Eye on Venues
Evolution Not Revolution:
Driving a digitalfirst approach As part of a wider digital transformation within the organisation, the Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall venues, alongside sister conferencing brand, ICC Belfast, made the decision to completely overhaul their marketing function to adopt a digital-first approach.
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his digital strategy was set out to help the organisation achieve ambitious financial targets, as well as fulfil its compelling value proposition of delivering for Belfast and Northern Ireland socially, culturally and economically by showcasing the city and beyond as a unique, vibrant and flourishing business tourism and live entertainment hotspot. Business EYE took the opportunity to speak to Ashleigh Davidson, Head of Entertainments and Exhibitions for Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall about how redesigning the online customer experience have has had a massive impact on the iconic venues. “Entertainment KPIs; occupancy rates and ticket sales were in decline and the potential of the e-commerce website,
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a healthy social media community and targeted email marketing database were overlooked in campaign planning in favour of traditional marketing platforms.” explains Ashleigh. “A printed entertainments brochure, Front Row events guide, was traditionally produced three times a year representing a significant marketing cost for print, production and distribution. As part of the digital overhaul, production of Front Row was upgraded to a weekly e-zine that is supplemented by a condensed flyer, which lists a smaller number of upcoming events in both venues over the next eight to ten weeks. This measured response to market demand and trends was a sizeable shift for the business, but one that
was necessary to enable a divergence of budget to digital campaigns.” “Furthermore, our previous ticketing system presented several challenges. It was imperative that we had a system in place that supported our goals and allowed us to maximise existing and additional revenue streams while supporting efficiencies throughout the sales process.” The online purchase path was one of the primary areas that Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall wanted to improve, which lead eventually led them to appoint Tessitura as the new ticketing provider and Dawson Andrews as the appointed agency for the design and build of the new Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall e-commerce websites.
“Collaboration with partners has been a crucial part of our success.” explains Ashleigh. “Having a network of suppliers that understand our objectives and inherit our KPIs as their own has helped us to grow our conversion rate by 15% when compared with the same period last year as well as an almost 20% increase in overall e-commerce revenue.” So what’s next for the venues that form part of the fabric of Belfast’s live entertainment scene? “We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been shortlisted in the ‘Best Use of Data and Insight’ category at the Chartered Institute of Marketing awards, which validates everything the team have been working so hard on for the past few months.” The winners are to be announced at the awards ceremony in April. Ashleigh concluded, “We’re constantly looking for ways to improve our customer offering and by adopting an approach of continuous improvement, we’re confident that we’ll be able to better serve the needs of customers whose next great live entertainment experience starts the moment they decide to purchase a ticket.”
Visit waterfront.co.uk or ulsterhall. co.uk to find out what’s on and book tickets in the Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall venues.
