This transcript has been lightly edited by AI
Sean: In your role as senior director of promotions and digital strategy, were you straddling the digital department and what the digital team were doing from a content engagement point of view, while also working closely with sponsorship and partnership? Rather than just providing a checklist of deliverables, were you helping shape and create content or campaigns that really fit for the partner?
Sean: Were you that conduit for the teams?
Matt: Yeah. My first few years were really about developing digital. When I arrived in St. Louis, we only had one other digital employee. We started building a staff, focusing more on storytelling, building out what we now have as our Blue No Productions video units, and establishing our business intelligence team.
Matt: We started focusing more on the analytical side and began with storytelling. Storytelling became the first part of the process for us, delivering value. Our analytics improved, engagement across social channels increased, and website traffic consistently grew.
Matt: It was then about creating inventory above and beyond what we were doing. This meant constant conversations with corporate partnerships, discussing new promotion methods with our ticket sales team, and focusing on channels across the organization. We wanted the entire organization to understand how we could leverage digital to make a stronger impact beyond the traditional approaches we'd been using for years.
Sean: So in effect you had digital functioning almost as an internal agency servicing different departments – corporate partnership, community, ticketing, season tickets. Was that the model you were running with at the Blues?
Matt: Yes, and what we've come to understand over the last few years is that technology has changed many conversations. Having centralized departments within the organization like business intelligence and our digital team that touch all aspects of our business has eliminated many of those operational silos.
Matt: Now you're not just having a conversation with the ticketing department or a corporate partnership department. Everyone has more of a seat at the table, which has allowed us to grow our business, expand our digital channels, and ultimately lead into the innovation team that we're focused on building now.
