Calling All Baseball Fans . . .
Red Sox Triple-A affiliate finds unique way to market to their fans using Vontoo’s voice
messaging system

Client: Pawtucket Red Sox
Goal: Season and Single Game Ticket Sales

With more than 600,000 fans, the Pawtucket Red Sox Baseball Club needed a unique and personal way to reach out to their loyal supporters to boost home game attendance last season. As the general sales manager for the Boston Red Sox Triple-A affiliate, Augusto “Cookie” Rojas, Jr. wanted to fill the seats of the stadium and get fans excited about the team.

Filling McCoy stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island with Red Sox fans can greatly influence the outcome of any ball game. It’s up to Rojas to ensure that both the seats and sales figures are consistently at the top of their league.

“After hearing how successful the Memphis Grizzles were with a Vontoo calling campaign, I knew we had to try out this unique communication tool to encourage more fans to come to the games,” said Rojas. “With how affordable and easy to use Vontoo is, we had nothing to lose, but had a lot to gain.”

After using a variety of marketing efforts, such as email, radio and television, Rojas was eager to employ a different medium. Using Vontoo’s web-based voice messaging system, Rojas was able to easily upload the database of customers within 50 miles of the stadium who had purchased tickets in the previous 2006 season, but not yet for 2007, and immediately send out the calls.

The campaigns featured voice messages from Steve Hyder, who is the radio play-by-play voice of the Pawtucket Red Sox, and outfielder Brandon Moss. Both Hyder and Moss recorded personal messages to be sent directly to their fan database.

“Vontoo was so simple to use,” said Rojas. “We actually tested out the calls in our office to verify that they would work successfully. Within seconds of sending out the voice message, our employees’ phones were ringing. Sending out the calls was instantaneous and we were immediately impressed.”

Rojas was also amazed with Vontoo’s tracking abilities. Once all calls have been sent out, Vontoo tracks which messages were received live or recorded on voicemail. Vontoo also verifies the number of calls sent and received and informs the user of which recipients opted-out of receiving future calls. All of this information was available to Rojas real-time through Vontoo’s website.

“I would definitely recommend Vontoo as an effective marketing medium,” said Rojas. “Fans love receiving the personal phone calls from our local celebrities. The human voice is definitely a powerful communication tool.”

Download PDF Version of Success Story