Audience Development Strategy: Focus on Season Passes Presented by Nancy Sagar Consultant, Arts & Business Council of Phoenix November 16, 2006
The idea Pre-sell tickets to your productions instead of leaving your attendance to chance (walkups). While it will be difficult to create these passes when your schedule isn’t final, you absolutely need to generate the cash flow and commitment from your patrons with these type of packages. Make it work!
Benefits to pre-selling 1. Cash flow: Get ticket $$ upfront! 2. Lower your marketing investment: It’s more expensive to market single tickets to a large audience than it is to focus on selling higher-dollar packages to a smaller group. 3. Improve the experience: Focus on selling out the most important events & nights so that people will enjoy the experience and spread the word 4. Invest your energy more wisely: When you know which nights already have high attendance, you can focus your energy on other events. 5. Build more loyal patron base: Get them used to coming to your productions, not your competitions’!
Goals • • •
Sell 1,000 total tickets via a ‘season’ pass, which represents 15.4% of your total ticket goal. Create a package with at least 5 productions @ $20 per ticket. Sell 200 of these packages – and most people will buy 2 seats, so think about selling 100 individual buyers.
How to create these packages List all of the remaining major events and allow them to choose 5 for their pass. (Normally you’d choose the events for them, but since your season has already started, you don’t want to have to reduce the package size from 5 to 4 to 3 as your chosen productions come and go. Next season, you’d have several different ticket plans with more productions in Theatre Artists Studio – Detailed Marketing Instructions
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them – for now, you need at least 5.) •
• •
Offer the packages by night – they get the same night for each of the shows (Wed opening nights, Thu, Fri, Sat or Sun of the first week. Stack the nights at the beginning of the runs so that they can tell their friends to buy walkup tickets later in the run.) If they need to, they can swap nights. Keep the tickets full price! The incentive to buy season passes isn’t to save $$ -- it’s to reserve seats, to commit to something they will enjoy. When you discount a pass you leave substantial $$ on the table. Deny yourself the urge to discount. You have such a small theatre that you can’t afford to sell the seats for any less than $20.
Add value by allowing them to attend lectures free, inviting these patrons to special events, providing preferred parking, or reserving their actual seats. (Lecture idea is easy to implement this year; save the reserved seating/parking ideas for next.)
How to sell these packages Invest your energy in marketing these tickets! Change your thinking from promoting individual tickets to “season” tickets.
Promote them heavily on your website. Include a prominent graphic on every page with a link to a detail page. The detail page should have a strong call to action (CALL NOW! Limited availability!). It would also include a list of all the shows you can select, dates, explanations, etc. The page would also include a PDF brochure and a PDF order form that they can print and fax or mail in if they prefer to order that way.
Promote them heavily in the theatre. When people walk in and buy single tickets, ask them if they’d like to consider a season pass. Give them a brochure, explain how it works, and be ready to take those orders right away. (Swipe their credit cards!) Put signs in the restrooms and in prominent spots throughout the theatre – “Join us all season long! Pick up a season pass brochure at the front entrance.” Include the season pass message in your pre- and post-performance speeches.
Promote them to call-in orders. Think “upsell” – every time someone calls for a single event, suggest that they buy a package.
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Promote them whenever you send a Studio email. Your email signatures should have a call-to-action (“Join us all season long – purchase a season pass today!”), your box office phone number and a link to the detail page on your website.
Make sure you add every purchaser to your database/Excel spreadsheet. Document exactly what they buy and how much they spend. You’ll need this info next season – these are the first people you’ll contact to “renew” and potentially add a donation on top of their ticket purchase.
How to service your “season ticket holders” 1.
2. 3. 4. 5.
This is a great role for a member who really wants to be involved with the community and your patrons – designate that person as your “VIP manager” with responsibility for ensuring that these patrons are happy and that you’re executing the programs effectively. Send a letter or email thanking them for their purchase. Let them know other ways to get involved and how much their involvement means to you. (They’re your most valuable patrons!) Recognize them in whatever ways you can. Reach out to them periodically through email, a letter, even a personal phone call. Make sure you add value to their package – for example, if the package includes preferred parking, make sure you execute! You don’t want to disappoint these patrons.
Materials you’ll need A print brochure. This is the brochure you hand out in the theatre. It can be as simple as an 8.5 x 11 tri-fold in black on white paper (so they can fax the form alone if needed); print on both sides and fold. It needs to list all of the events they can choose (with a paragraph about each); a checkbox so they can choose which ones they want; a date option (Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun). The order form should be included; capture their name, address, day/eve phone, email address (with a checkbox to sign up for email newsletters), and an extra line so they can add a donation. Print these brochures in small batches so that as productions come and go, you can remove them from the piece.
A PDF version of the brochure. You would include this version on the website. It just needs to be set up to view as a document (ie the tri-fold orientation doesn’t work in this format); include the same info and order form. (You can create it in Microsoft Word or Powerpoint and use a free PDF tool like www.pdf995.com)
A graphic you can use to promote the ticket packages on your website. Theatre Artists Studio – Detailed Marketing Instructions
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It will link to a detail page on the site.
Detail page on the website. It would have all of the same info as the brochure but in the body copy of the page. Display a VERY strong call-to-action (CALL NOW!) at the top of the page. Include the PDF brochure so they can download it and send in an order later. It’s important to remove productions after they’ve concluded – try to keep this detail page and the brochure current.
Signage for the theatre. “Join us all season long! Pick up a season pass brochure at the front entrance.” Hang in restrooms and hallways.
A “script” for box office volunteers to upsell single-ticket patrons. It’s easy to forget when you’re taking a credit card order by phone. Make sure there’s a reminder hanging near the phone. If the patron isn’t ready to buy a package, ask them if you can email them the PDF brochure, then send it out.
A letter or email thanking them for their purchase
Other tools & resources you’ll need Someone to design the brochure. It needs to use the fonts, colors and visual style you choose to enforce your brand personality traits.
Someone watching over & updating the brochure & website pages Someone sending thank-you emails and corresponding with these VIPS.
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