With DYMATRIX, 1. FC Köln is revolutionising fan interaction. Find out how marketing automation and AI optimise communication and internal processes.
1. FC Köln has a very special connection to its fans – it is ‘noticeably different’, as the slogan of the renowned football club from North Rhine-Westphalia describes it. That is why the long-standing club has defined clear requirements for working with a marketing automation partner: under no circumstances should fans be treated like classic customers and the principle of relevance rather than intrusiveness should apply in communication.
The success story of 1. FC Köln illustrates how data-driven marketing using DYMATRIX's Customer Experience Platform leads to outstanding communication results while at the same time creating tangible added value for both the club and its fans.
1. FC Köln is the sixth largest sports club in Germany and the thirteenth largest worldwide. The club was founded on 13 February 1948 through the merger of the two football clubs Kölner BC 01 and SpVgg Sülz 07. With more than 115,000 members and more than 850 registered fan clubs, 1. FC Köln is one of the clubs with the highest number of members worldwide. 1. FC Köln is real and ‘noticeably different’, a club with its own peculiarities, rough edges and character. The club draws this authenticity from its history, its experiences, but especially from its origins and roots in Cologne and the region.
In 2015, 1. FC Köln turned to DYMATRIX in their search for a suitable partner who understands the special connection between the club and its fans and can consolidate it in terms of a successful multi-channel strategy.
The club was looking for a high-performance marketing automation and campaign management system to fundamentally improve communication with fans based on a comprehensive 360-degree view. The aim was to use personalised content and state-of-the-art AI methods to provide a unique user experience for fans and partners of 1. FC Köln at every touchpoint of the customer journey or ‘fan journey’ – while, of course, complying with the GDPR.
The plan also included improving internal processes in the 1. FC Köln CRM team. The aim was to make processes more efficient and effective by using DYMATRIX Marketing Automation and to fully exploit the possibilities of automated communication in the areas of merchandising, ticketing, member support and the football academy in order to create more productive freedom for employees.
The starting point for the project was the implementation of a customer experience platform consisting of a central customer data platform (CDP), a marketing automation solution and a customer prediction option. To this end, previously fragmented data silos were consolidated in the central customer database – in compliance with the GDPR and ePrivacy. This consolidation and the new availability also went hand in hand with an increase in data quality – the basis for subsequent automated, targeted and personalised communication.
The team then established DYMATRIX Marketing Automation as a central communication tool and created interfaces to the existing CDP and all relevant external communication channels: email, app, print and online shop. Furthermore, in cooperation with DYMATRIX's sister company ECONDA, the onsite shop personalisation was integrated by using a recommendation engine including an online profile store. The aim here was to be able to guarantee a better fan experience that is tailored to the fan. To this day, the recommendation engine is regularly supplied with relevant CRM data by DYMATRIX Marketing Automation.
In the next step, DYMATRIX developed a fan segmentation using a customer prediction process. Categorising the fan structure enables 1. FC Köln to tailor its marketing activities to suit demand.
In a further project step, DYMATRIX implemented an AI-based mechanism for memberships. This tool enables 1. FC Köln to identify loyal fans who might be interested in club membership with exclusive benefits. Currently (season 21/22), another project is being implemented: fan value. It is used to identify particularly loyal fans and to be able to prioritise them for marketing and incentive activities in a more target group-specific way.
Thanks to the introduction of the Customer Experience Platform, 1. FC Köln is now able to align its communication fully with the needs of its members and fans on the basis of artificial intelligence (AI) and to automate it in many areas. The platform makes it possible to respond to fan requests in real time and to communicate in line with demand. Outstanding successes have been achieved in the mobile area, for example, through push notifications, personalised newsletters and mailings.
Fan segmentation and other AI automatisms enable 1. FC Köln to clearly assign its fans to a characteristically similar group and to address them in a personalised way according to their respective personal preferences. The bond between the club and its fans is thus further strengthened by relevant and needs-based content. The number of new memberships rose significantly as a result of the use of AI!
With the measures taken, the traditional club has now been consistently pursuing the path of aligning communication with the wishes of its fans and supporters for several years in a row, addressing and informing them with the right personalised content, and improving the user experience at every touchpoint. In addition, the CRM team itself has noticed that the use of the Customer Experience Platform has increased productivity, creating new freedom because standard processes now run automatically, efficiently and effectively.
The stringent digital strategy and personalisation of 1. FC Köln is paying off: in e-commerce, the performance in the sale of merchandise items has increased significantly within a very short time. Since the introduction of the customer experience platform, 1. FC Köln has been able to generate significant double-digit increases in the conversion rate in the online shop and in the app every year thanks to the improved customer experience, and thus correspondingly large additional sales.