Boston College

Client: Boston College
Industry: Collegiate Athletics
Goal: Increase ticket sales and attendance

A personal call from Heisman candidate quarterback sends ACC title game ticket sales soaring for the Boston College Eagles

Boston College’s upset against the Clemson Tigers sent their football team to their first ever Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) title game appearance. As the Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs at the university, Jamie DiLoreto wanted to fill the stadium with as many Eagles fans and alumni as possible. He knew he’d have to get creative as the turnaround time for ticket sales was less than two weeks.

Previously, Boston College used a post card mailing system that was often expensive and required a lot of time to reach out to the university’s fans and alumni. This year they decided to try a different marketing tactic than what they’d used in the past and implemented a calling campaign powered by Vontoo voice messaging. Vontoo allows users to quickly and easily send personalized voice messages to any landline or mobile phone in the U.S. or Canada.

A few weeks before the ACC title game, a personal message was sent to more than 115,000 season ticket holders and alumni from Matt Ryan, the team’s highly celebrated quarterback. Boston College started seeing results immediately. More than 4,000 tickets were sold and distributed for $85 and $125 each. The phones rang for days in the athletic department.

Even the fans that were not directly targeted by the voice messaging campaign commented on the well-liked message by making remarks such as, “My friend just got a call from the quarterback to buy tickets and I would also like to buy some.”

The athletic department at Boston College was very impressed by the new marketing system that they employed. Beyond the fact that they were able to earn an enormous profit from ticket sales, the athletic department valued Vontoo’s tracking methods that enabled them to see concrete results. They found it more than useful as they could see the exact number of calls that were answered, not answered, or directed to voicemail.

“The Vontoo voice recording procedure was very effective in communicating the information for the ACC Championship to our fans,” said DiLoreto. “Having a recording from Matt Ryan promoting ticket and travel packages helped us meet our needs and provided effective means for tracking delivery. Knowing that the message was delivered is a huge value.”

In Matt Ryan’s message he also requested that any recipients who could not attend the ACC title game donate their tickets to local charity and foster homes. More than 400 tickets were sold and given to charity through that single message.

DiLoreto and the athletic department at BC didn’t previously advertise that they wanted tickets to be donated to local charities and foster homes, so they knew that Vontoo was the only reason that more than 400 tickets were sold for that purpose.

“This is definitely one of the most effective and creative marketing mediums we have used to date. As a member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, I will absolutely tell members how effective Vontoo is, especially during bowl season. We look forward to continuing our use of Vontoo well into the future.”