One of the most effective ways to increase ticket sales for your events is to engage ticket buyers in the days and weeks leading up to the event. There are a couple of reasons why engaging with people who have already purchased tickets can help you sell even more tickets.
First, when ticket buyers become more engaged with an upcoming event, they become more emotionally connected to it. As a result, they naturally want to talk about it and tell more people about it. This gives your event a significant boost in word-of-mouth marketing.
Second, when ticket buyers are actively engaging with an upcoming event, particularly online, a wider audience will see that engagement than you might be able to reach through advertising or other marketing investments.
For example, if someone is actively tweeting about your event on Twitter or posting updates about it on Facebook, your event is being promoted to all of that person’s Twitter or Facebook connections. In simplest terms, ticket buyer engagement before your event can significantly increase your reach.
Both increased word-of-mouth marketing and reach can directly lead to more ticket sales for your event. The key to success is finding ways to actively engage with your ticket buyers. Following are five ideas to get you started.
1. Email Marketing
The power today is in your email list, so use it to engage with ticket buyers leading up to your event. Send them entertaining and educational content before the event to increase their excitement and the likelihood they’ll talk about your event with other people. You can send this type of content easily if you use AttendStar as your ticket sales platform with the Ticket Buyer Buzz feature.
Email marketing is the perfect place to offer incentives to recipients who share the event with other people. Many email marketing programs offer features that enable you to track which recipients forward your messages or share them on social media, so it’s easy to send incentives when they’re earned. You can also use email marketing to sell add-on items to increase your earnings per customer.
In addition, you can use email marketing to send remarketing messages to people who visit your ticket sales page but don’t buy tickets. AttendStar makes this easy to do using its Remind Me feature.
2. Polls and Surveys
There are so many free tools available to publish polls and surveys online such as Polldaddy and Poll Everywhere. You can use these tools to ask your ticket buyers a question before your event and have them submit their answers by selecting from a list of responses that you provide.
For example, if you’re holding a Christian concert, ask ticket buyers what their favorite song is by the main performer. If you’re organizing an air show, ask ticket buyers which performer or aircraft they’re most excited to see at the event.
People love to share their opinions, and polls are a perfect way to jumpstart interaction leading up to your event. Publish your polls on your event website and event Facebook Page, and be sure to promote them on social media and in your email messages to attendees. Don’t forget to promote the results when the poll closes, too!
3. Facebook Contests
Everyone loves to win prizes, and ticket buyers are no different. With that in mind, hold contests on your event’s Facebook Page offering prizes that attendees will love. Not only will people enter the contest, but they’re very likely to tell other people about it, too.
Make sure your prizes are relevant to your event and have a perceived value that will motivate people to take the time to enter the contest. For example, if you’re holding a festival, offer T-shirts and related memorabilia. You can even offer free VIP experiences, free parking, and more. Don’t be afraid to get creative!
4. Live Online Pre-Events
Video content is extremely popular today. Not only should you include videos on your ticket sales page to boost ticket sales, but you should also create videos to publish on other online channels to extend your event’s reach to wider audiences. This includes creating interesting video content and publishing it on your event blog and your social media profiles and pages as well as creating live video.
For example, Facebook Live is extremely popular and offers you a great opportunity to create excitement for your event by holding mini pre-events like live interviews with performers, live backstage tours, and more.
You can follow the link to learn more about using videos for event marketing.
5. Crowdsourced Content
You don’t have to create all of your content yourself. Instead, crowdsource content from ticket buyers. First, ask them to share questions that they have for your event performers or speakers in advance of the event. You can use those questions to create video interviews with performers and speakers, and publish those videos on your blog and social media channels.
Second, crowdsource user-generated content by inviting ticket buyers to share pictures and videos related to your event on your Facebook Page. This is a perfect way to increase attendees’ emotional connections with your event. For example, if you’re holding a concert, ask ticket buyers to share photos of themselves with the performer’s album or photos they’ve taken at one or more of the artist’s previous concerts.
Your Next Steps
There are many ways to interact with ticket buyers leading up to your event. The key is to get out there (both online and offline) and start engaging. Don’t expect ticket buyers to make the first move. That’s up to you, but you need interesting, relevant content to do it effectively.
Consider the various channels of communication that are available to you, and leverage them to drum up excitement, build emotional connections, and increase word-of-mouth marketing. Ultimately, your ticket sales will increase, too.
Need help with your event marketing or ticket sales? Contact AttendStar at 615-223-1973 to get started or use the contact form if you want your next event to be a success!
