10 ways to boost your ticket sales with technology

I. Get to know your potential attendees and where to reach them

You should have a fairly good idea of who your target attendee is, but do you know how to reach them? Using the data you already hold on existing ticket holders, you can target lookalike audiences to find potential customers who will likely be interested in your event. The tricky bit is getting all that data in an easy-to-digest format that you can easily draw conclusions from. To do that, you’ll need a Customer Data Platform to store and order your customer data and make segmenting potential ticket-buyers simple. Once you’ve done that, you can target people based on the platforms they use and their interests, and increase the ROI of your marketing spend several times over. 

II. Recover abandoned carts

If a potential customer has added tickets to their basket and dropped out before payment, it’s likely that one of a number of things has happened: perhaps they got sidetracked and just need a nudge to convert. Perhaps they were put off by additional costs added late in the payment process, or maybe there were too many obstacles to conversion and they lost interest. Whatever the reason, targeting those people that nearly converted is a surefire way of delivering strong conversion rates. With a little push you should be able to convert around 5-10% of abandoned cart shoppers based on industry benchmarks. 

Again, your Customer Data Platform (CDP) will help you identify the customers you need to target and, as a bonus, will also tell you where and how to best contact them. 

III. Converse with your customers

Being able to communicate effectively with your customers allows them to get in touch to address issues instantly, rather than having to wait for a response to their queries. Catching customers in the moment they’re about to convert can help to avoid the pitfalls of abandoned carts, with concerns addressed in real-time, giving them a smooth path to conversion. WhatsApp Business, for example, is a powerful solution for seamless customer conversations.

IV. Create a custom ticket shop

The importance of a consistent brand experience can’t be overstated. If it was important 10 years ago, it’s even more vital now as customers look to branding to reassure them they’re a) not being scammed, and b) that they’re going to receive the (hopefully) seamless experience they’ve come to experience from your brand. It’s familiar, it makes them feel comfortable, but it’s also a considerable investment of time and design resources. Our ticketing platform offers the ability to easily customise your ticket experience by adding existing assets and bespoke steps to the ticket-buying process.  

V. Personalise email marketing 

Customisation is one way to make customers feel at home in a trusted environment, but to really build trust, there are few things that beat personalised email marketing. The ability to direct your communications at specific market segments to make them feel as if they’re being spoken to individually is a key factor in influencing conversion. Using the information you hold in your CDP, you can segment your audience into like-minded groups and target those groups with specific messaging that aligns with their interests and pain points. This means you can address issues that may be stopping prospective customers from purchasing and encourage new buyers that may have felt underserved by previous, one-size-fits-all messaging.

VI. Add more channels

Adding channels is a great way to open up new audiences, but it’s also a great way to get mired in extra channel admin. If only there were a way to add additional channels to your marketing strategy without adding additional admin to your day. The key to managing multiple channels is an omnichannel dashboard that allows you to view activity on all of your channels at a glance. Thankfully, we offer the ability to view a multitude of conversational channels in one convenient dashboard, taking away the headache of multi-channel admin. 

VII. Customise your landing pages

Creating bespoke landing pages for your SMS campaigns allows you to control the branding experience for your customers. SMS pages allow you to gather data via form fields and shortcut the path to conversion with in-message payment links. You’ll also be able to see how your pages are performing using the data gathered in your Customer Data Platform, making it simple to optimise your pages to maximise conversions. 

VIII. Make payment easy

Key to driving conversions is making payments simple for your customers and inexpensive for you. One of the key reasons people abandon purchases is a lack of payment options (or rather the lack of their preferred option). Our Payments solution offers all major payment methods, meaning your customers can choose the method that suits them best and make payments fast and efficiently. Not to mention the fact that it’s also cost-effective for you to manage.

IX. Create compelling offers and discounts

As with any event, you’ll likely experience a surge in ticket sales immediately after they go on-sale and then a slump until shortly before your event. Ideally, you want to make the cadence of your sales more consistent. You can do this by offering ‘early bird’ discounts and by using the information held in your Customer Data Platform to target those most likely to convert with special offers. You don’t just have to offer discounts, of course, you can also create ‘VIP’ packages to entice customers to buy early and even spend more, rather than just discounting tickets to sell them fast. 

X. Learn from your mistakes

E-tickets give you a treasure trove of detailed customer information, far in excess of anything you could imagine being able to collect with traditional ticketing methods. Your Customer Data Platform can hold all that data and use it to inform future events. You can record information, such as what merchandise was bought, which refreshments were most popular and when people arrived. Using this data to inform future events will make them more compelling for your customers and increase the likelihood of them buying early for your next event.