Discover how Rugby Club Toulonnais completely transformed its fan development and loyalty strategies by implementing a fully integrated digital ecosystem with its Arenametrix CRM.
Rugby Club Toulonnais
The RCT is going digital with Arenametrix
Rugby Club Toulonnais, a Top 14 icon and three-time European champion, doesn't just shine on the field. In 2024, RCT launched a major strategic transformation to structure its digital ecosystem around data, with support from Arenametrix.
« CRM now plays a central role in the club's marketing policy. »
Baudouin Caron - Digital Marketing & Fan Engagement Manager at Rugby Club Toulonnais
The club's objective is clear: to get to know its fans better, refine its communication, and strengthen the long-term commitment of its community.
Why build a digital ecosystem?
In a context where fan expectations are rapidly evolving and competition for their attention is increasingly fierce, having a digital ecosystem is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. It not only allows you to get to know your audience better, but also to create personalized experiences that strengthen their attachment to the club.
For RCT, this means moving from mass communication to individual, engaging, and measurable relationships. It is a powerful lever for professionalizing fan club management and enhancing the value of each interaction.
📉 Before (typical situation):
- Data scattered across ticketing, shop, mobile app, gamification, email router, social media, etc.;
- Generic communication with little differentiation between audiences;
- Difficulties in measuring the real impact of marketing actions;
- Low agility in relationship campaigns.
The club's ecosystem:
📈 After (development with Arenametrix):
- Centralization of data on a single platform;
- Intelligent segmentation to tailor messages to each profile;
- Automation of marketing campaigns;
- Real-time performance monitoring through customized dashboards.
The RCT ecosystem with Arenametrix:
The ecosystem was built in two stages by Arenametrix with the help of the club's service providers:
1️⃣ Interconnection with various RCT service providers (Datasport, Prestashop, Bfan, institutional website, social media, etc.) in order to centralize first-party data in a single repository (Arenametrix).
2️⃣ Development of SSO to offer fans and partners a smoother, more personalized, and more intuitive experience by unifying all club services under a single login.
The benefits of this project for RCT
- Avoid duplicates and obsolete data.
- Inter-service synchronization (a very important issue in a sports organization).
- In-depth knowledge of your audiences.
- Stronger loyalty among your fan community.
- Increased engagement across all channels.
- Optimization of revenue from ticketing, merchandising, and partnerships.
An effective strategy
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📊 Data: By connecting the various digital media, the club was able to reconcile and clean up its database. This was a necessary step, involving a painful but essential reduction in the size of the database.
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🎯 Qualification: It's a long-term project, but every month, the quality and completeness of the profiles improve. A better-informed database means a stronger link with the RCT community.
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📈 Acquisition: A solid foundation + a powerful CRM = accelerated customer acquisition and retention.
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🔥 Commitment: Optimized segmentation, targeted automation, and a sustained acquisition strategy...
10%
reduction in the RCT fan base
+65%
growth in the completion rate for the title field
+37%
contacts in the database thanks to new, more targeted acquisition campaigns
+65%
of fans engaged with the club
And now, what are the future developments?
1️⃣ Optimizing SSO to significantly boost FRM-CRM strategy
« SSO will enable us to move towards the implementation of a genuine supporter account. This will be a major step forward in terms of the fan experience. Ultimately, supporters will be able to view their entire purchase history on a single interface. This will also greatly assist us with segmentation. For example, in the future, we imagine that students will be able to upload their student ID cards directly to their interface, allowing them to automatically benefit from current offers. SSO will be key to enhancing the fan experience and improving the relevance of all our marketing and communication levers. »
Baudouin Caron - Digital Marketing & Fan Engagement Manager at Rugby Club Toulonnais
2️⃣ Launch of a new loyalty program
This program would reward fans' commitment to the club in order to:
- Better engage your communities.
- Collect 360° data, including in physical points of sale.
- Link a physical purchase to a profile.
3️⃣ Data collection at physical points of sale
To date, the club conducts 70% of its merchandising activities through its physical stores, even though the e-store continues to gain market share season after season.
The implementation of such projects would then enable the club to gain a much more comprehensive insight into the behavior of its fans and refine its marketing strategy accordingly. These objectives will be achieved during the rollout of the next phase of the ambitious FRM strategy driven by the club and Arenametrix!
To summarize
Rugby Club Toulonnais shows that a well-structured digital ecosystem is a powerful lever for growth and engagement. Thanks to Arenametrix, the club is committed to modernization, marketing performance, and closer ties with its fans.
« We are proud to continue this transformation alongside an innovative player such as Arenametrix, with a clear ambition: to place our fans at the heart of our digital strategy. »
Baudouin Caron - Digital Marketing & Fan Engagement Manager at Rugby Club Toulonnais