Want to make your customers go B-A-N-A-N-A-S for your brand? Discover the winning strategy of the Savannah Bananas minor league baseball team, who have consistently sold out games for eight years and garnered a massive social media following by prioritizing delight at every interaction. Discover how to apply this winning strategy to your dealership(s) by listening to the latest episode of the NADA podcast Driving Ahead.
Savannah Bananas President and NADA Show 2024 Spotlight Series speaker Jared Orton explains how the team went from being a laughingstock to social media superstars touring the country and selling out games wherever they play.
Early on, he and his business partners at Fans First Entertainment were brutally honestly with each other. They admitted that they were never going to win the World Series, or have a broadcast deal, or have the best talent. The only thing they had was the ability to win their fans.
“If we don’t have them, then what are we here for?,” he says.
The first step, Orton says, is to start with the intended outcome in mind. To the Bananas, that meant fans leaving the stadium saying, “That’s the most fun I’ve ever had at a baseball game.” So that’s what they set out to do and they’ve been hitting it out of the park ever since, garnering 2.3 million followers on Instagram alone and were called “the greatest show in sports” by ESPN.
“[We] started with one new thing and then we tried to plus it. And then we tried to plus it. And then we tried to plus it,” he says, emphasizing that changes were incremental and not implemented all at once.
And yes, there was some push back to the changes.
“We had to bring our people together and remind them we are not changing just for the sake of change. We are changing because the market is demanding something different,” he says, adding that “they might not be saying it directly, but maybe it’s with their feet or buying patterns … or the way they respond through emails or customer inquiries.”
You can hear Orton’s enthusiasm for what he does and learn ways auto dealerships can adapt the “fans first” mentality to their business model, along with several inspirational stories, on this episode of Driving Ahead.
