Marketing / 02.03.20

6 Ways Marketing and the Ticket Office Can Collaborate to Sell More Tickets

Brian Bauer, Bauer Entertainment Marketing

Big Shot with Michael DelGuidice, currently on tour with Billy Joel. Photo credit: Molly M. McCormick

Regardless of a live event’s size, the ticket office is critical to its sales success. However, the ticketing department can feel overwhelmed by the challenges of consistently providing a flawless, efficient and enjoyable purchase experience for buyers. Sound familiar?

With 15+ years of extensive, hands-on event marketing experience, I’ve seen firsthand how marketing professionals can partner with ticket offices to become more effective and more efficient. By communicating, collaborating and providing valuable insight to the ticketing department, my team at Bauer Entertainment Marketing has taken much of the pressure off the ticketing team while ultimately maximizing event success. In fact, our proven entertainment marketing solutions have generated up to a 59X ROI for clients including INTIX, X Games, Ryman Auditorium, RBC Bluesfest and many more. Such an impact wouldn’t be possible without first establishing strong partnerships with ticket-office staff.

Here are six ways marketers can collaborate with the ticket office to achieve greater success for events:

1) Establish a ticket presale sign-up and alert to boost sales.

Thousands of potential ticket buyers experience a frustrating “dead end” when trying to buy tickets that are not yet on sale or sold out. As a result, these prospective customers leave the site and/or complain to the ticket office. In turn, you miss making sales and collecting data, and everyone’s unhappy. This disappointment can linger, negatively impacting your brand and future sales.

To avoid such debacles, we recommend incorporating a ticket alert call to action that converts website traffic into email addresses and/or phone numbers. Then, once tickets become available, you can communicate immediately and directly with prospects who are eager and ready to buy. In fact, our clients experience an average sales conversion rate of 28% from alert emails and text messages.

2) Develop SEO-friendly content to increase awareness.

As ticket-office staff build an event, marketers can provide SEO-friendly content that helps drive incremental traffic to marketing and ticketing websites. Prior to announcing an event, the marketing team should conduct keyword research, then develop metadata, on-page copy and Schema markup. Marketers can collaborate with the ticket office to implement this SEO content and help events become more visible to target audiences using search engines.

3) Create affiliate and tracking links to maximize marketing effectiveness.

Prior to a show’s public announcement, in cooperation with the ticket office, the marketing team can help third-party partners get affiliate ticket links. Moreover, marketers should inform the ticket office about all requests for tracking links (e.g., Ticketmaster’s “Came From Codes”). We recommend having separate links for each marketing channel (e.g., social media, email, advertising, etc.) to stay organized and informed about resulting sales from your marketing tactics.

4) Develop a last-minute ticket plan and get tickets to real fans.

One of the most common fan complaints is tickets being unavailable due to high-volume purchases by bots and/or resellers. Marketing teams can help the ticket office minimize this problem by managing when and how ticket holds (e.g., venue, promoter, artist and/or production holds) or unused reserved tickets are released so real customers get a fair chance to buy. Marketers can develop and distribute emails, SMS messages and retargeting ads to those individuals who have previously engaged with event-related content. This audience includes fans who signed up via the aforementioned ticket alert sign-up form or prospects who visited an event-description page multiple times but have not yet purchased their tickets.

5) Combat fake tickets on the secondary market.

It can be confusing for consumers to differentiate between the official ticketing source and secondary ones, leading some fans to unknowingly buy fraudulent or invalid tickets. Marketers can help the ticket office and customers by communicating on social media and via emails that the only safe way to purchase tickets is directly through the venue ticket office and primary ticketing platform. Marketers can also initiate a plan to manage customers who want to resell their tickets through social media by directing them to a verified secondary marketplace.

6) Build an internal FAQ to elevate customer satisfaction

From managing ticket issues to answering customer questions, ticket-office staff have more than enough on their plates while events are happening. Marketing teams can relieve some of the stress by anticipating and addressing customer inquiries through social media, email, SMS, chatbots, etc. Prior to the event, both departments should jointly develop an internal guide that answers frequently asked questions, including policies on refunds, exchanges, re-entry, etc. Also, while ticket-office managers are busy running the show, marketers can answer real-time questions, concerns and complaints from fans online using the internal guide.

To conclude, marketers and ticket-office team members can help each other by collaborating and communicating to create successful events. So, we encourage you to evaluate your relationships with your marketing teams and work together to solidify the ticketing process. By following these tips, you can provide a more enjoyable and efficient experience not only for your patrons, but for your ticket office as well.

After all, teamwork makes the dream work!

Want even more free growth ideas? Contact Brian Bauer at BauerEM.com or info@bauerem.com.

This article was sponsored by Bauer Entertainment Marketing. BEM is in partnership with INTIX to provide revenue-generating social media, digital advertising, and SEO campaigns. 

Tags: Workplace , INTIX 2020