Retention Marketing for Sport Brands

You've paid to
acquire them.
Now keep them.

For sport brands that want repeat revenue, not one-time buyers.

Book a Strategy Call See the Retention Audit →

Experience built across

Unibet Soldo Global Sports Jobs Lloyd's List Intelligence Hungarian Tennis Federation
The Problem

Brilliant at acquisition.
Terrible at retention.

Sport brands know how to get customers in. What comes next is where the money leaks.

The product landed. The order shipped. Then nothing. No follow-up. No system. No reason to come back.

Most brands see this as a churn problem. It isn't. The post-purchase experience was never built.

The failure happens early. New customers are far more likely to disengage in the first weeks than at any other point in the relationship. The brands that fix this aren't doing more. They're doing it earlier.

These gaps are fixable. The audit shows you exactly where yours are.

UP TO 65%

Research consistently shows that up to 65% of new customers disengage within the first few months. Not because the product failed. Because nothing happened after the sale.

The pattern holds across fitness, sport subscriptions, and DTC. The geography changes. The mechanism doesn't.

The ones leaving aren't your unhappy customers.
The members who stop showing up but stay satisfied churn at nearly double the rate of everyone else. Satisfaction doesn't predict retention. Behaviour does.

Start Here

Find where you're losing customers
and how to fix it

The Retention Audit

Most brands don't know where customers are dropping off. They see the numbers, assume they know the cause, and guess what to fix.

The Retention Audit shows you what's broken and what to fix first.

Fixed fee. 2 to 3 weeks. Report and walkthrough.

Fixed fee · 2–3 weeks · Report + walkthrough
Get your retention audit
What's included
  • Where customers drop off after the first purchase
  • What your lifecycle and email are actually doing, and where they fail
  • A prioritised roadmap with clear next steps
  • A walkthrough session to go through everything together
Fixed scope · Confirmed on a short call
Start your audit →
In Practice

Where Brands Lose Customers

Three industries. Three retention problems. One system.

Sport Nutrition
The Window Most Brands Leave Empty

A structured onboarding journey cut time to first action by two weeks, contributing to a 15% increase in active users and a 10% improvement in customer lifetime value. The same mechanics apply directly to sport nutrition.

Most DTC sport nutrition brands lose customers not to competitors but to indifference. The post-purchase window is the highest-leverage moment in the customer relationship. Most brands leave it unmanaged.

Read more → Request an audit
Sport Tech
Retention Is a Prediction Problem Before It Is a Communication Problem

Lifecycle and CRM systems built across 10 international markets generated £2M in incremental revenue. The lever was timing and segmentation, not bigger campaigns.

Fitness apps and wearables lose most users in the first two weeks. The brands that retain them are not running better campaigns. They are intervening earlier, based on what users are doing rather than how many days have passed.

Read more → Request an audit
Fitness & Gym Operators
Most Members Who Cancel Never Complained

Silent attrition is the most expensive kind of churn. No signal. No warning. Just gone. And almost always preventable in the first 66 days.

Boutique gyms run excellent sales systems and inconsistent retention systems. The gap between the two is where most of the commercial value of the business disappears.

Read more → Request an audit
Services

THREE WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER

Start with the audit. Scale from there if needed.

Entry Product
Retention Audit
Fixed fee · 2–3 weeks

Find what's broken. Fix it first.

A structured diagnostic of your post-purchase experience. Clear visibility on where customers drop off, what's missing, and what to prioritise.

  • A clear view of where customers are lost
  • What your current lifecycle is and isn't doing
  • A prioritised roadmap to improve retention
  • A report you can act on immediately
Retained Engagement
Retention Retainer
Monthly retainer · Min. 3 months

Fix the gaps. Build the system.

Hands-on execution across CRM, lifecycle, and content. Everything built around your specific retention gaps, not a template.

  • Lifecycle and CRM systems that drive repeat behaviour
  • Email and messaging that actually brings customers back
  • Ongoing optimisation based on real performance
  • Monthly reporting tied to retention and revenue
Senior Leadership
Retention Lead
Monthly retainer · Min. 3–6 months

Own retention at a strategic level

Senior marketing leadership for brands that need direction, structure, and accountability without a full-time hire.

  • Clear retention strategy and roadmap
  • Team and execution oversight
  • Alignment across marketing, product, and growth
  • Reporting that connects activity to business impact
How It Works

From first call to
measurable results

Simple. Structured. No wasted time.

01
Discovery Call

30 minutes. We go through your customer lifecycle, CRM, and what you actually know about churn. No pitch.

02
Retention Audit

2–3 weeks. I map your post-purchase lifecycle and identify where customers are lost, and what to fix first.

03
Plan & Priorities

Based on the audit, we define what to build next, whether that's a retained engagement, a defined project, or leadership support.

04
Execution

We build, test, and optimise your retention system, with monthly reporting tied to what actually matters: repeat purchase, churn, and LTV.

About

RETENTION SYSTEMS BUILT AT SCALE. APPLIED TO SPORT.

Norbert Szele

Norbert Szele

I build retention systems that turn first-time buyers into repeat customers.

Over the past decade I have worked across fintech, sport entertainment, and data intelligence, designing lifecycle, CRM, and onboarding programmes used by millions of customers.

Results from that work: onboarding flows that reduced time to activation by 15 days, retention programmes run across 10+ markets, campaigns delivering seven-figure revenue impact.

My MSc research at Birkbeck examined how sporting events shape brand identity and belonging. That question sits at the heart of what I do: what makes someone feel part of something, not just a buyer of something.

I work with a small number of brands at a time. You get the thinking and the execution directly.

What I've worked on

Retention and lifecycle programmes at scale across sport entertainment, media, and B2B data platforms. CRM strategy, onboarding design, behavioural segmentation, and revenue-driven campaigns. Brands include: Unibet, Global Sports Jobs, Soldo, Lloyd's List Intelligence, Hungarian Tennis Federation.

How I operate

Solo operator, using AI as leverage. Senior thinking without agency overhead. You get focused work, not a team of juniors executing a template.

The Retention Leak

One issue per week. Retention, CRM, and lifecycle for sport brands.

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Start the Conversation

STOP LOSING CUSTOMERS YOU ALREADY PAID FOR

Book a 30-minute call. We'll look at where your retention is breaking and what to fix first.

No pitch. No deck. Just a clear next step.

BOOK YOUR 30-MIN CALL → EMAIL ME INSTEAD

Typically working with a small number of brands at a time.