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Landing sports clients is all about the Hustle

Hustle is dialing up its efforts in sports.

The San Francisco-based startup, founded in 2014, offers mass text messages that allow for personalized responses to drive sales and raise money. The company raised $30 million this year with backing from GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Salesforce Ventures and has done work for college athletics programs such as North Carolina, Oregon and Temple as well as the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. But it wants to break into the major leagues and double its sports business by next year.

Sports now accounts for nearly 10 percent of Hustle’s business, said Adam Daigian, vice president of growth for the company. He projects that to be 20 percent next year.

The company allows clients to send mass texts to customers and then personally respond to any
replies. That contrasts with other SMS (short message service) platforms that don’t allow for back-and-forth exchanges.

Hustle’s text messaging platform has often been deployed for political campaigns.

“Over 50 percent of people say texting is their primary form of communications,” Daigian said. “Nobody picks up their phone calls.” As a result, he said, texts provide higher response rates than email and telephone.

Daigian said Hustle will offer its texting sales model head-to-head against a team or venue’s existing methods to see which works best. “When you go talk to them, the light bulbs start to go off,” he said of his meetings with college athletic directors. “Then we’ll say let’s try a pilot project.”

Hustle charges an annual fee based on the number of contacts or number of messages included. Sports and venue clients may use the platform for last-minute ticket sales, season-ticket campaigns or to market premium inventory. When a customer responds to a client’s text, the client’s staff can write back directly with information such as a link to complete a purchase or to find more details.

Shawn Lynch, senior vice president of the Charlotte Checkers, used Hustle to sell playoff tickets at the last minute earlier this year. The team, which plays at 8,600-seat Bojangles Coliseum, contacted 7,800 previous ticket buyers via text messages. Of the fans texted by the Checkers, 48.4 percent responded to the message, according to Hustle.

“People were responding immediately,” Lynch said. The team’s seven-person sales staff then continued the conversation. Lynch did not have the specific ticket sales tied to Hustle, but said the platform helped sales exceed projections.

The Checkers will expand their use of Hustle text messages next season. “Our game-day emails will be game-day texts,” Lynch said.

Sales agents can use smartphones and computers to return texts. A dashboard allows clients to monitor response rates and return texts.

Hustle has 150 employees. Its client list includes Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, Live Nation, Lyft, Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club. It won’t do work for Republican and conservative groups, citing its ties to progressives.

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