Australian Football Club Uses Online Route Planning
March 23, 2016
How do you thank the people who support your organization through good times and bad? That was the question facing the Essendon Football Club of Melbourne, Australia. After a series of public relations challenges, the sports team wanted to show its appreciation for their loyal Australian football fans.
“We wanted to do something to say thank you for sticking by us,” explained Carla Marturano, membership operations manager for the Essendon Football Club. Their ambitious plan? Personally visit every season ticket holder (whom they call members), and hand them a thank you card.
Visiting 20,000 Households
It was no small undertaking. With about 60,000 season tickets sold the previous year, Marturano’s membership team estimated they’d need to visit 20,000 households located all over Australia. The logistics were significant. Teams of volunteers needed transportation, accommodations, and hire cars. And, most of all, they needed good driving routes to make this herculean task as efficient as possible.
“I tried Google Maps, but it can only use a few addresses at a time,” Marturano said. “So I found MyRouteOnline.com on the web. We broke down our lists by the member’s state and region from a master spreadsheet of everyone’s addresses. MyRouteOnline optimized the routes for time, enabling each team of volunteers to visit about 100 members per day.”
The Challenge of this Appreciation Campaign
Approximately 150 people accomplished this undertaking in just four months. The results? A positive, personal interaction with loyal members and fun video footage for social media and web content.
“It generated some good media coverage and sparked a social media campaign: #donsatyourdoor,” Marturano said, who is optimistic that this customer appreciation campaign will pay off as the football club’s membership renewal time approaches. “We wouldn’t have been able to do it without MyRouteOnline.”
