Green Bay Packers Score Big with Progress Sitefinity, Boosting Mobile Traffic by 55%

The Green Bay Packers are a formidable force in the National Football League, with a league-leading 13 championship seasons under their belts and a thriving fan base. However, the organization’s ability to connect with an increasingly mobile fan base couldn’t match the team’s ability on the field. The previous Packers’ mobile site offered limited content and an RSS feed-driven look and feel, falling far short of the organization’s vision for how it wanted to connect with fans across all device types.

There were several challenging requirements. All NFL sites have to adhere to the organization’s branding, advertising and retail standards. Additionally, Packers’ staff responsible for making changes to the website has a broad range of technical proficiency, so the platform supporting the mobile site has to be easy to use. Additionally, the new solution has to integrate with:

• The core Packers’ site, pulling the raw content, team data,  images and videos from the NFL’s CMS
• The Akamai content delivery network to conditionally direct appropriate traffic to the mobile site 
• A third-party API to enable geo-mapping, for the new “Find a Bar” feature
• Google DoubleClick for managing online advertising
• Omniture Analytics, for multi-channel analytics to enable a holistic, 360-degree view across all website properties 
• Optimizely, for A/B testing of improvements and testing of new feature roll outs
• Live stats, scoring and game data via Integration with NFL approved third parties 

The team wanted to launch the new site prior to the playoff season, to capitalize on its unveiling and collect analytics data to show the value of advertising to sponsors for the next season. And, because implementation began in September, this was a very aggressive timeframe—under four months. Finding the right solution was a tall order. 

The Packers enlisted the help of Americaneagle.com—a certified Telerik partner named North American Partner of the Year by Progress in 2014 and 2015—who presented Telerik® Sitefinity™ CMS as the potential solution. “As soon as we saw the demo of Sitefinity CMS, we were impressed by the tool’s potential,” said Bobber. “We didn’t need to see any other solutions, because it accommodated all our requirements.”

For example, one requirement was to create a site that runs by itself, so the web team didn’t have to enter content in multiple places. To that end, the implementation team at Americaneagle.com created logic to handle content on the mobile site properly so the Packers mobile site is never out of compliance with NFL guidelines. “It’s truly a hands-off experience,” said Bobber.

Sitefinity CMS provides a complete toolset for both technical and non-technical users, along with high levels of personalization and flexibility, a modular development approach and ease of implementation. Additionally, it’s more cost effective; its ease of management enables automatic categorization of different content feeding into the site, and its module builder and backend processes make inserting advertisements into templates much easier.

The new Packers homepage includes a rotating centerpiece window, flanked by the latest editions of the popular “Ask Vic” daily column. New features include an easy-to-view experience of the latest news, photo galleries and videos, including live-streaming press conferences, locker room interviews and game highlights.

In addition to the new features, Sitefinity CMS has opened new opportunities to connect with fans. Its popular “find a bar” feature enabling fans to locate nearby establishments airing the game was added easily to the mobile site. And, Sitefinity CMS has enabled new co-marketing opportunities. For example, the Packers held an in-stadium contest with Coca-Cola using Sitefinity CMS, in which audience members could enter their seat, section and row numbers from mobile devices for a chance to win prizes. The contest tool can be rebranded and used for other sponsors in the future.

Bobber said his team noticed results immediately. “With Sitefinity CMS, we have more hands-on control and better integration with our desktop site, because one workflow feeds both platforms,” he said. “More importantly, we now have a responsive mobile site.”

According to Bobber, one of the biggest unknowns prior to the relaunch was whether or not they’d see immediate returns. That question was quickly answered. “We’ve seen a significant portion of our audience consuming more of our content on our mobile website and mobile app, in line with industry trends,” he said.  Since the re-launch in April:

• Site visits are up 55 percent
• Pages views are up 37 percent
• Retention rates are up 18 percent

Sitefinity CMS holds tremendous potential for us to leverage our mobile site to best serve our fans,” said Bobber. “It makes it easier to incorporate fan engagement features such as polls and trivia, to make the site much more than a content outlet.” 

Long-term, Bobber and his team plan to take advantage of user-specific personalization features and analytics, and extend those capabilities across all Packers web properties. “It’s validating to see mobile continue to grow, and, thanks to Sitefinity CMS, we are well-positioned for that future growth.”