It’s a great example for all major sports leagues and competitions.

This year, the Premier League’s ‘Unmissable drama, Made Unmissable’ standout creative was launched with a site takeover campaign beginning on Monday 12th June, ahead of the official fixture release on Thursday. Thousands of fans took the opportunity to connect their calendar ahead of launch day, and tell their friends.”

Creative executions included a dedicated website ‘splash page’ on entry, homepage masthead banner, run of site banners, editorial support, social post campaigns and direct email promotion, with the promise to “get every match delivered to your calendar”.

This resulted in hundreds of thousands of fans subscribing to the official Premier League ‘digital calendar’, with a good proportion connecting to the service in the days prior to the official fixture release, where demand then peaks.

As soon as fixtures are published, they are delivered directly into user calendar. ECAL’s highly advanced technology continues to deliver fans with a rich and dynamic fixture service ongoing. Users receive localised broadcast information across matches, and direct access to tickets, merchandise, video, social media, fantasy and more, to keep them up-to-date, connected and engaged.

The 2023/24 Premier League season kicks off on 11th August, with title holders Manchester City facing promoted Burnley.

Don’t miss a moment of the world’s most popular football league! Follow your favourite team like millions of others, and sync to calendar here.

 

ECAL has partnered with Ireland’s largest sporting organisation, The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), with the support of leading creative agency BBDO to deliver deliver Hurling and Gaelic Football matches directly into the calendar of fans all around the globe.

The partnership sees ECAL’s expansion across Europe’s major sporting leagues continue to grow, as it and the GAA looks forward to providing Irish sporting fans with the world’s best digital calendar service.

Fans of Ireland’s indigenous games of hurling and Gaelic football will receive their favourite Counties matches, delivered straight to their digital calendar of choice.  Match entries featuring game information, timely reminders and direct access to Buy Tickets and a Share fixtures with friends link.  Users can encourage friends and family fans to sync matches of their County to calendar directly via WhatsApp. An in-calendar first for an ECAL client.

Don’t miss a second of Ireland’s favourite sporting past times, sync matches to your personal calendar here!

 

Liverpool FC in partnership with ECAL has launched a smart and dynamic ‘sync to calendar’ service, as part of the growing benefits of the free MyLFC online account. This single Member ID architecture is a growing trend across many leading online brands, aimed at providing instant access to a range of premium features, with greater personalisation, more relevant content and a deeper engagement with the Club.

Encouraging online sign up and conversion to ‘MyLFC’, features like ECAL’s ‘sync to calendar’ service are wonderful tools to help find and discover new fans globally, enhance the value of a single online ID, and easily connect fans instantly to a wide range of relevant Club products, features and experiences.

With the ability to detect logged-in and logged out users and adjust the ‘state’ of the ‘Sync to Calendar’ CTA (call-to-action) button, site users are prompted to ‘sign in’ or ‘sign up’ to ‘MyLFC’ to sync their favourite Liverpool fixtures and events to their personal digital calendar. This provides a consistent member journey across the site with a single member ID, that sits at the heart of the digital future at Liverpool FC.

Subscribers to the Liverpool digital calendar service enjoy enriched, localised events content dynamically served to their personal calendar, including local TV broadcast details and direct access to LFCTV GO, Match Centre, MyLFC, LFC Store and more. Fans even receive next day scores and direct access to video highlights via LFCTV GO straight to their calendar.

The service has launched with the availability of Mens First Team, Liverpool Women’s, Under 21 and Under 18 fixtures. Future content is likely to expand to include LFCTV GO programming, Foundation Events, Anfield Experiences, Hospitality Events and more.

To sign up to the benefits of MyLFC and sync the latest Liverpool fixtures and events to calendar, visit the Club website.

The countdown to the new season has begun with the AFL releasing its 2023 fixture.

As the official calendar technology provider across the AFL, ECAL lets you sync the official team fixture and club events straight to your personal calendar.Football fans will never miss a moment of the action with match details updated dynamically throughout the season, with direct access to Latest Video, AFL On Demand, Latest News, AFL StatsPro and TV Broadcast info at your fingertips.

The 2023 AFL Premiership season kicks off with the traditional clash between Richmond and Carlton on Thursday 16th March. Geelong will defend their premiership crown against a rejuvenated Magpies outfit on the Friday Night.

Footy is not far away, so be prepared and sync your team fixture to calendar now. Thanks to ECAL

Football fans, it’s here! The Qatar World Cup ‘digital calendar’ service is the only way to keep up-to-date with all the action.

ECAL has partnered with leading agency Immediate Media, with the support of global sports betting brand bet365, to deliver World Cup fixtures directly into the calendar of football fans all around the globe.

The WC ‘digital calendar’ is dynamic, and syncs all the latest match information, straight to your personal digital calendar, so you never miss a moment. Match details are updated dynamically throughout the tournament, complete with localised broadcast information and direct access to bet365’s betting specials.

And check this out! Once the final whistle has been blown, match entries will update to include the scores. How good is that!

Don’t miss any of the live action, add your favourite teams fixtures to your personal calendar here.