A Historic Club at the Heart of a Loyal Community
Founded in 1904, Royal Charleroi Sporting Club is an institution deeply rooted in the Hainaut region. Nicknamed Les Zèbres in reference to its black-and-white colors, the club has built a lasting relationship with a community of supporters who share a strong attachment to its identity.
For RCSC, strengthening this relationship is not simply about filling the stadium on matchdays. The strategic objective is to understand how each fan’s relationship with the club develops over time: from discovering the club and attending a first match to becoming a regular visitor and, potentially, a season ticket holder.
This vision led the club to structure a genuine fan journey, enabling it to adapt its CRM communications and activations to each stage of the relationship.
The Challenge: Turning Disconnected Interactions into a Coherent Fan Journey
A fan interacts with the club through multiple touchpoints, including ticketing, the online store, access control, cashless payments, and marketing campaigns.
When this information remains distributed across separate systems, it becomes difficult to understand precisely where each person sits within their journey. Yet a first-time buyer, a regular attendee, a potential season ticket holder, and an inactive fan should not all receive the same message.
Royal Charleroi Sporting Club therefore wanted to move beyond broad, generic communications and develop a more personalized and responsive approach. The project was designed around three operational objectives:
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Welcoming and reassuring new spectators before their first visit
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Identifying sufficiently engaged fans and encouraging them to become season ticket holders
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Automatically reactivating fans whose relationship with the club was beginning to decline
By centralizing its data in Arenametrix, the club was able to bring the information available across its different systems into unified fan profiles and build segments based on actual behaviors.
The CRM Strategy: Supporting Each Fan According to Their Level of Engagement
RCSC organized its CRM strategy around three key moments in the fan lifecycle: the first match, progression toward a season ticket, and reactivation.
This approach enables the club to automatically trigger relevant communications whenever a fan enters a predefined segment, without requiring the marketing team to manually prepare a new campaign each time.
Making the First Match the Beginning of a Lasting Relationship
As soon as someone purchases their first ticket, they enter an automated onboarding journey. They receive an email bringing together all the practical information they need to prepare for their visit, including directions and parking, what to expect at the stadium, and useful matchday advice. The aim is to reduce the uncertainty that can accompany a first visit and make the experience as straightforward as possible.
The message also creates an initial opportunity to generate value beyond ticketing. A feature promoting the club store, with an invitation for the fan to get ready for their first match, complements the welcome content.
Thanks to this automated journey, RCSC can provide every new spectator with a consistent experience without increasing the operational workload of its marketing team.
However, the objective goes beyond delivering a positive first experience. The club also wants to make that first match the starting point of a more regular relationship.
Turning a First Visit into a Habit
The full value of the onboarding journey becomes clear when it helps encourage a second visit and, over time, more regular attendance.
Among the spectators who attended their first match, nearly 46% subsequently returned for one or more additional fixtures.
This result shows that a first purchase does not have to remain an isolated interaction. When it is incorporated into a structured journey, it can become the first step in a lasting relationship. As attendance frequency increases, the club can then identify the fans most likely to deepen their commitment.
Using Behavioral Segmentation to Strengthen Season Ticket Campaigns
Once the first match has passed, attendance frequency becomes a central indicator of fan engagement. For RCSC, the challenge is to identify which supporters are developing a more regular relationship with the club and may therefore be ready to take the next step.
Refining Targeting to Convert Engaged Fans More Effectively
Attendance frequency provides a particularly valuable signal. It enables the club to distinguish occasional spectators from those whose behavior suggests they may be ready to make a longer-term commitment.
The club first ran a season ticket campaign targeting all eligible contacts in its database, meaning those who had provided the necessary consent to receive marketing communications. This initial activation provided a benchmark against which a more targeted approach could be measured.
A second campaign was then sent specifically to fans who had attended at least three matches during the season. Rather than addressing a broad audience, the message targeted supporters whose attendance already demonstrated a tangible level of attachment to the club.
This more focused targeting significantly improved campaign performance. The email open rate increased from 20% to 32%, and more than one in five recipients who opened the email went on to purchase a season ticket.
The segmented campaign therefore generated a conversion rate approximately eight times higher than the broader send.
For RCSC, the value of this result extends beyond the performance of a single email. The campaign demonstrates how a straightforward behavioral data point, in this case the number of matches attended, can help the club identify the right moment to propose a more lasting form of engagement.
Activating SMS in the Final Days to Accelerate Conversion
To complement the initial sales phase, the club launched an SMS campaign during its final two days. At this stage, the objective was no longer to introduce the season ticket offer. It was to bring it back to the forefront as the deadline approached and make it easier for undecided fans to take action.
In just two days, the SMS campaign generated 271 season ticket sales and €55,600 in revenue.
At the end of this first sales phase, RCSC had approximately 3,500 season ticket holders. This single activation therefore accounted for 7.7% of the total.
The campaign illustrates the complementary role of different channels within a well-orchestrated CRM journey. Email supports consideration and presents the offer in detail, while SMS intervenes at the moment when the immediacy of the message can make the greatest difference.
Automatically Reactivating Inactive Fans
Not every supporter follows a linear journey. Some begin attending less frequently, stop making purchases, or no longer engage with the club’s communications.
For RCSC, declining activity does not necessarily mark the end of the relationship. Instead, it is a signal that should be detected early enough to create an opportunity to reconnect.
The club therefore introduced two complementary reactivation journeys.
The first targets supporters who have not purchased a ticket for more than six months. The second targets contacts who, over the same period, have neither opened nor clicked on any marketing communication.
This distinction allows the club to adapt its approach according to the nature of the disengagement. A fan may continue following club news without purchasing, while another may have stopped interacting with the club altogether.
Automatically Bringing Fans Back into the Lifecycle
To reengage these inactive contacts, RCSC created communications offering, depending on the audience, a promotional code for either the club store or a match ticket.
The journey runs automatically. As soon as a contact meets the inactivity criteria defined by the club, they enter the workflow without the marketing team having to prepare and launch a new campaign manually.
Over a six-month period, this activation generated approximately €20 in revenue per reengaged contact. Once the journey has been configured, this revenue is generated without any additional operational effort from the marketing team.
However, the value of the initiative extends beyond the sales directly attributed to the campaign. When these supporters make a new purchase or book another match, they reenter the club’s fan lifecycle.
RCSC can once again observe their behavior, enrich their profile, and continue the relationship with communications adapted to their renewed level of engagement.
The journey therefore does more than recover occasional revenue. It transforms a period of inactivity into a new opportunity to rebuild the relationship.
The Key Components of RCSC’s Fan Journey
Centralizing Fan Data: Data from the club’s different touchpoints is brought together to give the club a clearer view of each supporter and their relationship with RCSC.
Segmenting Fans According to Real Behaviors: First purchases, attendance frequency, purchase inactivity, and declining marketing engagement can be used directly to build relevant CRM segments and trigger campaigns.
Automating Key Moments: Welcome and reactivation communications are triggered automatically whenever the conditions defined by the club are met.
Coordinating Multiple Channels: Email supports the main stages of the fan journey, while SMS complements campaigns when an approaching deadline requires a more immediate message.
Supporting Both Fan Engagement and Revenue: The strategy does more than keep fans informed. It also supports attendance, season ticket sales, ticketing revenue, and purchases from the club store.
A CRM Strategy Built Around the Fan Journey
By structuring its activations around the fan lifecycle, Royal Charleroi Sporting Club has moved from a series of one-off campaigns to a continuous CRM strategy.
Every interaction can now help determine the next most relevant action: preparing a fan for their first visit, encouraging them to return, offering a season ticket to a regular attendee, or reconnecting with an inactive supporter.
Arenametrix provides the data centralization, segmentation, and automation infrastructure required to deploy this strategy.
RCSC defines how the strategy is applied in practice. The club determines the key moments, the audiences to engage, and the experience it wants to deliver throughout the fan journey.