HOW LEAP EMPOWERED STATE FARM ARENA TO ACHIEVE A 25% INCREASE IN PARKING PASSES SOLD

What Makes State Farm Arena an Iconic Atlanta Venue

Home of the Atlanta Hawks and hundreds of major performing acts each year, State Farm Arena delivers some of the most unforgettable live events in Georgia. Located in the heart of downtown Atlanta, their arena is a hot spot for high-energy sporting events, epic concerts, hilarious comedy shows, and much more.

Since first opening in 1999 as Philips Arena, the stadium has been renovated over time, and eventually renamed State Farm Arena in 2018. It can currently hold over 17,044 people, stretches over 680,000 square feet, and even has metal support beams at the venue’s iconic entrance spelling out “ATLANTA”. Inside, they offer a variety of immersive experiences, including high-end sports bars, Topgolf simulators, and luxury suites with an open, southern back porch feel. They even have a barbershop with views overlooking the court and that is open for Hawks fans during the team’s home games!

With hundreds of thousands of attendees visiting State Farm Arena every year, marketing their events is a massive undertaking. There’s why their partnership with Leap’s marketing and analytics team has been integral to their success. To learn more, we sat down with Arena Marketing Director Annabelle Bower and Customer Engagement Specialist Ella Bartlett from State Farm Arena’s marketing team to discuss how Leap has helped fuel their initiatives.

TAKING STATE FARM ARENA'S MARKETING TO NEW HEIGHTS

Before partnering with Leap to handle their email marketing, the State Farm Arena team had limited internal resources managing everything related to email, which left a lot of opportunities on the table for them. “Even something as simple as A/B testing was just something that we couldn't really do the right way,” Bower stated, “because we didn't have an efficient system or obviously an email vendor to help us with that.”

Increased Bandwidth

Hosting over 150 events a year, State Farm Arena is tasked with sending massive volumes of emails. These include announcements when tickets go on sale, “know before you go” emails to every ticket buyer before their event, and post-event surveys sent to them afterwards. Needing to more efficiently use their time and energy, the State Farm Arena team turned to Leap Event Technology as their trusted vendor to manage these campaigns. When comparing what it was like before versus after partnering with Leap, Bower emphasized, “I felt like some days, all I did was emails. But now, we have a really good strategy in place for how we promote different things, like tickets, parking, or premium seating as well.”

Working with Leap, State Farm Arena has complete control of their assets, branding, and content. We execute their vision to a T, saving them tons of time! Since each department no longer handles their own email strategy, Bower noted that their messaging is now more cohesive and streamlined. Plus, Leap is able to quickly assist them with any urgent communication needs like postponements or cancellations. “At the end of the day,” Bartlett added, “if we didn't have Leap, we would need another handful of full-time team members to get the same amount done, and probably not with as good of an attitude, partnership, and expertise.”

Trusted, Expert Consulting

Not only did State Farm Arena get lots of time back, but they also gained Leap’s marketing expertise! Related to this, Bower commented, “This is my tenth year [at State Farm Arena], so I feel like I’ve seen it all when it comes to email marketing. And I can say wholeheartedly, as far as vendors go on the email marketing side, I really feel like Leap does the most for us.”

As a passionate team with decades of experience in the live events industry, we’re able to share firsthand knowledge about what works and what doesn’t work for our clients. That’s one reason why Bower calls us their “most trusted partner.” Reinforcing Bower’s comment, Bartlett also noted that, because Leap works with so many other venues in the same space, “Anything that I ask you best practice wise, I always know that I’m going to get a good answer that makes me feel good about what we’re doing.”

In addition to executing and optimizing email campaigns, Leap’s marketing team conducts routine meetings to share their industry best practices, including for special use cases, certain major events, and upcoming holidays like Black Friday or Christmas. Because her team is gaining proven insights based on tests we’ve conducted with other clients, Bartlett remarked that “we're already starting off three steps ahead, which I love.”

“I think everyone – even the people at the Hawks that don't work directly with Leap – will work directly with me and benefit from Leap's hard work. Y'all are the best.”

Ella Bartlett

Customer Engagement Specialist for State Farm Arena

Elevating State Farm Arena’s Efforts, One Campaign at a Time

With their time freed up and our team by their side, State Farm Arena is now really honing in on their strategy. “Partnering with Leap has really helped free up our time to do more strategy.” Bower pointed out, “We've added a lot of emails that we haven't had before.” Now, let’s dive into some specific campaigns that drove incredible results for their marketing team!

Powerful A/B Testing for Parking Email Campaigns

State Farm Arena has four parking lots where attendees could pay to park; however, they had previously never done any dedicated marketing push for attendees to pre-purchase their spot. They recognized this was a huge opportunity for their team and wanted to prioritize it. To ensure no money was left on the table, State Farm Arena recruited Leap’s marketing services to build out this parking campaign.

Once the initial emails were created, the Leap Event Technology and State Farm Arena teams worked together over the course of several months to conduct widespread A/B tests across millions of emails and determine the highest performing subject lines. “We wanted to make sure we were doing it right.” said Bartlett, “So, we really leaned on [your team] to help us with this giant A/B test over the course of months and months.”

From this dedicated parking campaign, State Farm Arena saw a 25% increase in their overall parking passes sold! Furthermore, from our disciplined A/B testing, we were able to boost their open rates by 2-5% and drive a 6% boost in passes sold. What surprised Bartlett was discovering that the simplest subject lines were the most effective. “This just shows the importance of A/B testing, because sometimes your gut is wrong and something that would maybe make me click on an email isn't what the general public would click on.”

Initially, all these parking emails were manually sent until Leap’s marketing and analytics team built out an automated journey for them. Considering the size of these lists, this was a massive undertaking for Leap that ultimately took an immense amount off Bartlett’s plate. “There's a lot to be said about the A/B testing and all that stuff, but just to even get it automated and streamlined is almost the best part.” She reiterated just how significant this was, especially as State Farm Arena increased this pre-event campaign from two to three emails sent to thousands of attendees before every single show.

“Know Before You Go” Email Optimizations

Before every event, State Farm Arena sends out a “know before you go” email to each attendee with all the information they need for a seamless experience. Their team wanted to ensure these emails were the best they could be, so they utilized Leap Event Technology’s expertise to optimize these emails. “We asked Leap to pull together some best practices, other examples of good [emails] from the industry, and ‘know before you go’ emails that obviously communicate all the information that you need without making you read a novel.” Bartlett commented, “So, they put together a beautiful deck, and we collaborated to design the new ‘know before you go’ email … and the click-through rates went up!” From the new designs we built for them, we’re proud to say the click-through rates for Hawks sports game emails increased 29.4%, and emails for other events like concerts and comedy shows went up 43%, respectively.

Moreover, these new designs gave State Farm Arena new opportunities to monetize the space on their ‘know before you go’ emails. In addition to selling more tickets to upcoming events, they could promote sponsors who offered hotels nearby, ride-sharing, and other important event day services. Describing how Leap is empowering their team to confidently sell this ad space, Bower noted, “Because we have Leap, we've been able to create sellable assets through email that our global partnerships team can go out and … confidently sell because they know it's going to drive results. We really wouldn't have that opportunity if we didn't have Leap to help us.”

Streamlined Sales Process for Suite Rentals

Another opportunity that Leap empowered State Farm Arena to take full advantage of was using email to drive additional suite rental sales. While most suites were already secured for their sports season, there was tons of untapped opportunity to sell suites to their concertgoers. Prior to our email marketing initiative, attendees had to call State Farm Arena or fill out an interest form that notified their sales team to call them. Now, fans can simply purchase these suites online themselves. Bartlett noted, “It certainly saves [our sales reps] legwork ahead of time, where they used to have to be calling and chasing people down to rent a suite. Now, a lot of that is just us setting up the online point of sale that we didn't have before. But the emails power that.”

That’s where Leap comes in! Once State Farm Arena identified prospective suite buyers in their database based on household income and purchase history, our team launched a compelling email campaign to these buyers about renting a suite and remarketed to them before upcoming shows they planned to attend. “Without our emails, you kind of have to stumble upon a random page on our website to even see it.” Bartlett emphasized, “So, the emails are where basically all of the revenue comes from because there's not that many other places that customers would randomly find it.” Because these emails help drive almost all their suite rental revenue for non-sporting events, their sales team can now focus more on selling other premium add-ons like memberships.

“We have seen great results from dedicated parking marketing, helping drive our prepaid parking sales. A/B testing has allowed us to understand the most compelling call-to-actions, refine our messaging, and make better decisions.”

Tyler Reimer

Senior Manager, Parking Operations, Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena

LEAP DELIVERS RESULTS

Increase in overall parking passes sold

Click-thru rate increases in “know before you go” emails

Total emails sent in 2023

Increase in parking passes sold from A/B testing

*Data collected from State Farm Arena’s 2023 calendar year

Building The Best Fan Experience Possible

Not only have our initiatives leveled up State Farm Arena’s marketing operations, they’re also improving the event day experience for their attendees. Given the orientation of their stadium within downtown Atlanta, traffic and parking had always scored low in their post-event surveys. With the improvements we’ve since implemented to their email campaigns, Bower highlighted that “there has been an improvement there with our ‘know before you go’ communication.”

To paint a better picture of challenges their attendees previously faced, Bower explained, “For many concertgoers or showgoers, it is their first time visiting the arena, so it may be unfamiliar to them.” Now, thanks to these revamped “know before you go” emails, attendees are much more informed, have their parking squared away already, and can arrive at State Farm Arena with confidence. “That has really helped people feel more confident driving downtown, knowing that they have a guaranteed parking spot.” said Bower, “They know exactly where they're going before they leave their house.”

Why Events Trust Leap with their Marketing

Our partnership with State Farm Arena showcases the transformative power of combining our innovative marketing efforts, industry expertise, and disciplined approach with their commitment to offering the ultimate fan experience. The remarkable improvements to their parking and email engagement metrics are just the beginning. We're thrilled to keep pushing the boundaries of marketing for State Farm Arena and elevating experiences for their fans!

Interested in how Leap Event Technology can boost your marketing efforts and revolutionize your event experiences? Contact us today, and we’d love to discuss how we can make your next event the best one yet!

“This is my tenth year here, so I feel like I’ve seen it all when it comes to email marketing. And I can say wholeheartedly, as far as vendors go on the email marketing side, I really feel like Leap does the most for us that benefits us as well as [are] our most trusted partner.”

Annabelle Bower

Director of Arena Marketing for State Farm Arena