How Social Media Drew 27,000 More People to the Races

By Casey Hibbard

In Southern California, the Del Mar Racetrack is the place to see and be seen. And now it’s the place to check into, tweet about and post via Facebook.

This Southern California institution, in business for 71 years, draws thousands every summer for horse racing, its cool bars and restaurants and a busy slate of concerts and festivals.

But like many entertainment industry venues, Del Mar attendance has dipped in recent years due to the ailing economy. But in 2010, the track added a new star to its marketing lineup – social media.

With virtually no other marketing changes, social media boosted attendance this past season by 4.2 percent.

“That’s an increase of 27,000 bodies,” said Craig Dado, senior vice president of marketing at Del Mar Racetrack. “In this economy, I’ve got to be honest, it was a little bit surprising.”

Del Mar Racetrack is the place to be in Southern California summers.

And They’re Off!

Del Mar isn’t your traditional racetrack. There, you’re just as likely to see reggae bands and wiener dog races as thoroughbreds and ladies in hats. The track packs in dozens of events during just a seven-week summer season each year.

Due to strong branding efforts, Del Mar has increasingly become more of “the scene,” even appearing on HBO’s “Entourage” and ABC’s “The Bachelor,” as well as other TV shows and major motion pictures.

Del Mar has long run frequent TV ads to alert the local community about upcoming events. When social media began emerging, the track slowly stuck a toe in to test the waters, but did so without a specific strategy initially.

“We launched a Facebook page right before the beginning of the season in 2009 to gage the public’s interest in connecting with the track via social media,” said Callan Green of Bailey Gardiner, Del Mar’s marketing partner. “The success we saw without a comprehensive strategy encouraged us. With more thought, purpose and planning, we believed we could increase traffic and meet our goals.”

With that, the track reallocated budget from traditional media to social media, but with a clear objective.

Fans enjoying “Where the Turf Meets the Surf” at the Del Mar Racetrack in Southern California.

“We needed to convert communication into track attendance,” Dado said. “At the end of the day, we really challenged my team not to just brag about how cool it is, but measure and track, reinforce the brand and then convert into bodies at the track.”

“Astronomical” Twitter Activity

Before the season began, Del Mar started promoting its social media pages on TV ads. As the season opened, the visual nature of both the track and social media provided a winning combination. In fact, the first photo posted on Facebook of famed horse Zenyatta drew more than 100 comments from both horseracing and entertainment fans.

Shots of champion thoroughbred Zenyatta drew more than 100 comments and 391 “Likes.”

Encouraged, the marketing team shared photos and videos daily of fans, celebrities, horses, jockeys and events.

But several strategic promotions unlocked the gate on the racetrack’s social media expansion. Early in the season, Del Mar hosted a “Cool As Ever” (its slogan) Tech event that drew 725 social media influencers to the track for tours and giveaways. Of course, social media influencers talk – a lot.

The second-annual Cool as Ever Tech event brought together SoCal’s web/tech scene for an interactive event.

“The amount of Twitter activity that day was astronomical,” Green said. “We were successful in driving top social media influencers to the track, while also creating a buzz online.”

Del Mar also recruited Facebook fans in the search for a select fan to appear in a “Cool As Ever” commercial. Fans submitted photos and an explanation of why they, in fact, were “Cool As Ever,” which got the Del Mar Facebook community talking. The winner, a woman, enjoyed a cameo appearance in a commercial featuring karaoke at Del Mar.

One lucky fan won a Facebook contest for a cameo in a track commercial.

The track added Foursquare to the mix as well, giving the mayor special treatment that included a tour of the winner’s circle, a table and four free tickets to the track. Plus, anyone who checked in more than three times earned tickets for being loyal fans.

In seven weeks, that led to 3,863 check-ins from 2,500 people, which is more than other major area attractions including the San Diego Zoo, San Diego Wild Animal Park and Sea World.

A tab on Facebook honors the track’s mayors, giving extra exposure to the Foursquare tie-in.

Finally, to cap the season, Del Mar dubbed the last race day “Fan Appreciation Day,” which also served to increase attendance during a historically less-attended time when school has started again. Any Facebook fan could follow a link to claim two free Clubhouse tickets. That drew 905 people, who in turn spent money on food and beverages at the track.

Twitter: Engagement Goes Both Ways

Beyond events, Del Mar monitors Twitter mentions closely for measurement and opportunities to engage. The Del Mar marketing team answers questions quickly and follows folks, encouraging them to follow back. In total, the track engaged directly with fans more than 3,000 times and falls in the 80^th percentile in Twitter influence measurement.

“It’s a customer service element to reach out to people who didn’t know we were there,” Green said. “And we made an effort to respond to anyone who talked to us.”

The track even monitors for posts about people traveling to San Diego and sends information about upcoming events.

The marketing team closely monitors tweets and responds to all @ posts.

10,900 New Friends

When the season officially closed and marketing ran the numbers, Dado had the return on investment he wanted. Del Mar made 10,900 new friends on social media channels for the season, helping drive the 4.2 percent increase in attendance. It was clear social media wasn’t just chatter.

“There were hundreds of responses for everything we put up. That moment I was like, ‘Wow, this is working. They’re not only friends or likers, but they really want to tell us how we’re doing,’” Dado said. “It was overwhelmingly positive that Del Mar looked like the place to be this summer.”

Measuring Social Media marketing

Social media programs throw off so much data that the key to measuring and managing your programs is focusing each stakeholder on the pieces of data that are relevant to helping them do their jobs. If part of your job is measuring the success of your social media marketing programs, then you need to start segmenting the stakeholder groups you’re providing that data to and tailoring the type of metrics, the volume of metrics, and the frequency of reporting you provide them.

What does that mean in practice? Well, it’s little surprise that your operational social media team — the community managers and social strategists who work with social media every day — need a huge volume and depth of data, focused primarily on digital metrics like fans, visitors, and comments. Without that reporting, they can’t do their jobs well. But as tempting as it is to show this same data to the rest of your marketing team, they simply don’t need that type (or depth, or frequency) of reporting — they mostly need data focused on brand impact, leads, and product trial. Likewise, your executives only need a moderate volume and a low frequency of data about your programs, and that data should be focused on bottom-line business results.

Why are the stakeholder groups in the order they’re in? Partly because as you go from left to right, the rank of the stakeholder gets higher — and partly because as you go from left to right, the volume and frequency of reporting goes down.

But mostly it’s because each new group needs to build on the success of the group before it. It’s true that the digital metrics that your community managers require can’t define success in social media marketing — but those metrics do tell you if those employees are doing their jobs well, and those smaller victories create the foundation your marketing team needs to succeed. Likewise, the brand and trial metrics that your marketing team should measure in social media aren’t the ultimate definition of business success in social media — but they can show that your marketers are using social media well, and without them doing so your business can’t get the value it needs from social media. Finally, the business-unit heads and C-level executives will find that the sales and other financial metrics they’re tracking are built on the back of those previous successes.

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Social Media Engagement:

Brad Kris in our NY office saw on Facebook and also had a friend share it with him and a group of his friends.

This is just one of many examples of how companies can not only monetize FB fans but also engage consumers and build a strong consumer/brand relationship.

BrandXads – providing social media marketing solutions for today’s marketer.
For more insight from BrandXads, follow us on Twitter, become a Facebook Fan, or go to www.brandxads.com.

Social Media Set to Surpass Search Engines as No. 1 Marketing Tool
FEBRUARY 14, 2011 |
1:10 PM ET |
By Ned Smith, BusinessNewsDaily Senior Writer

If the folks at Google look in their rearview mirror, they’ll see Facebook dogging them in the online marketing mix. According to a new study, social media marketing is on track to topple classic search engine marketing for the hearts and minds of consumers, and Facebook is the lead dog.

Online marketing has become a business necessity, covering everything from lead generation and public relations campaigns to search engine marketing and social media marketing. But social media marketing is making the biggest strides, according to the report prepared by DoNanza, a job search engine for freelancers.

Social media marketing projects grew 67 percent last year from 2009. And social media’s share of all projects jumped to 35 percent in 2010, compared with 29 percent the previous year.

Facebook dominated social media projects, the report found, with projects ranging from creation of fan pages to application development and segmented advertising. Twitter was No. 2, with projects to help businesses create viral marketing tools as well as customer communications and customer service.

“This shift towards social marketing indicates that businesses believe that the potential value of social marketing is higher than any other online marketing channel,” said Liran Kotzer, chief executive of DoNanza.

“I believe there are many reasons for this. First, the huge number of people spending their time on social environments such as Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, and the fact that social networks are here to stay and people are learning how to use them for business. In addition, many social media campaigns are more visible and easier to measure and understand than some of the methods used in search engine marketing.”

Another social area showing considerable growth, DoNanza said, was the daily deals and group coupon space.

“We have seen hundreds of businesses wishing to create a clone of Groupon and other, similar services, such as livingsocial.com, in their respective cities and countries,” Kotzer said.

There’s also more money in social for marketers; typical social marketing projects offered to freelancers were budgeted higher, at $1,090 on average, than search marketing, at $683.

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