The Objective
Building hype all year round
The Dallas Mavericks are a first-class sports and entertainment organization providing memorable experiences for fans worldwide.
Since 1980, the Mavs have won three division titles, two conference championships and the 2011 NBA championships.
The Dallas Mavericks saw an opportunity to collaborate with influencers to ignite the local community and keep the Mavericks top-of-mind during both the regular season and the off-season.
The Solution
Building community with influencers
The Mavericks had two objectives they wanted to achieve:
- Generate awareness around the team's various theme nights throughout the season and off-season (i.e., Pride Night, Networking Hours, Food Tours, Children's Summer Camps).
- Create ongoing influencer-generated content (IGC) to repurpose across digital marketing initiatives and sales teams.
Identifying local influencers
To deliver on its core objectives to ignite the local community by driving awareness around the team's various theme nights, the Dallas Mavericks developed a localized influencer marketing strategy.
In doing so, the Mavericks leveraged Later's advanced search capabilities to recruit and activate micro- and macro-influencers within its target audience: millennials living in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.
Recruiting influencers with theme night passions
After identifying this initial segment influencers (i.e., Millennials living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area) the Mavericks then recruited influencers who authentically reflected the values of its various theme nights.
To do this, the Dallas Mavericks used Later's Search Filters to identify influencers with topics ranging from fitness & health, fashion, art, food & wine and LGBTQ & women's rights. These influencers were then invited to apply to the relevant campaign.
Activating influencers to promote community events
Once accepted into the campaign partnership, influencers were instructed to highlight themselves attending the event, typically through a series of Instagram Stories and one static Instagram post. Influencers were given a specific campaign hashtag and were instructed to post before, during and after the event they attended, encouraging their followers to attend one of the team's various theme nights.
For all campaigns, influencers were incentivized in the form of a VIP Maverick Experience for themselves and one guest. For the majority of campaigns, no additional financial incentive was provided.
The Results
14 successful influencer campaigns
14
Influencer Campaigns
12x
Ambassador Growth
2M
Total Impressions
5.8%
Average Engagement Rate
$23.2K
Production Savings
The Dallas Mavericks ended up running 14 influencer campaigns that led to:
- A 12x growth in their ambassador community
- 2M impressions and an average engagement rate of 5.8% on influencer content
- 202.4 hours and $23.2K saved by using Later's influencer marketing platform