Written By: Steve Macy, NMSU Associate Athletics Director

Creating Value

One of things I am tasked with accomplishing each year is selling more football season tickets. For many years our version of selling season tickets was to send out renewals, advertise the sale of season tickets and then wait for the orders to come in. The result was an average 96% renewal rate and a 4% new account rate. Stagnant.

New processes and initiatives are paramount to successful selling. Most in the community believe that the only way to move the season ticket needle is to have a successful program. I disagree. A successful program will certainly make an impact on the number of season ticket accounts, but the baseline number of tickets can be increased through marketing.

We have done some things that have hurt us as well. We spent a lot of time, energy and money informing the people of Las Cruces that we needed their support. What we didn’t focus on was WIIFM (what’s in it for me). That is the simple buying decision that everyone makes with every buying decision. Whether it is lunch, a pencil, a car, or a TV, consumers are constantly embarking on a journey of deciding what is in it for me with each and every purchase.

Applying this principle to our selling methods has been fun. We are working to create a great game-day atmosphere (see NMSUGameday.com). We want the entertainment value to be stellar, whether the team wins or not. We will introduce bigger and more frequent fireworks displays; fly-bys (a personal favorite); better band and cheer integration; better information on the jumbotron; better food specials (first 3,000 hotdogs and ice creams sold at the first home game will be just $1); better traffic patterns in and out of the game, and of course; cowbells.

Selling anything is always a great challenge. I have always believed that you sell something by increasing its value and selling division IA (not sure I am ever going to get used to the new “Football Bowl Subdivision” designation) college athletics in Las Cruces is no different. I have been on record stating that we WILL win, and winning is a must to have a successful athletic department across the board. The elements that have been quietly put in place will have a major effect in that endeavor. But those things are outside of the realm of marketing. We can however, and will continue, to push the envelope in creating better value for our fans’ entertainment dollars.

Steve Macy is the Associate AD at NMSU and is the head of the Athletic Marketing and Promotions department. Steve will be blogging on a regular basis at bleedCrimson.net and will be discussing a myriad of topics as they relate to the NMSU athletic department.