English Football side Aston Villa has launched a clever pre-launch campaign, ahead of the 2017/18 Fixture release.
The ‘Get Prepared’ campaign promises fans first access to the fixtures as soon as it is released. By connecting their calendar ahead of time using ECAL, fans will be the first to receive the new season Villa fixtures straight to their personal calendar of choice.
There is standout creative used consistently across a variety of digital channels, including website, with dedicated splash page, feature article, facebook and twitter mastheads and feature social posts.
Fans calendars will be kept up-to-date with the latest game details, media information and direct access to Buy Tickets, Match Centre, Online Shop and more throughout the season.
ECAL is proud to be the official calendar provider of the Premier League and teams including Aston Villa.
Premier League, the world’s most popular football league, has released its 2017/18 Fixture, powered by ECAL!
Football lovers across the globe are treated to a live and dynamic feed of game details, delivered straight to their digital calendar of choice.
Fans will never miss a moment with match entries automatically updated with localised TV broadcast information, official game hashtags and direct access to Buy Tickets, Livestream, Match Centre, Online Shop and more, just a click away.
Here’s some of the cool promotional strategies used by Premier League and Premier League team clients including Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United and others.
Follow your team throughout the 17/18 Season and join hundreds of thousands of football fans who rely on ECAL to stay up-to-date and connected to Premier League via their calendar!
At ECAL, we’re pleased to announce the release of our Ultimate ‘next generation’ widget display, now live and available in your admin!
Designed for even greater customisation, more marketing power and smarter data insights, this widget comes with some pretty cool, game-changing features (note that all existing widgets will be auto upgraded shortly).
Here’s a few of our favourite things!
Category Selector
Filter schedules via categories. Users can browse through Schedules across different categories, via a simple ‘Browse” drop-down list.
Geo-detection
Uncover the location of your users, right down to post / zip code level!
Google & Outlook.com OAuth
Direct API connection to the ‘master’ calendar of users, plus fast, real-time updates and communications.
Returning User Recognition
Our system instantly recognises verified ECAL users (across clients), and their preferred calendar, for a very slick, ‘one-click’ subscription process.
CSS Styling
Override the look and feel of the standard widget options, by uploading custom CSS for a totally unique, on-brand design.
Facebook Pixel ID
Track ECAL conversions from your Facebook ad campaigns.
Social Sharing
Customise the social sharing message that appears for users following subscription, to increase viral spread.
The 8th ICC Champions Trophy in England has commenced, with the eight highest ranked ODI teams competing in the tournament that is second in importance only to the World Cup.
The ICC, International Cricket’s governing body chose ECAL to provide fans with its world-leading, dynamic ‘digital calendar’ service – to drive last-minute ticket sales, data collection and fan engagement.
‘Add to Calendar’ buttons on the Champions Trophy fixtures page allow fans to sync the complete tournament schedule or schedules of their favourite team(s), straight to their personal calendar program on mobile or desktop.
Fans are advised of the Ticket Availability Status (eg: ‘sold out’, ‘selling fast’, ‘available’) for each game, plus handy alerts, TV / social broadcast info, and ‘direct links’ to Live Streaming, Match Centre, Video, Merchandise and more.
Featuring ECAL’s latest ultimate ‘next generation’ widget, the world’s most advanced calendar marketing technology provides the ICC with high levels of customisation, more marketing power and smarter data insights (like geo-detection as standard), that is set to engage cricket fans across the globe.
Future ICC tournaments, including the upcoming Women’s World Cup will also be available soon.
Check out the feature on the official ICC website here, and stay up-to-date and connected.
National Australia Bank, one of the nation’s ‘big four’ banks, partnered with ECAL to test how credit card payment reminders in the calendar stacked up against SMS reminders.
The implementation of calendar reminders saw an increase in ‘on-time’ payments by up to 12%. A significant result that helps NAB customers stay on top of their monthly credit card payments, and in reducing high costs associated with bill chasing, collections and customer support.
The Trial
A message was sent to a selection of NAB cardholders, to offer them the ability to add their monthly payment ‘reminder to calendar’.
The participation rate was a massive 15%, indicating a high consumer need for this service.
NAB subscribers received two completely personalised entries in their calendar, relating to their upcoming monthly payment:
- A ‘payment reminder’ event (2 days prior to due date); and
- A ‘payment due’ event (on the due date)
Summary of Results
Results of the trial were extremely positive
- +4% increase in ‘on-time’ payments at the due date
- +12% increase in ‘on-time’ payments 2 days after due date
- +37% ‘spike’ (the largest) in ‘on-time’ payments specifically generated by the two-day ‘payment reminder’ entry
The next stage in the implementation of the NAB’s Payment Reminders service will involve a full integration within their mobile banking app and internet banking.
Recognised as one of the world’s major international ballet companies, The Australian Ballet has launched its calendar-based community engagement, ticket sales and communications feature, powered by ECAL.
Launched in April 2017, ECAL’s ‘Add to Calendar’ enterprise technology is a key strategic initiative in the continued development of The Australian Ballet’s digital platform.
As well as being a wonderful service for season ticket holders, the feature also aims to better inform the more casual ballet enthusiasts, in order to drive stronger retail sales conversion.
The ‘Add to Calendar’ feature is found in multiple locations across australianballet.com.au. In the ‘event discovery’ phase, users can sync the entire ballet season in their favourite city directly from the master ‘Calendar’ page. At the production level, you can choose to sync your favourite productions, across your preferred cities.
In the ‘post purchase’ phase, users can also easily sync the events that they have bought tickets for, straight to calendar.
The ECAL feature is live and dynamic, and keeps users up-to-date with production details, with handy reminders and links to drive sales and engagement, including a direct link to ‘Buy Tickets’, all from their personal calendar on mobile or desktop.
ECAL’s enterprise ‘Add to Calendar’ solution enables The Australian Ballet to:
- Better service season ticket holders
- Acquire new customers
- Drive casual retail ticket sales
- Improve online engagement
- Promote interest in other ballet products and features, like Ballet TV
ECAL has extended the release of its cool new ticket alerts feature for the NBA. NBA fans who sign up to Ticketmaster alerts can select to receive their favourite NBA team ticket alerts for ‘all games’, or ‘just home games’.
NBA fans who sync the ticket alerts to their calendar receive timely ticket sale reminders, with direct links to ‘Buy Tickets’, ‘Resale Tickets’ and more.
NBA fans will never miss out on a chance to purchase a ticket again!
Who doesn’t love emojis!
These tiny, colourful collection of icons and feelings can make your events stand out in the calendar.
You can incorporate emojis into your ECAL events
For MAC
- Position the cursor in the field in which you’d like to insert the emoji (e.g. Match / Game Name)
- Press the Command, Control Keys and Space Bar to launch the characters palette
- Click on the Emoji icon in the palette you’d like to include.
On Windows
If you use Windows 8 or Windows 10, please follow the steps below.
- Activate the Touch Keyboard by clicking the keyboard icon in the lower-right corner of the taskbar.
- Click on the smiley face on the on-screen keyboard: the emoji keyboard will replace the regular alphabetical keyboard.
- Scroll through all the emojis using the left and right arrows on the left side of the keyboard, or clicking on the category buttons at the bottom of the keyboard. When you spot the right emoji, click on it and it will appear in your text field.
Published by Laurie Sullivan; MediaPost, 1st September 2016.
Organizers for COPA, the South American international men’s soccer tournament, wanted to catch the attention of soccer fans in the U.S., where the games were being held for the first time in the tourney’s 100-year history.
The global fan base also needed help tracking 32 matches across 10 cities with 16 teams, from June 3 through 26.
So COPA’s organizers used ECAL’s technology, which creates calendar-based digital marketing campaigns.
There are other calendar widgets, admits Patrick Barrett, CEO at ECAL, but he says his company provides data, targeting and tracking. “The calendar notification can completely bypass the email box,” he said.
The goal for COPA meant creating awareness and anticipation for the U.S. audience ahead of the Tournament Draw. It also was aimed at building a connected calendar audience of passionate fans, driving early and advanced ticket sales, and collecting profiled data for new fan acquisitions and conversations began in February 2016.
The campaigns required fans to opt in through a sync-to-calendar button on the brand’s Web site. The technology integrated across Facebook, Web sites, calendars, even email.
The consumer chose the tournament schedule, and the technology populated the fan’s personal calendar, alerting them when a Tournament Draw became available.
A tracking URL in each link followed the consumer through the purchase. ECAL knows how much consumers spent, when they made the purchase, and in which category it was purchased.
Before the tournament was announced, there were more than 53,000 calendar subscribers.
The campaign drove total registration of 91,470 consumers; opt-in rate of 73%; active users of 59,456; and an active user rate of 65%.
Overall, the campaign drove 17,201 click-throughs, at a 0.68% click-through rate.
The emerging channel drove $90,042.36 in sales, with an average order value of $441.38. COPA earned fan preferences in event times, ticket purchasing, merchandise, TV vs live attendance, interaction, opt-ins and more at an average CPM of $20 and cost per click of $5.
View the article here
By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer
Published July 18, 2016
eCal, an Australian developer of calendar-based digital marketing products, has struck a multiyear deal with the EPL to develop the “Premier League Digital Calendar.” The product will allow fans to sync team schedules, local broadcast details, ticketing links, and other match-related data into their digital calendars, either on desktop or mobile. The calendar-based platform then communicates to fans a variety of reminders for match times, ticket on-sale dates, last-minute seat availabilities and other related messages. The EPL deal, nearly a year in development, represents a substantial increase in scope for eCal, which works with more than 300 sports and entertainment clients, including the Patriots, Redskins, Celtics, Pacers and MLS. “This is a really important deal for us,” said eCal Founder & CEO Patrick Barrett,. “You’re obviously talking about one of the leading sports leagues in the world, and this is one that really shows how sports organizations are really beginning to budget for calendar-based marketing.” Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal is a vendor-based contract. The eCal digital calendar product will be included in the EPL’s mobile apps in time for the beginning of the ’16-17 season next month, and will be available in 14 different languages.
