You already know your fans.
You know who comes for fireworks night. You know who brought the kids to Bluey Night. You know who spends big on premium seats and who buys the cheap ones. You know who shows up once a year and who always waits until the last minute.
You have all of it.
Then everyone gets the same email.
Here’s the thing: that’s not a copywriting problem. It’s not a creative problem. It’s a systems problem.
You don’t have an email problem
Picture the ice cream shop I go to. I order the same thing every time. Cookies and cream, in a cup, no toppings. They’ve got my whole purchase history. I’ve earned enough points for free scoops.
Now imagine every time I walked in, they pushed pistachio and rocky road on me instead.
I’d stop paying attention. Eventually I’d stop being a customer. Not because pistachio is bad — because it’s not for me.
That’s what a lot of sports team email looks like right now. You send one blast to the entire list, and the fan who just took photos with Bluey gets the exact same message as the 24-year-old you’re nudging toward Thirsty Thursday.
Two completely different fans. Different motivations. Different reasons to come back. One generic email.
Why teams never fix it
It’s not that teams don’t believe in personalization. Almost everyone I talk to says the same thing: “That makes sense. That would work. We’re just not there yet.”
They skip it because it feels overwhelming.
We’d have to rebuild everything. We need a different platform. We need another person. We need this tool to talk to that tool. We’ll tackle it in the off-season.
Then the off-season shows up with sales numbers and a promo calendar. Opening day gets closer. You promise you’ll get to it next year.
A few years quietly go by. You keep talking about how everything should be connected — instead of actually connecting it.
Campaigns are not systems
Marketing departments are incredible at campaigns. Star Wars Night, the fireworks show, the big giveaway. You know how to promote one thing with six emails and a meta budget.
But a campaign is one thing. It’s how you organize your work.
Fans don’t experience your team in campaigns. They experience buying a ticket, parking, grabbing a hot dog, having a great time — and then either coming back or forgetting about you.
Campaigns have deadlines. Systems have outcomes.
Campaigns end. Star Wars Night happens and it’s over. Systems keep running. Campaigns require someone to remember. Systems remember for you. Campaigns ask, “What are we promoting this weekend?” Systems ask, “What happens after someone buys?”
Those are two completely different questions.
The work begins at send
Most teams think the work ends when they hit send. Check the open rate, note the ticket sales, move on. Monday the cycle starts over.
I think that’s where the work actually begins.
After someone opens — what happens? After they click? After they buy? After they attend? After they don’t come back?
If the answer to any of those is “nothing,” your marketing stopped too soon.
The best marketing organizations don’t think about sending emails. They think about building experiences. Every interaction creates another interaction. Every purchase starts another conversation. Every attendance opens another opportunity.
That’s what a system does. It isn’t HubSpot or Iterable or Constant Contact or your ticketing platform. It’s making sure the next conversation happens whether anyone remembers to send it or not.
Listen to the full episode here.
What to do this week
- Ask one question about every key moment: after a fan opens, clicks, buys, attends, or goes quiet — what happens next?
- Find the moments where your honest answer is “nothing.” Those are your gaps.
- Pick one segment you already know — Bluey Night families, premium buyers, last-minute buyers — and map one follow-up built just for them.
- Stop measuring success by the open rate on a single blast. Start measuring what the fan does next.
- Resist the urge to fix it by sending more emails. Fix the system first.