Matteo Grigatti

Social Media, Email Marketing and Fans Engagement – A Study of the Italian Basketball League (2018)

This is the research project I submitted for the Master of Business Administration, University of Roehampton, in 2018. Months of work to understand more the impact of actual digital channels on fans' engagements.

Abstract

The impact of Social Media on the sporting world has completely changed the method of communication for both organizations and fans. In combination with email marketing campaigns, they became the first communication tools that enormously influenced the quality of fan engagement. The supporters are more than ever at the centre of teams’ marketing and communication strategies. The purpose of this study is to analyse the current situation for Italian basketball teams playing in the First League (Legabasket Serie A). The study includes the way they use social
media and email marketing to attract and inform their supporters which results in potential economic consequences such as sponsorships. The research is conducted using mainly quantitative methods, based on online statistics, and adding a qualitative facet via an online survey, several insights for future improvements were found.

The research analyses the social media activities of the 16 teams, divided into three Cluster Regions and based on geography: North, Centre, and South. The study focuses on three standalone case studies, based on detailed statistics, which are the result of the subscription of three online tools. The first one is purely quantitative and examines the teams’ followers, posts, comments, shares, and likes across the three social networks: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, over a timeframe lasting three months (from October to December 2017). The second step is still quantitative and focuses more on the followers’ activities about their favourite team, also measuring the impact of won/lost games on their emotionality. The last case study covers both quantitative and qualitative results, and is dedicated entirely to supporters and their opinions on how their favourite teams use social networks and email marketing. The inquiry involves online survey addressed to 249 fans, with 19 closed questions (and one open investigation) on how they view the future of communication in the basketball world. Overall, this research contributes to the literature with a snapshot of the current communication situation in the Italian Basketball World.

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