BACKGROUND
EngageCraft are a UK based provider of digital fan engagement solutions to global sports federations, leagues, clubs & media companies. In addition to their traditional web development agency offerings, they wanted to develop their own SaaS product.
We collaborated closely with them to take their product from an idea to a fully launched product.
PROJECT VISION
EngageCraft’s vision was to create an interactive content creation platform, aimed for the sports industry, called Touch.
The vision for Touch was to allow digital and social teams of sports organisations to quickly and easily create premium, interactive fan engagement experiences. These experiences could be placed on their own site or app, allowing them to capture and own a large range of fan data.
FAN ENGAGEMENT EXPERIENCES
The first step was to explore what type of fan engagement experiences we could create. We ran workshops to brainstorm as many ideas as possible. To help us structure the ideas, we grouped them by pre-match, live-match, post-match and evergreen experiences.
We also wanted to enrich the experiences with data. For this we explore ways to include and maximise data feeds from Opta.
INITIAL CONCEPTS
Once we had a set of ideas we felt confident with, we produced some mock ups and prototypes to explore what the experiences could be like.
These started out initially as simple wireframes but because we wanted to get them in front of fans to test, we created high fidelity mobile prototypes for each experience.
VALIDATION
Once the initial concepts were at a place we were happy with, we decided to get some fan feedback.To do this we conducted a programme of qualitative and quantitive research using a questionnaire and remote interviews.
We started the survey with questions to understand how engaged football fans are. From the 145 people we interviewed, 92.4% of them engage with football content daily. We also saw data to back up our assumptions around where fans are viewing football content. 86.2% of fans are viewing content on social media, while only 33.8% view the official team website or app. Finally we saw data to back up our assumptions that club sites/apps aren’t visited regularly by fans, with monthly visits getting a 35% share of responses and only 26.2% visiting weekly.
We then showed participants a range of different engagement experience prototypes and the feedback was generally positive. 57.9% said they would engage with the experiences. 59.5% of fans said that if these experiences were on their clubs site or app, they’d be more likely to visit.
We also got fans feedback on the experiences to give us an understanding of which were more popular than others. Line Up Predictors, Player Ratings and experiences where you can win prizes were the most popular.
The results backed up our assumptions and gave us a strong steer of what our next steps should be.
ITERATION
Off the back of the user research, we narrowed down the fan experiences we wanted to focus on. This allowed us to iterate on the experiences until they were in a position that we were happy with.
The experiences we decided to build initially were Spin to Win (Sweepstake), Pre-match and live-match polls, Player Ratings, Player of the Match voting and Goal of the Tournament (Video vote).
AN EXAMPLE EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE CREATOR
The next step of the project was to design the Experience Creator. The main aim of the Experience Creator was so allow the user to create, promote and manage engaging content quickly and easily.
After numerous iterations and a couple of small pivots, we ended up with an intuitive platform which enabled experiences to be created in under 2 minutes. We were constantly testing the platform with our development partners who provided valuable feedback.
We also designed the platform so that over time it could cope with a whole range of fan experiences, as more were added to the library.
Dashboard
The Dashboard allows users to view the performance of their campaigns, view the upcoming schedule, create campaigns and manage their account.
Account Settings
We created the account settings to include various details about the organisation so that the information could be used in campaigns.
Styles
A great featured we designed was the ability to create styles. These styles included colours, typography, images and sponsor logos.
The user could create as many styles are they wanted and apply them to campaigns to speed up creation and allow for consistency.
Squad Management
The first iteration of the platform was designed for football (soccer) clubs to use. Clubs have big squads of players that need to be managed through a season. We also linked this up with an Opta data feed to automate as much as possible.
Player Profiles
Each player has their own editable profile with information such as their name, nickname, squad number, nationality. We also allowed for a range of images to be uploaded. All of this content was used to automate the creation of experiences.
Experience Creator
All experiences are created in the same way using the visual experience creator. On the left hand side of the screen is a work area where users make decisions and change settings. These changes are reflected in real-time on the right hand side of the creator.
The user has full control of how the widget looks visually and can implement and change their styles.
Components
The platform needed to be scalable so we used a component driven design approach. Repeatable actions such as player selection, fixture selection and scheduling were created as components so that they could be easily used across a range of experiences.
Player Selection
Using the player selection widget, the user could automate player selection, which would use data to inform decisions or manually choose players from the player library.
Scheduling
A huge part of Touch was to be able to easily schedule experiences so that they could run automatically on a busy match day. We simplified the scheduling and automated as much of it as possible from a match data feed.
Embedding
Once the Touch SDK was installed, embedding experiences on to the clubs website or app is simple. Users just enter a destination URL and then copy and paste the code provided into their CMS.
Campaign Dashboard
Once the experience was live, the user could then view real-time data about the campaign’s performance. Data such as number of users, conversion rates, average time spent, completion rates and demographic information was viewable on a dashboard.
Results
For experiences that had a fan input, for example a poll or rating, users could view the result of the engagement in real-time and share live results on social media.
Data Capture
If an experiences had a fan data capture element, users could view the entrants. Once the engagement had ended they could then download the data as a CSV or pick a winner.
Social Sharing
A great feature of Touch is that we designed it in a way so that it could automate the creation of social graphics. These graphics could then be automatically posted from the platform to boost fan engagement by driving more traffic.
THE OUTCOME
Touch was officially launched in 2021 and was adopted by a number of clubs and associations. Most notably a number of fan engagement experiences were used by UEFA during the Euro 2021 competition. During these campaigns we saw engagement rates of 70% and a massive 96% conversion rate.
Since launch, Touch can report that 25% of fans who see an engagement experience take part. In addition 90% of fans who start a Touch engagement experience complete it.
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