Social media and mobile platform MePlease has announced a partnership with Saracens Rugby Football Club to fully integrate mobile and social media into the club’s marketing and communications strategy.

Saracens RFC ran a contest encouraging fans to text in for the chance to win the match ball using MePlease at their game on 5 December. The competition was promoted via an ad in the match day programme, and through several announcements over the PA system, and on the scoreboard. 9 per cent of the crowd responded to the call to action.

Saracens ran a similar competition ran during their 11 December match, where fans were prompted to text in for the chance to win a jersey signed by the team, including Strictly Come Dancing star, Gavin Henson. As a reward, fans who opted in to MePlease during each match received a unique discount code on tickets for the club’s Boxing Day match. In addition, print ads recently ran in the Evening Standard, Metro and City AM to encourage fans to text in for the chance to win tickets to the Boxing Day match.

Using MePlease, Saracens has to date built a mobile community of fans equivalent to 17 per cent of average match attendance. MePlease will be working closely with the Saracens at the Boxing Day match at Wembley Stadium to further drive fan engagement during half time and continue to grow the Saracens mobile community.

“With MePlease, we’ve found that our fans are very responsive to mobile communications,” says Lucy Wray, who heads up marketing at Saracens. “Since working with them, we’ve truly been able to maximise engagement and interaction with our Saracens fans and community, while also driving increased sales to our upcoming Boxing Day match, one of the most important fixtures in our calendar. Given the current economic climate and the effectiveness of these powerful marketing channels, sports clubs simply must integrate mobile and social media into their current marketing strategy.”

The MePlease platform enables brands to create engaging campaigns that work on every mobile device. It has already been used by national brands such as PizzaExpress, Cineworld and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Really Useful Group, as well as many other large and small businesses. The company says its platform’s deep integration with social media, especially Facebook, means every campaign can go viral.