Marketing / 11.28.17

Marketing Maneuvers: What’s New in Selling Entertainment

Emma Frey

The entertainment ticketing industry is evolving to meet modern consumers’ needs, meeting them online where they live and offering them what they crave: incentives and lucky draws. Here, Access rounds up the latest in marketing for the entertainment ticketing, compiling the most interesting and exciting efforts into one overview.

YouTube Partners with Ticketmaster

YouTube announced on Nov. 14 that it has partnered with Ticketmaster, resulting in a new feature: Artists can now include upcoming concert tour dates and links within their YouTube music videos.

At the moment, YouTube is launching this new feature only for North America shows, but there are plans to expand globally.

NKU’s Men’s Basketball Sees Success with Ticket Deposits

This season, the Northern Kentucky men’s basketball has nearly doubled their sales in season tickets from last year’s sales. Assistant athletic director for marketing, promotions and tickets Brandon Hayes believes this is due to one standout initiative: ticket deposits.

With ticket deposits, people pay $50 per seat, which guarantees both a spot without needing to pay in full and a championship shirt from last year.

According to the NKU press release, 93 percent of last season’s season ticket holders have renewed their tickets compared to past seasons when it was just 82 percent.

Hong Kong Disneyland Offers Jaw-Dropping Lucky Draw

Hong Kong Disneyland launched an online draw in August of this year that offered 50,000 free one-day admission tickets to Hong Kong residents. This followed the theme park’s announcement of a HK$10.9 billion multiyear expansion and development projects.

The lucky draw is seen as the park’s attempt to boost attendance as Hong Kong Disneyland had a second straight year of losses: HK$171 million for 2016 compared to HK$148 million in 2015. Attendance by mainland Chinese tourists dropped in the middle of a softer tourism market.

Audience Republic Uses Technology to Power Fest and Concert Marketing

Jared Kristensen’s company, Audience Republic, is utilizing technology to boost ticket sales by focusing on the pre-event campaign process. Audience Republic helps event promoters reward fans that “invite” friends, which incentivizes word-of-mouth spread. The company primarily focuses on stirring the pre-event buzz by way of incentives in order to drive ticket sales.

This kind of pre-event focus can drive 25 percent of sales to be sold out 12 months in advance of the actual event. Some examples of the kind of incentives Audience Republic offers are cheaper tickets, free tickets or exciting prizes, such as artist meet-and-greets.

Stay tuned for our bimonthly installment of Marketing Maneuvers to stay up-to-date on the latest, most innovative marketing efforts in the entertainment ticketing industry.

Interested in learning more about what's new in selling tickets? Be sure to attend INTIX 2018 in Baltimore for marketing insights like how to run a digital marketing program that actually works and the myths of social media marketing. 

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Tags: Social Media , Ticketmaster , YouTube