TicketingPodcast.com
TicketingPodcast.com is a podcast devoted to the unsung heroes of the spectator sports and events industries, the Ticketing Managers. We explore who they are, their well-guarded industry secrets, and how they entered the field. Beyond that, we delve into a broader ticketing realm, inviting experts from various fields to share their insights and stories. Our primary aim is to add value and highlight deserving individuals.
TicketingPodcast.com
Leveraging Customer Data: Insights from Stefan Lavén, CEO of DataTalks
Are you a ticketing manager or a sports executive eager to unlock the full potential of customer data? Then our latest episode of TicketingPodcast.com is a must-listen. We sat down with Stefan Lavén, the visionary CEO and founder of DataTalks, to delve into how customer data can revolutionise your ticketing strategy and drive revenue growth.
From Data Enthusiast to Industry Leader
Stefan Lavén's journey is rooted in a deep passion for data and its transformative power. Starting his career in various data-centric roles, Stefan eventually founded DataTalks in 2018 with a clear mission: to simplify and monetise customer data for sports organisations. His dedication and innovative approach have positioned DataTalks as a leader in the Customer Data Platform (CDP) space.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
- Understanding Customer Data: Stefan breaks down what customer data entails—covering interactions, purchases, content views, and more. He explains how these touchpoints can be harnessed to create a comprehensive engagement profile for fans.
- Monetising Data: Learn how DataTalks helps sports clubs connect disparate data points to drive actionable insights and revenue. Stefan shares a compelling case study from Greek club PAOK FC, showcasing how targeted campaigns doubled their average ticket order value.
- Strategic Utilisation of Data: Discover the importance of segmentation and personalised marketing. Stefan emphasises that understanding different fan segments allows clubs to communicate more effectively and optimise pricing strategies.
- Compliance and Security: In today's digital age, data security and compliance are paramount. Stefan discusses how DataTalks ensures GDPR compliance and builds trust with clients by providing secure, accessible data solutions.
- Future of Sports Data: Stefan’s insights into the future of sports data management highlight how new technologies can level the playing field for smaller organisations, enabling them to compete with larger entities through cost-effective, innovative solutions.
Why You Should Listen
Whether you're managing ticket sales, merchandise, or sponsorships, this episode offers invaluable insights into maximising the potential of your customer data. Stefan Lavén's expertise provides a roadmap for turning data into a powerful asset that drives growth and enhances fan engagement.
Tune in now to TicketingPodcast.com and learn how to harness the power of customer data to boost your revenue operations. Gain actionable strategies and hear success stories that illustrate the transformative impact of data-driven decision-making.
TicketingPodcast.com is powered and sponsored by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg.
For a successful ticketing campaign, few things are more important than customer data. How can we utilize this data to sell more tickets? That's what we will be discussing in this episode of TicketingPodcastcom. Stay tuned, Hello and welcome to TicketingPodcastcom, a podcast that's all about ticketing and where experts within the ticketing space share their stories and insights. In today's episode, we will be discussing an important topic, and that is customer data. With me today in the studio is Stefan Laven, ceo and founder of DataTalks. It's great to have you on the show, stefan.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:So let's start with three very short questions, where I hope we can give our listeners a short and accurate answer on each and every one of them. Are you ready for that challenge? Absolutely Great. So, first of all, what's customer data?
Speaker 2:In short, it's all the interactions and touch points that you have with a fan, a supporter or a visitor. So basically, it purchases the entrances that they make, the content viewing, the clicks and so on.
Speaker 1:Great, and what's Data Talks?
Speaker 2:So Data Talks is a revenue creator, to keep it simple, but it's a software or a platform that takes away the complexity out of data and make it accessible and useful so you can actually monetize on your data and then actually instantly see the revenue coming in.
Speaker 1:And who is Stefan Laven?
Speaker 2:That's something I ask myself every day. Well, I do believe that I'm a nice guy. I am definitely the father of two well, almost grown children, so I'm happily married to my high school sweetheart. I'm a sports and music do I dare say fanatic I'll use that word and I'm a guy who's trying to stay positive, and I think I achieve that 90% of the time.
Speaker 1:Nice, and I see you have a guitar behind you there. Stefan and our listeners don't know about that, but now they do.
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's true.
Speaker 1:So, looking at your resume on LinkedIn, I see a data in one shape or another all the way back from when you started your professional career. What made you decide that sports data was the niche you wanted to focus on when you funded the company, or was that the key focus when you started the company back in 2018?
Speaker 2:Well, that is actually a very good question. So there are a couple of aspects to it. I would say you know this as well, right, I mean starting a company. It has so many foundations to it and so many angles to it, and when we started a company like this, it was sort of scary to just focus on one single industry. Sports was definitely one of them, but we also actually looked into the retail and e-commerce industry, so we had both of them with us when we actually founded the company.
Speaker 2:But the thing with sports and that we thought that that was like a very good industry to look at and sort of get more involved in, was the fact that, well, first of all, sports has been part of my life, my whole life, so that's one thing of it. But then the team that joined early on, we had some really good insights of what was a little bit wrong or what was needed to be fixed in the industry. So we saw that that was actually a very good opportunity for us to focus on sports and on the data side of it, because that's, of course, also what we knew. So I think it was a mix of a good opportunity inside to the existing challenges that we saw in the industry. And then, of course, like passion you can't do something like this without having the passion there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a good reason to get up in the morning, isn't it? When you work with the things that people do in the weekends, I suppose?
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. So I mean, when you talk about data, I mean one thing is collecting the data right, or data that's being generated, and the other thing is, of course, you have to utilize that data, and the third thing is to make decisions based on that data right, how does this connect?
Speaker 2:the way you see it, Well, first of all, I have to look at maybe some of the typical data points that a sports organizer is actually generating and then sort of understand the benefits of it. So if you start from that end, I mean you have like the typical data, the most structured ones, like the ticketing, the merchandise, the in-stating purchases, the entrance data and so on. So that's one side of it. And then you have some other data points which are not that structured, which is a little bit harder to work with but still very important, which is like the website visits, the clicks, the viewing if you have an OTT solution the app usage, the content that they're consuming, social media and all of that.
Speaker 2:And you need to have all of this because you need to understand the full engagement of the fan. So the engagement just doesn't stop with if they're an app user or not, or if they're a ticket buyer or not. It's actually looking at across all of that, the full engagement. You want to understand that because that will also give you the opportunity to identify the gaps. Where are we not engaging with the fan? Where are we not actually selling our products? So identifying the gaps will, at the same time, also make the opportunities visible to you. So to be able to increase the average revenue from every supporter, you need to have the full engagement to identify the gaps and then also see where you have the opportunities. So that's that mix that you need to be working with.
Speaker 1:So basically you're helping these clubs connect everything together to make decisions, to drive revenue.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, that is true, and not only that, I think so. Maybe we'll get into this a little bit later, but one of the biggest challenges like if someone comes and say, okay, so listen, I want to. If they now have an idea, I want to monetize all my data, okay. So one of the biggest challenges is actually you need to be doing three things in that process. One is the one that we just mentioned is that you need to be doing three things in that process. One is the one that we just mentioned is that you need to be collecting all that data. That's the first thing. That, in a sense, involves a lot of technology and it's a pretty complex task to do it. Then the second thing, which you just mentioned, is that you need to do some analyzing of that data. What I said, you need to understand the gaps and identify the opportunities, but still you're just halfway, because then you come to the third step, which is sort of what makes it all come together, is the activations.
Speaker 2:So, you need to be going seamlessly between these three the collecting, the analyzing and the acting to make it sort of generate revenue. And it's not just doing it once, it's doing it over and over and over and over again. So it's not just doing it once, it's doing it over and over and over and over again, so it's like a continuous loop that that you're in I think that's the only way you can do.
Speaker 1:A repeatable predictability isn't that something someone said and I, uh, completely agree? So, stefan, we're both founders and that's a lovely position to be in of course, ups and downs and lots of challenges. I mean, the big difference between us is the sense I believe that the company that I'm running, we're challenging a bunch of existing competitors, big players, and I think that's lovely, right, you have everything to win. But in terms of your company, you're breaking new ground, would you say. I mean, data Talks is a sports CDP supplier, how old is this space? And I mean, how many players would you say there are? Who are your competitors? Et cetera.
Speaker 2:How does this work? So that's an interesting question. So the term CDP or customer data platform that has been around for a while as like a concept customer data platform that has been around for a while as like a concept. I think the first time that I sort of heard the term like CDP customer data platform was probably around like 2013 or 2014. So that was the first time that that concept started to evolve. But the real functional platforms that actually could bring some value was starting to emerge somewhere around 2018, basically the same time that we got started.
Speaker 2:But what we've done is that we've taken that concept and we've developed it much further to fit the needs for the sports industry. So what I thought was the other platforms they were viewing this in the wrong way. They were looking at this concept or the way to monetize data as something that's technical. But it's not. It's not a technical issue. It has very much to do with marketing and sales.
Speaker 2:So we felt that to be able to do that, you can't build a platform which was the general idea of a CDP back then was to build a platform that could sort of fit any industry. But data doesn't work that way unless you want to leave a lot on the table for the customer to do by themselves. So that was one of the reasons we said that we need to focus on a specific industry. So that's what we did. We took it a lot further, but then again, one of the things that you mentioned is that we're breaking new ground, and that's true. There is not really that much of these kind of platforms or products in the sports industry, which of course means that we sort of have to educate the market a little bit when it comes to that.
Speaker 1:But when you're traveling around meeting these clubs or speaking to them, what's the biggest challenge you face if they don't have this platform already?
Speaker 2:You mentioned education but what's the biggest challenge for you to get in the door. So, to be honest, like what we talk to our customers about, like first of all I mean it's not a technical discussion first of all, because that's not what we're about, to be honest we're actually talking to them about what their top priorities are, what they're actually trying to solve right. So when we go in, we try to find out exactly what their biggest pain point is, which is typically on the revenue side. That that's where we are, and it's typically either it has to do with the ticket sales and match day revenue, where it's the merchandise sales, or it's the sponsorships, where they feel that they could be getting more out of those agreements. So that's typically where it starts off with. That's how the sort of discussion starts, so it has very little to do with any technical aspects. But then, of course, when we come down to how we solve it, what we talk about is the formula or the way of working that you need to be sort of applying, and that's where you have to educate the market a little bit, and that's sort of where we can run into some challenges, I would say, because that also imposes that they have to change a little bit in the way that they're working. So it depends a little bit on the person on the other side that you're sort of talking to how willing are they to change, how much of a like an early adopter are they, or how much do they actually follow others? And there's no right or wrong here. I mean it's just that we're different as people. We're just different. So you need to figure that out. So it's very much of a people issue to understand what's sort of driving them to have the conversation from the beginning and then you sort of take it from there.
Speaker 2:But definitely, I mean one of the challenges is to educate the market. I mean, when you're introducing something new, you have to build the trust that educate the market. I mean, when you're introducing something new, you have to build the trust. That's just it. I mean to have a ticketing system. Of course you have to have a ticketing system. I mean it's a no brainer, but they can also vary a lot, right? I mean you're challenging the existing ones because you're smarter, you have better ways of doing it and you have new features that no one has seen before, right, so you still need to build trust that you can actually solve the foundation, which is to sell the tickets. You have to build that trust first, and it's the same for us that we have to build that trust that we can actually provide the basics first and then sort of move on from there. So I think one of the key things is building trust.
Speaker 1:I've had a lot of discussions with ticketing managers about the different stakeholders within the organization. We just actually interviewed a ticketing manager that became a CEO. Shows the importance of the ticketing solution right, and maybe you know who I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know. So who makes the decision on a CDP? Is it the ticketing manager? Do you involve the ticketing managers? Is it the commercial manager? Fd? I mean, who's the most important stakeholder you have to talk to when it comes to utilizing data?
Speaker 2:Once again, it actually depends on what the biggest pain point is who we're talking to. The way that we work is that we target the different revenue streams that they have. One is, of course, the ticket sales and the match day revenue. Second one is merchandise sales and then the third one is the sponsorship side. So, depending on where they see the biggest pain point, that sort of gives us which stakeholder to talk to. So we actually talk to a bunch of people. So sometimes we talk to the ticketing manager, because that's like where the big issue is. Sometimes it's more on the commercial side, so we talk to them.
Speaker 2:But, in the end, all of them will be involved, since we cater for those different needs, but that's over time. So I mean and we're very, very like conscious about this that you need to start really small. So that's why it's so important to talk about the biggest pain point first and you need to fix that. So if it's like, if you have an issue, you're not selling enough tickets, then you need to solve that one first right, because that's the foundation. So if you haven't solved that, it's really hard to move on.
Speaker 2:But then we talk to a lot of different people. So there's a lot of different kinds of users that uses our platform, but there's always one starting point and that's sort of where we start. And then over time we evolve. And the CEO that you were referring to they're a customer of ours and they've been a customer for five or six years now and I mean we didn't start by doing all the things that we're doing with them today. It was much, much, much smaller and then over time it sort of builds up. They understand how they can use the platform. So that's how it works. So we talked to a lot of different people, but I mean, again, it's important to understand like where's the biggest pain? That's where it starts.
Speaker 1:That's what we should try to solve for sure. When we talk about customer data. There's no getting around compliance and security right. How big of a concern are those issues with the customers you're talking to?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, it's on everybody's mind and there again, it doesn't matter who you're talking to. That always comes up, which is good. It shows that you're taking this seriously. So security always comes up and compliance always comes up. And also some of your competitors. They actually try to lock in the rights holders and the data, which is quite terrible because it actually hurts them. So some of the times it's us trying to help them get hold of the data because they need to get it, and there is usually no legal rights for any vendor to lock in the data that is generated by the rights holder or the club and then it's rightfully theirs and they should be able to do what they want with it.
Speaker 2:Now, luckily, we have vendors like yours, like TicketCode, that understands that by giving access to it and making it accessible is good for everyone. So that makes it so much easier. But sometimes having that discussion ends up that we need to help them sort of get access to the data, and we have many examples where we have providers that sort of try to lock them in and in the end they leave that vendor, go to another one. So that's definitely on everyone's mind. I mean, even if you haven't started using your data. Everyone knows that there is something there and that they need to look into it and understand the value of it. So it's something that everyone's talking about, but also there's like, when it comes to the compliance. Everyone is also very aware that once you start getting into this field, you have to be compliant and if you're not, it can really hurt you and it can hurt you severely. So you need to know what you're doing. So, no matter who you're talking to, comes up those security questions and the compliance questions.
Speaker 1:So you have a lot of data on your platform, right? Oh yeah, that's not a secret. How do you handle risk and compliance?
Speaker 2:So, first of all, when we talk about security, we have all the necessary security protocols in place, of course, and we make sure that we're doing it as high quality as possible. We have regular check-ins with security people, so we make sure that the data is secure, right. So that's one thing. But then, from the very beginning, you can't build a platform like this without knowing GDPR, for instance, that we know that we are compliant with that, so that's an issue that we keep up with all the regulations that come up. So regular check-ins with lawyers, making sure that we're compliant is, I mean, it's really important. So we do that, of course. But then the thing is with your GDPR. Everyone was seeing it as a threat. I was thinking of it as the absolute opposite. It's actually an opportunity. Because you know GDPR, it boils down to common sense. I mean it really does, Because what GDPR says is that you shouldn't talk to someone that doesn't want to talk to you.
Speaker 2:That's what it says. So you need to earn the right to talk to someone. You can't just go up to anyone like on the street and say, hi, let's have a conversation, let's go have a coffee. If they say no, they say no, you don't have that cup of coffee, right? It's the same in the digital world. So if you're like going up to them and say, hey, would you like some marketing information? And they say no, then you have to respect that.
Speaker 2:You have to earn the right to get the consent, which means that you have to provide something that's interesting for them. You can't just offer them a ticket if they're not interested in buying that ticket. You need to make sure that they're interested, because then they'll buy the ticket, they'll buy more and they'll upgrade and they'll do a lot of things. But you need to earn the right, and that's actually what GDPR says. So if you think about it that way, it's an opportunity for you to actually do something right. So it's a regulation, yes, but it's also like a way of thinking which is actually beneficial for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also the information that's popping into your email every day is much more relevant in the end. So, yeah, very good point. So, changing the topic a little bit, I saw on linkedin he recently shared an opinion piece by oliver holt where his statement, in short, is that the premier league is heading for self-destruction. That's a strong thing to say if owners continue to banish loyal fans in favor of the tourist dollar. What do you think is the sweet spot between keeping the fans happy and doing well commercially?
Speaker 2:Maybe he's right, I don't know, but anyway, it's a very good question and I think the sweet spot is not the same for everyone, first of all. So you need to find your own sweet spot, right. So, again, you need to put a little bit of time into finding that. But one of the keys to that is actually segmentation, right, which means that we were talking about GDPR. We said you need to earn the right to actually communicate with someone, and that's a little bit about what segmentation is right, understanding who your different fans are, trying to group them together. So you're saying relevant stuff to different segments. So by doing that, you will also be able to sort of understand your fan, and you will also be able to know where you can charge more and where you should charge less. Also, right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you price differently between segments and sometimes you know, for instance, that you should charge less for the ticket because you know that the fans that you get in they spend so much more when they're at the stadium. So you need to find that yourself. You need to find that sweet spot yourself and just to tweak it a little bit more. It's not necessarily that it's one sweet spot. It can be different sweet spots, depending on your different segments, right? So there's one sweet spot for the high spenders and there's another sweet spot for your very engaged but low spending fans, and so on.
Speaker 2:But the point that Oliver Holt was making, or at least the way that I choose to see it, is that you can't just be looking at the dollar. You also need to take care of the fans that you have in whole, or at least maybe you should. If you want to create a sustainable way of running a club and you want to create sustainable revenue cloud and you want to create sustainable revenue, then maybe you need to look into it, not just looking at how much money can we get out of this, but also like maybe we need to think a little bit more smartly around it.
Speaker 1:and that's where segmentation comes in and I think it makes perfect sense. Right, you want to communicate differently, and that's why I want to have data, but you know, stefan, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. So we're going to do something now that we don't normally do here in the Ticketing Podcast studio, and that is to delve into a customer case and look at how a CDP can boost sales and actually produce new revenue streams, and I think that's valuable, because then our listeners can actually just see an example of how this works. So, yeah, the floor is yours, stefan, bring it on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, and I've chosen a customer that we worked with quite a long time. It's a Greek club, pauk FC, and we talk a lot about that club for good reasons. They're very innovative, I must say, and they've sort of embraced the data-driven way of doing things in a very good way, and they're very willing to try new things as well, and often they succeed with it, which is fantastic. So I've chosen them as an example and, I think, tried to kept it in ticketing. So I've taken one example where they've managed to increase the average ticketing order, because I guess that's something that is interesting for a lot of the ones maybe listening to the podcast. So this is about PowerKfc and how they increase the average ticketing order, and in this case, what they did was we looked at the sort of returning supporters supporters and we created segments out of those, trying to understand like, who are they and what do they actually look like, and then we said, okay, so let's do a campaign on that segment for the upcoming match. So then we also created a sequence where we started the campaign I think it was like five or seven days before kickoff because we wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to send out a reminder campaign.
Speaker 2:So the ones that haven't opened the mail, or that opened but did not complete a purchase, we could target them once again. And then, once they've done that, once they had done the purchase, we also knew what we should be targeting them with an upgrade offer. So we did that Once the purchase was done. We waited a little bit and then we gave them oh this is a chance for you to upgrade. And it wasn't the same offer to everyone. It depended on what your profile looked like. So we put that in place and they've been running it for a while, and now they've actually been able to double the size of the average ticketing order. So they've gone from around 20 euros to above 40 euros no-transcript.
Speaker 1:So most of that increase in average spend comes from upgrading an already bought ticket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in this case it was.
Speaker 1:Nice, and that was upgrading seats or upgrading different packages.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. It was both upgrading seats, but also it could be upgrading to packages. It depended on what they might be interested in, depending on the purchasing history and what they just also purchased, and then we looked at so then they should be receiving these offers. It was done automatically by the platform and then sent out.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's super interesting. I mean, that's where the big opportunity lies, right With the incremental revenue that you're able to create on top of what you're already making. I mean, thank you so much for sharing that story with us, stefan, and it's interesting. Right, you mentioned a Greek club and you're sitting in Stockholm now, and I met some of your people from the UK and in Prague. So I mean, which markets do you operate in?
Speaker 2:So we're in, like, I think, 12, 15 countries, something like that. That's been one thing from the beginning. I mean we wanted to be international from day one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we've never restricted ourselves. And now this is going to sound horrible. But then the pandemic came right and that actually opened up a good opportunity for us to actually go. I mean, then, all of a sudden, there was no restriction in geography, there was no restriction in the way you were doing business. Everyone was doing it behind the screen. So it didn't matter if you were sitting in Stockholm and we had someone sitting in Germany or Italy or wherever. So that opened up an opportunity for us and then we sort of just kept on that path. But we do focus on some. So we focus a lot on the doctorate in Germany, especially Italy. We do focus on some. So we focus a lot on the docker region germany, especially italy, uk, like that's our, our focus. But then if you start a company, you don't say no to business, you don't do that. So that's why we we've spread out as well sounds great stefan.
Speaker 1:We have a tradition on this podcast and that is to ask our guests about their match day rituals. And I mean, I guess the match day itself isn't that important for you. I mean, you need to have matches to run your company, right, because that's where the data is generated. But when you are meeting a big club one day or there's something, a big milestone coming ahead, how do you start your day?
Speaker 2:We use a lot like the team analogy, like for everything we do, like the sales team, we see ourselves as strikers right, when you go into a customer, it's like a new game, it's like you're going on to the pitch. So we try to think in those terms. But when it comes to rituals, myself I try to avoid rituals. I have read somewhere I can't remember where, but it said that you should from time to time. You need to change the way you go to work or the way that you do your morning ritual or you do, because that sort of sparks more creativity in your head and that's stuck with me. So I'm trying to change my rituals and not do the same things. But of course, some things don't change. So, for instance, if I have a really important meeting, or let's say that you're going up on stage, so then I have my go-to songs that I have to listen to. That's one thing. So there's something that I can change, but otherwise I try to change a couple any genre's.
Speaker 1:You can give us a direction on here oh, so it's uh mainly uh hip-hop got. It sounds like a plan. I think many people do. Many people do so, Stefan. Another tradition we have here is to sum up a couple of key takeaways, normally two to three key takeaways from our conversation. What would you like our listeners to remember from this episode?
Speaker 2:So the things that we've been talking about today, it's don't think of it as a project, think of it as a way of working, but don't be scared about that. But you need to realize it's not a project that you're starting, it's a way of working and you need to embrace it. That's one thing. The second thing is that new technology can actually give you the exact same opportunities as the really big organizations, but to a fraction of the cost and effort. So that's also important to remember that it's an opportunity, it's an enabler if it's used in the right way. Right. And the last thing is maybe that comes with age, I don't know, but it's like don't think too much.
Speaker 2:To be honest, strategy is rarely right from the beginning. It's a good start, but you just need to get started. So think of like, okay, so this is my next step. And then you get going and then you sort of you need to solve, and you must recognize this as a founder. You don't know exactly where it'll end up. You have an idea, but then you start and then you sort of find your way forward and I think that's a good way of thinking about stuff.
Speaker 1:Most important thing is to actually start very often right. If not, you're not getting anywhere. Great, Stefan, Good summary as well. It's been a privilege to have you as our guest here on the Ticketing Podcast. If any of our listeners want to contact you, how can they reach out?
Speaker 2:So I guess the best way LinkedIn. I'm there, so just search me, throw a request and I'll answer. So I think that's the best way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds great. Thank you, Stefan, and thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to ticketingpodcastcom, which is all about ticketing, and today's guest has been Stefan Laven, ceo and founder of Data Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to our sponsor, ticketco, for powering this podcast. My name is Karl-Erik Moberg, and until next time, have a great day and, by the way, remember to subscribe on our podcast. You'll find that on LinkedIn. Thank you so much.
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