A NEW WAY TO REACH FANS
The Vikings digital and social departments are always on the hunt for new ways to reach various audiences. No matter if you're a diehard fan who wants to consume as much information as possible or a low-key fan who just wants top news, push notifications allow for the user to experience a direct link to our team and explore areas of our mobile app that they may not have previously known about.
In 2020, the Minnesota Vikings digital team knew that without fans in the stadium, engagement on our mobile platforms would be critical. Once in the app, the user is connected to all types of content and unique experiences such as Vikings draft class, trivia, poll questions and navigation during events. To make sure the app was reaching new audiences, the Vikings expanded its best-in-class push notification system using Rover Experiences that brought fans into the action on gameday and during tentpole events.
CREATIVE PROCESS
The Vikings build all push notifications through the Rover platform. “Experiences” are custom made screens filled with graphics, videos, photos, buttons and other pieces of content to highlight large campaigns or weekly initiatives to promote.
CHECK OUT THE EXPERIENCE
The digital team works closely with the Vikings creative design team to make the template for each push notification that has an "Experience." An Experience can include things like game previews, NFL draft, training camp guides, and more. Working in partnership with the design teams helps achieve a consistent overall brand presence.
2020 NFL DRAFT
During the 2020 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings received an unprecedented 15 total picks, so having a Rover Experience that could correctly showcase this to users was key to give them info about each player that was drafted.
Each player profile contained a bio, player photo, customized trivia question, plus navigation to move around to the other picks.
*Optimized for mobile- best experienced on your phone
2020 SCHEDULE RELEASE
The schedule release is a pivotal moment every season. In addition to widely distributing on various platforms, the Vikings digital team used push notifications to alert fans of the new schedule, as well as provide news articles, links to the team store and tickets.
*Optimized for mobile- best experienced on your phone
TRAINING CAMP VIRTUAL GUIDE
With Vikings Training Camp going fully virtual in 2020, it was more important than ever to bring the daily events of camp to people at home.
The Vikings created an immersive daily push notification that gave fans insight to daily practice observations, press conferences, photos and notable social media posts.
*Optimized for mobile- best experienced on your phone
STATE OF THE VIKINGS
One of the highest performing push notifications for the season was State of The Vikings. It transformed a lengthy article into an easily digestible content piece for users to scroll through and see the latest updates on offense, defense and special teams as training camp wrapped up.
*Optimized for mobile- best experienced on your phone
GAMEDAY VIRTUAL GUIDE
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Bank Stadium did not allow fans in the stadium for any of the 2020-2021 season.
In order to make sure users felt like they were still part of gameday, the Vikings created custom push notifications for every home game that included special gameday offers and inside access to the team, while also staying up-to-date on the latest news.
*Optimized for mobile- best experienced on your phone
APP WELCOME
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SUCCESSES
- Increased open rate on push notifications by fans being able to subscribe/opt in for certain content segments
- Creating new experiences in a fan-less world by producing NFL Draft and Training Camp immersive experiences.
- Concluding the 2020 NFL Draft weekend, the Vikings sent 15 pushes related to the draft and saw almost double the open rate from the 2019 Draft weekend with the same amount of pushes sent. Over 93,000 opened pushes related to the draft in 2020 compared to the 49,000 opened in 2019.
- “Welcome to the App” Experience was the first of its kind launched in 2020 to help users best navigate the app. The Experience was adjusted several times throughout the year to best cater to when a fan was downloading the app (i.e. offseason vs in-season). The pushed reached over 59,000 devices who downloaded the Vikings App during the period these push notifications were running.
- The Vikings saw the highest session time in the “State of the Vikings” Rover Experience averaging 2 minutes and 33 seconds per open that was launched right before the 2020 regular season kicked off.