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81 - Driving Revenue and Retention with Wolf Cycle AI | Sports Marketing Machine | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: 81 - Driving Revenue and Retention with Wolf Cycle AI
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Core Theme
Wolfcycle AI offers an automated intelligence software solution for sports and entertainment partners, leveraging AI and a managed service approach to enhance sales and retention strategies, particularly in ticket sales and sponsorship outreach.
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welcome to the Sports Marketing machine
podcast I'm your host Jeremy niser today
we're talking Ai and ticket sales i'
like to introduce Courtney rice from
Wolf cycle AI Courtney welcome to the
podcast thank you for having me I'm
excited so we're going to talk some
ticket sales we're talking Ai and wolf
cycle combines the two of those so so
just give our listeners high level what
is Wolf cycle yeah so wolf cycle is an
automated intelligence software
that we provide to sports and
entertainment Partners to layer over
their their sales and retention strategy
year over year so it uses Ai and it
helps do some sales Outreach helps with
strategy kind of walk me through how
these pieces come together yeah so I
mean it starts with a virtual assistant
um you know we tell our partners you
this is the the one big piece that you
have to run with you need to name your
virtual assistant we're not going to do
that and then outside of that we we get
with our team and we build um very
strategic outbound campaigns to targeted
leads within their database um to drive
membership sales group sales premium and
partnership sales as well so you're
you're helping them extract information
out of their ticketing software so
they're giving you taking a CSV you're a
list and you're uploading it into wolf
cycle and wolf Cycle's got AI that can
understand sentiment as it does the
outbound messages am I getting this all
right yes so it does we can understand
if somebody's not interested if they
want to be funneled to a rep now what I
will say about wolf cycle is we are a
managed service and so we have humans
sitting over the top of the artificial
intelligence to just provide that
additional layer of um response
protection and so you know you can see a
lot of times with generative AI that
somebody will respond hey I'm not
interested in group tickets but I would
be interested in in a nightly sweet
rental we layer over so we don't miss
any of those opportunities to to pass
those over to a seller to try to to
convert that's pretty fascinating so AI
a lot of teams have you chat GPT for
numerous different reasons but you have
an AI where it's specifically trained to
understand natural language processing
understand sentiment understand these
things am I getting all this correctly
yeah and so we you know based off of the
templates we put together um they the
virtual assistant can denote what level
of Interest they have and if they want
schedule a meeting or if they need to be
funneled off to a somebody on the lead
leadership team or another department
and so we um we have pieces in place to
be able to detect all of that oh that's
fantastic so so how did you how how did
this all come together what's kind of
the origin story of wolf cycle yeah so
um you know our two co-founders Ryan and
Scott they've known each other for a
very long time and I don't want to do
their story just justice so they you
know they've worked on different pieces
in the industry um over the the past few
years and so I want to say about four
years ago they they made the decision to
to launch wolf cycle and what they
wanted to do was bring this intelligence
to all layers of sports and
entertainment and provide that strategy
from people that have sat in the same
chair as them before um and so really
where I got started with it when I was
at the Sacramento Kings we invested in a
a similar tool to Wolf cycle and then um
you know we the first team to do that
and Ryan was then the second team our
CEO when he was at the LA Kings was the
second team um to then move forward with
that tool um and so we used that for
years and then Ryan and Scott launched
their own ver version that was dedicated
directly to empowering efficiencies
within sports and entertainment and it's
just been crazy from there yeah that's
awesome so where you four years later uh
staff has grown how many teams are you
working with Nationwide yeah um you know
it started with two people people um
we're up to 10 but then I would say from
a partner standpoint we are sitting
around 125 and growing every week um
we're on boarding new new partners um
constantly and I we we all say it's just
that mass adoption mode of everybody
wanting to get on board yeah no doubt
about that because I I'm sure if you
think about sports teams I'm just going
to use University of Southern California
they've got football programs we
probably have a email list that's or
ticket buyers from the last three years
it's in the hundreds of thousands
because of how big the stadium is there
so so how would this work they come to
you and say okay can you help us
Courtney what would this look like what
would step one look like yeah you know I
think it's custom per partner because
what what are they trying what
initiatives and goals are they driving
towards is it a revenue play is it an
fsse play is it an attendance what what
exactly are we looking to help Phill um
and from there we will take that and
recommend what type of campaigns to do
and so you know for for a program like
USC if they want to drive new
memberships like that's that's the type
of campaign we'll pull for um and then
given the amount of teams we're working
with we help talk through what type of
audiences to go after too that where
we've seen the highest
engagement oh that's fantastic and they
can run multiple campaigns at the same
time or is it just one campaign we're
just doing group sales this month or
memberships this month how would that
look so each virtual virtual assistant
is fluid so they can be running multiple
campaigns across all verticals but it
what it really comes down to is the
amount of leads they want to hit in a
certain window and So based off of that
we kind of dial back into hey based off
of those a thousand leads for this
campaign this is what you can do for
your group sales campaign too so we just
want to make sure that the bandwidth is
managed and that we're maximizing the
Outreach yeah I I I love this and and
you're working with the team you've got
a lot of experience with sports and
you've got folks on the staff that have
worked in sports made sales calls have
done it all understands the efficiencies
and understands strategy so when you sit
down with Team you're talking through
okay what what are your goals you're
trying to hit groups you're trying to
sell more season tickets trying to do
more single games and then from there
you you uh just set things up and off it
goes right yeah and then you know I
think you know one of the things we
talked about is we a managed service and
so you know a lot of times you you do a
partnership with um a SAS company and
excuse me they say okay here it is
here's the onboarding you run with it
you've got this and then it's like okay
I need to figure out how to make this
work for my
organization we come in and we we handle
that strategy alongside them throughout
the entire partnership so we do by-
weekly status meetings with every
partner where we talk through active
campaigns Roi future campaigns we drive
all of that um and you know we have
copywriters on staff who will cultivate
that copy for them so they don't have to
sit down and be like okay I got to put
together another new membership campaign
copy with five touch points to go out
we'll cultivate that for them and let
them make edits and so we are constantly
finding ways to just drive that
initiative forward so that they don't
have to think about it so inside a wolf
cycle let's use us USC as an example so
we've got the list we've gone through
the strategy we say hey we're going to
go after
memberships the the the wolf cycle is
going to go out the software's going to
run and the AI is going to send out
emails every single day someone doesn't
respond it's going to it's going to send
a follow-up email a week later what have
you right and if someone does respond
respond the AI is going to respond on
behalf of the staff and like they're an
employee right they're just a virtual
employee yeah they they are so you know
the signature is ticket sales and
service coordinator Partnerships
coordinator now one of the things we do
is we like to manage the responses
before they're sent out so the AI Piece
Will cultivate the message and our team
layer layers over the top to approve it
before we go out because we want to make
sure that if it is a response that is
unique and needs customization that the
software isn't just driving a generic
response so we provide another layer of
automated intelligence beyond the AI
yeah love it so this makes it super
simple and from a team perspective
you're a whole lot more efficient
because I know there's some teams out
there you can't call 150 people in a day
those days are long behind us right you
can't expect your inside sales team to
do the same thing it's just it's just
simply that not that hard not that easy
right now so I love the fact that wolf
cycle can help with this and it just
does the outbound reach so let's talk a
little bit about some success
stories yeah um so I mean there's so
many ways we can go and this I think
when when people started using
technology like this they really just
looked at it from a new business season
ticket member campaign standpoint and
we've been able to find success across
every vertical that's producing revenue
or retaining their revenue um and so one
thing I will say about the software and
the strategy that we work on is you know
when you have a sales team in place like
they're going to go after the leads that
they think are the best assumptions made
or not right y our virtual assistants
don't make assumptions they're going to
do all five touch points regardless of
who the person is and then funnel the
leads over for the sales team to to
handle that low hanging fruit um but
across the board I mean we've seen
successes in every League um from you
know generating additional full season
to driving partnership
conversations um and we we uncover every
single rock that that's out there for
them love it yeah oftentimes as a ticket
sales rep I can remember just selling
group tickets it's like I don't think
this is a good lead I'm going to call
these this group instead whereas your AI
just just we're going to reach out to
everybody and let's see what happens
right yeah and you know I think even
about like interest forms if you don't
get a hold of an interest form person
within a couple touch points
most sellers are like all right I'm
going to close this out that we we've
see teams funnel those metaph fors into
us now to start that conversation to
book the meetings for the sellers so
that they can focus on the best
conversations and not have to chase
people that maybe have Hazard submitted
an interest form at some point sure sure
sure so so your AI is going after these
folks and trying to get them to be come
back and at least have more dialogue
with the sales team and see the sales
team does what he needs to do and from a
sales team perspective you would prefer
them working the warmest leads truth be
told cuz if they're spending a lot of
time doing outbound cold sales they're
not getting closer to hitting their
goals so right and and so we're we're
uncovering that for them even you know
non-renewed season ticket members is a
great example of that because they opted
out or they said they're not coming back
and they'll change their mind a couple
months later let us find those people
again for you so you can focus on people
that are ready to buy that day um and so
you know I think we've seen a lot lot of
success expanding into leads that
normally would stay with the seller to
warm them up for them first um but we we
will funnel any lead through our system
because we know that we're going to get
the the optimized amount of touch points
in so when I think low hanging fruit
often times it's fans who have been the
multiple games of season these are great
people to call sell M mini plans or
season tickets or what have you do you
see teams kind of give the single game
first name first known buyer list to
wolvy and kind of take the multi-game
buyer or is it a little bit of both it
depends how many people's on the list
yeah I think it it comes down to lead
size a bit and then also what
initiatives we're we're chasing after
but I mean we see teams funnel every
type of lead in for us with the closed
loss to no phone numbers to non-renewed
members um you know we're even doing
retention campaigns right now where
we're renewing accounts and then doing
mid-season touch points with current
members that may be at risk and so um
with having complete white space in Wolf
cycle to write whatever we want and
being being able to customize that
message it it just creates a lot of
fluidity for the teams to be able to
jump in and say Here's I want you to
touch every lead type we have so have
you saw teams go out and buy leads from
a company and then use those and dump
them or put them in the wolf cycle and
off they go yeah you we see a lot of
people do cold B2B that way um where you
know they'll they'll pull 10,000 leads
and we'll go through an evergreen B2B
Outreach just to to drive appointments
for the sellers um that has become like
a a pretty big constant with a lot of
our our teams across different leads is
just continuing that five touch Point
Outreach to every business in the you
know 45 mile radius yeah love it so uh
we we've been talking a lot on the
ticket sales side I'm sure teams could
use wolf cycle for sponsorship Outreach
right they could um and we are
definitely getting into that Cadence
with some of our teams um you know think
open category um we can Target open
categories drive for meetings we've had
a lot of success doing that um with the
complete Whit space that I mentioned we
can do custom rep Dynamic uh sentences
to you know call out um specific things
about each brand and do more of a rep
customized campaign um and you know
we've even done Jersey patch Outreach to
National Brands and so um we we play in
all spaces on the sponsorship side too
yeah that so you you could be very
creative however you want to do this you
want to do group sales Outreach one
month you want to do cold leads you you
name it you could do it for whatever it
is that you have if you've got a
database that's big enough wolf cycle
can help you here or even if you don't
you're going to go out and acquire a
list you could you could still use wolf
cycle yeah and you know I think you know
when you say say that to some of our
partners it's kind of like okay well
then where do I start yep yep yeah
that's where strategy comes in yeah it's
like almost a little bit overwhelming
they're like okay so I have this many
virtual assistants and I can do all of
this and so that's where we come in and
we'll say hey based off of what we've
heard from you all here's exactly how we
would use this and here's the lead
sources we would start with and audience
sizes and so we try to just make it a
you know a no-brainer of okay yes let's
do that let me see the copy and let's
let's go now are you comfortable talking
about success stories yeah okay what uh
what are some teams that you've worked
with that that you're okay Sharon and
they're okay you Sharon that have youed
wolf cycle and have seen some some
Revenue increases yeah um I mean it it's
been across the board I think I can talk
about you know going out to single game
buyers um and and cultivating that and
so at one of our partners I can share
this one CU we were just talking about
sponsorships at one of our partners in
the MLB we were doing Outreach for new
memberships um got through the four five
touch Point Cadence and received a
response hey I'm not interested in
ticketing um but I would be interested
in exploring a sponsorship with you all
further so with generative AI that would
just be a non-interested Cadence since
we layer over the top we caught that one
we passed it to the sponsorship team and
they were able to close a sponsorship
from that Cadence fantastic so cross
selling at its finest by a virtual
assistant um you know another thing that
we're seeing a lot of success with um
with one our NFL Partners we have taken
their premium ticket
transfers and go through just more of an
awareness campaign but driving for an
appointment with the rep to learn more
um about what they have to offer and you
know this premium transfer uh Prospect I
I believe was 2 three years old and we
were just going like you know that's a
great example of like leads of reps
never going to touch so we're going
through this five touch Point campaign
and they you know they reached out with
some interest r their hands we did the
Handover and the rep was able to close
them for five psls for like
$700,000 so um you know you think
somebody a rep maybe would get to out of
the blue at some point or a marketing
email goes out to them like one time and
they open it maybe they raised their
hand but like funneling a lead like that
through our system guarantees that
they're going to get engagement um that
they're not going to receive with the
sales team and so we were able to create
that opportunity for them um one other
example I'll show you or talk to you
about that I think has been really
successful that we're replicating that
you know doesn't have like a true Roi
like new Revenue number tied to it but
we've started to really play in the
retention space and so we went out to at
risk accounts with one of our NBA
Partners um and just did a midseason
engagement touch point to see how they
were feeling you know we got some
responses where they said hey I'm I'm
thinking about opting out and so it's
just nice to get a response like that
before the auto renewal or op out period
so that the service rep can then go and
say okay what can I do to get this
person back on board proactively and not
wait knowing that they're not attending
games or this isn't you know what I mean
and so we we helped create some
additional saves conversations for them
well in advance of their renewal period
And so that went really well they saved
some of those accounts and like we're
going to bring it back again this time
around that that's such a marvelous
point so so looking at data from sports
team I can see scan rates of seasoned
ticket holders it's a great example
where last year X season ticket holder
was at 50% this year at 30% like and I'm
like these are the people that have
warning messages you need to reach out
to to to to figure out how you can help
them use your tickets but sometimes the
ticket sales staff has got a lot going
on they're busy this is such a great way
to be able to be able to follow back up
and just say hey what's going on how can
we help you use your tickets and save
season ticket holders because and often
times that's the lifeblood for a lot of
teams for sure it it is and it it's just
nice to be able to create those
proactive conversations for them so that
they know where to focus their time um
and they're not you know sometimes
introducing a new voice into the
conversation on the service side but
while still saying hey I'm reaching out
on beh behalf of J Jeremy your your
service representative I wanted to check
in and see you know scale 1 to 10 how
are you feeling with your membership
whatever it may be um it's it's just
nice to be able to help create that that
engagement yeah and I think that is
defin one of the levers that teams
should be focusing on is how do we get
people to use their tickets because that
increases per cap sells more merch all
the all the things right and and then
the second piece is how do you turn
first known buyers single game people
who've only been to one game this year
how do you get them to multiple games
and I think that's a spot there too that
you could use it right yeah we we can
you know we even have um some click to
buy campaigns going on right now in the
NHL where you know they've released
their six game packs and their Flex
plans and so we'll take some of those
multi-game buyers and put them through a
Cadence where they can go direct
purchase instead of driving to a rep um
you know we see the most success when we
drive to a seller but what we can do is
those six game pack purchasers are then
funneled into a a campaign with us for
upsell afterwards too so we know we just
create new layers of trying to top down
sell them um but click to buy is very
popular and that's a great way to get a
single game buyer into multi-game by
creating that awareness around some of
these more flexible plans that
everybody's coming out with yep in fact
I did an email just the other day I went
to Oakland A game bought a ticket for
the family and got an email the other
day about a a a specific flexible plan
that was only available to people who
are single game buyers first known
buyers and what have you so I know
exactly what you're talking about and it
works because I looked at the plan I was
like actually this is a good deal so
yeah and people aren't aware of that you
know you even think about you know I
only want to go to games on weekends
like there's so many people that will
buy a single game ticket off the
secondary that had no idea they could
have gone and purchased a weekend
planned and had that flexibility around
their schedule and so we we as they get
through their sales cycle you know
you'll see our especially new business
initiatives going from full season to
half to manyi deflex and we'll funnel
people through all of those cadences and
so sometimes you'll see a lead that's
been in the system and they've been
through four campaigns and we get to the
flex and they're like hey I'm interested
in this and you can see this whole life
cycle of Engagement that we've gone
through where they they didn't engage
with full seasons they said not
interested in this whatever it may be um
and so we we track that too and can show
that you know this continuous engagement
from a sales cycle standpoint can can
help bring people back to the the
stadium and Arena I love the fact that
you're talking about the data side of
things so when you're sitting down and
you're doing these success calls and
these weekly or bi-weekly or every month
or however your calls are with teams and
you structure those but you sit down you
can actually show them hey this person
has shown interest and we've sent them
38 emails right so you you've got a lot
of data right yeah we do we can see um
how many emails they've received if
they've responded opens clicks all of
that now one of the things we talk to
our partners about a lot is we can only
see everything up until it's handed to a
rep right and then the ROI from the a
revenue standpoint is what we need them
to report back to us on because here's
where the Gap could exist that we
constantly try to fill is we could do a
Phenom what we think is a phenomenal
campaign we do you know 100 handovers
there 25 of them booked directly for a
meeting and we're like okay this is
great we love this and then we hear back
from the team and they're like hey they
they didn't know that they were going to
be buying a membership like we need to
be more direct about this or you know we
uh we didn't convert as many on this and
so that gives us the chance to then go
back in and alter the copy talk about
the leads that we're going after and
then give it another try and so uh
that that helps create the ROI even
better at that point and so that's what
we try to talk about on the status calls
too yeah and that's probably one of the
things to knowing your experience and
you say okay we handed over a hundred of
these we've got pretty good polished
emails the folks that we've handed over
and you've only closed 10 you could
probably know if you're working with the
good sales team or not right 100% And
and that's why we do rep onboarding we
talk through how to handle these types
of leads and like what it means when
they come over and you know our our
director of client success is from the
team side like we've all kind of been in
their shoes at different points in time
so um we we try to set them up for
success as much as possible um and you
know the nice thing about our system too
is we can variant test we can do AB
testing to see what type of copy works
best and so we have a bunch of different
levers we can pull to try to create
Revenue the end of the day just trying
to help teams sell more tickets quickly
more efficiently that's it 100% that's
it yeah
and not have them have to overthink
about it that's that's true let's only
work on the warm leads and the people
that are interested in in buying seats
and and checking out seats and doing
tours and all those things so absolutely
so a AI is something that consistently
changes and it seems like every single
day it's changing and the direction of
where AI is going and new softwares that
are coming out for for folks to be able
to use to do all kinds of different
things make life simpler wol cycle
you're in the business of helping teams
and events sell more tickets
and help teams make be more efficient so
what's next for
y'all that's like the million-dollar
question you know you can go down so
many different Avenues with that um and
so you know I think for us we're going
to look to find new ways to communicate
right Beyond email in an automated
intelligent way and so I think we'll
always offer some layer of human
intelligence over the top of our AI just
so that we can cultivate the right
message for them for some of those
oneoff cases um but you know you you see
people doing text voice right like I
think there's so many things that we
could get into and then we talked about
this a little bit before um but just how
do we get smarter with our data and who
do we partner with on those things too
and so I think anything that can help
pull that lever to drive revenue and
attendance for a partner is what we're
going to explore absolutely when when
you can tie data together with it and
you're making smart outreaches to
specific people you just get leads
faster to teams and they can make make
the phone calls and close them so I I
think that that's such a smart way to
think about it is hey we're going
towards the data route rather than
expanding this but I love the the
texting teams have been using texting
there's a several different companies
vasy and Laya there's a bunch out there
that do a really good job to help teams
but that's I think that's such a unique
way too is how do we layer this into the
texting world because teams have had
success with it right yeah they they
have and you know I I used um a texting
company called avado at my last company
and you know they're coming out they
were coming out with an AI feature and
so you know I think that the the one
thing I've learned from just a sales
enablement and efficiency standpoint is
that the less places you have your staff
in the better the more efficient they're
going to be and so if they're in wol
cycle and five other Tech partners then
they're in their Outlook and then
they're in their CRM it's like they're
going to get lost and they're day and so
I think for us the efficiency is how can
can we blend as many things into one
space where they're just living in their
Outlook and their CRM and that's where
they find the most efficiency and can
manage their day and so that's what
we're going to focus on is is just
streamlining it for them MH I think
about universities uh student support
getting students to sporting events
often times it the high level it's easy
at University of Alabama and USC and
some of these but your mid Majors even
some of your big Big East basketball
team some of those
but they feel like it's harder to get
students you could use wolf cycle on the
email side to do it but then eventually
if you evolve to the texting I think
that would work as well right yeah I I
think so because what you have a 99%
open rate with text right on their phone
all the time I always say like if you
call me I'm probably not going to answer
it but if you text me I will probably
read it within you know two minutes and
respond if I can and so it's the easiest
way you know I think one of the things
that we see a lot of our Collegiate
Partners focus on focusing on is just
engaging an Al Young alumni to come back
and be involved too and so we see a lot
of campaigns around that about building
Awareness on what you can do as a young
alumni and what type of special offers
you have as you enter the you know the
job market and the world of you know not
living in the college space anymore and
so um we see a lot of our collegiate
teams just trying to drive awareness to
this new generation that's leaving
leaving and jumping into the the
workforce and I think about this as well
the opportunity to help college and
universities kind of on the donation
side of things and the philanthropy side
such a great opportunity where they
can't hit all the alums and they can't
they're probably working with the top
hundred but all those other folks they
want to donate in some form or fashion
so I think wolf cycle is a great
opportunity to be able to help with that
yeah and I you know what I appreciate
too with the the donation campaigns
we've done is we we can build that draft
copy for them but then we want to make
sure that the brand and the that we're
going out with is authentic to that team
and so we we've tried a ton of AB
testing on the donation side to just see
what people will respond better with on
um and so you know between young alumni
donations and then just driving packages
even Olympic sports um as well like th
those are all areas that we've supported
in so whether if you're at the major
league level on the highest level or
even at the minor league level or even
even Semi-Pro and what have you wolf
Cycle's got something for you to be able
to help you sell more tickets and you've
got the strategy behind it by sitting
down with the teams and helping them
understand what's best for them 100% And
and being that managed service we're
spending that same dedicated time with
every partner regardless of what league
you're in and so um we work on a monthly
retainer um we're not a long-term
contract partner we we want to work for
your business month over month and so we
know we need to earn it um and so so
that's how we present to everybody uh
we'll take the time to make sure
whatever you need to fill we're helping
build that strategy with you love it so
if a team is interested or a university
uh whomever it may be what's the best
way to get a hold of
y'all email
me I will put your email in the show
notes. yeah look we we we turn as soon
as we receive a a request for a demo we
we'll get that scheduled Within
48 hours and we'll move as fast as you
and your team can and so you know we've
turned teams on within a week um of
having conversations because they're
ready to go legal's ready to go and we
get them up and running and so um I can
take any conversation and we have a a um
VP on our business development side that
has worked with teams all around the
country and so we would take any
conversation if somebody's interested
fantastic well Courtney I appreciate
your time love talking wolf cycle love
talking the evolution of selling more
tickets and making it easier for teams
and I'm going to put your link in the
show notes of of wolf cycle and in your
email address as well so if teams reach
out just just tell Courtney hey
appreciate you coming on the podcast and
and thanks for the the information there
and I appreciate you coming on the
podcast yeah thanks Jeremy I appreciate
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