How a Finnish professional hockey club turned its website into a digital sales channel
Results at a glance
Customer: KooKoo Hockey Ltd.
License: Groweo Business
Objectives: Generate partnership opportunities and B2B conversations directly from the website, guide visitors to relevant content and services, and create more engagement among fans.
Results:
- More than 60 B2B inquiries during the last 90 days
- More than 5% conversion rate from conversations to contacts
- Multiple qualified B2B opportunities generated every week
- More than 60,000 website visitors per month
Professional sports is a highly competitive business.
While success is measured on the ice, the foundations for that success are built elsewhere. For professional hockey clubs, sponsorships, hospitality sales, ticket revenue, and commercial partnerships play a critical role in funding operations and building a competitive team.
KooKoo is a professional ice hockey club competing in Finland’s top-tier Liiga. When the club redesigned its website, the goal was not simply a visual refresh. The organization wanted a website that would actively support digital sales and help turn visitor interest into commercial opportunities.
“Succeeding in our sales targets is essential for maintaining a competitive team and a financially stable organization. Most of the revenue that allows us to build the team comes from commercial partnerships. Ticket and game-day sales are also an important part of the overall picture,” says KooKoo Sales Manager Aaro Väkevä.
Väkevä is responsible for partnership sales, new customer acquisition, VIP experiences, and the club’s overall B2B commercial development.
Website traffic wasn’t supporting sales systematically
KooKoo’s website attracts significant traffic throughout the year. Individual news stories can generate large spikes in visitor numbers, and fan engagement remains consistently high.
Before implementing Groweo®, however, the website was not systematically contributing to sales activities.
“We were using the lead generation tools that came with our CMS, but they were much more limited. There were no dedicated pipelines or automations for different segments, so we weren’t fully utilizing the opportunities created by our website traffic. Visitors could send inquiries and questions, but that was largely where the process ended.”
For a small sales team, every unclear or missed inquiry creates additional work and increases the risk of losing potential business.
“When sales resources are limited, every missed inquiry can become a lost commercial opportunity.”
A clear journey for every audience
Professional hockey clubs serve multiple customer groups.
In addition to ticket sales, KooKoo offers season tickets, hospitality experiences, corporate partnerships, and a variety of event packages. Each audience has different needs, and each commercial offering follows a different buying journey.
As part of the website project, KooKoo wanted to make sure every visitor could quickly find the right path.
“We wanted to improve the digital journeys for our different customer groups. There is a lot of information and many different opportunities available on the website, and finding the right information can sometimes be challenging—for both fans and business customers.”
The goal was straightforward.
“We want the website to be a place where everyone can quickly find what they are looking for, whether it’s a ticket, a season pass, a VIP experience, or a partnership opportunity.”
Better leads and more business opportunities
The biggest impact has been visible in sales.
“We receive inquiries through Groweo every day, and they are usually high quality. Business is generated through those conversations, and that’s what matters most to us.”
The quality of information available to the sales team has also improved significantly.
“Previously, a message submitted through the website form could be quite generic. Now we immediately know what the customer is interested in and what type of partnership they are looking for.”
This allows conversations to start from the right place and move forward more efficiently.
Partnership sales and VIP sales have been among the areas where the improvement has been most visible.
“There has been clear progress in both partnership sales and VIP sales with Groweo. That was an area we wanted to focus on, and we can now see the results.”
Every opportunity becomes usable customer data
Not every partnership is created after the first conversation.
In long sales cycles, timing often determines whether an opportunity turns into business.
“If a partnership or deal doesn’t happen immediately, we can return to it later. The customer’s information and original need remain available to us.”
Instead of becoming isolated messages, inquiries are automatically categorized and connected to the right audience segments.
This has made commercial operations more systematic and predictable.
“One significant change is that we now capture all customer information. The importance of customer data and the ability to use it effectively keeps growing, and Groweo has become a very valuable tool for us in that regard.”
For KooKoo, the project was about much more than a website redesign.
The website became an active part of the club’s commercial operation and digital sales process.
“Groweo continuously delivers new inquiries—hockey-wise, passes right onto the stick—that result in business we otherwise wouldn’t have won.”
A website that supports sales around the clock
In a fast-moving organization, the ability to adapt quickly is essential.
According to Väkevä, the collaboration itself has become an important part of the value delivered.
“Things change quickly in our business, so smooth cooperation and fast reactions are extremely important to us. The Groweo team is also very creative in bringing new ideas to the table.”
One example is a prediction game created for VIP guests attending home games.
“The prediction game now runs through Groweo, and participant information is collected directly into the system. It was an innovative idea from the Groweo team, and it has worked very well.”
Today, KooKoo’s website does more than provide information about games, news, and events.
It actively supports digital sales, generates commercial opportunities, and helps the club engage both fans and business audiences around the clock.
Even when sales resources are limited, the website continues to work.