One of the most important factors that can make your event a success or failure is your ticket sales page. Unfortunately, it’s also a piece of the event planning puzzle that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. However, not prioritizing the design, content, and functionality of the webpage where you’ll sell tickets is a very big mistake.
Think of it this way. Your ticket sales page is like your mini online storefront. If it looks terrible or does an awful job of explaining why your event is awesome, who it’s for, and that audience doesn’t want to miss it, then it’s unlikely many people will stick around to browse – and even fewer will actually buy tickets!
You put a lot of time and money into your events, so make sure this critical entry point is amazing. To help you get started, here are 20 features that your event website needs to maximize ticket sales. Don’t have these elements? Then you’re probably losing sales.
1. Pricing with an Advance Purchase Discount
Your ticket prices must be easy to find on your sales page. Most importantly, make sure they’re highlighted above the fold, so people can see the prices without having to scroll. Be sure to offer early bird discounts on advance ticket purchases!
Furthermore, AttendStar President Gary Bradshaw recommends including all fees in the ticket price. This is particularly important if tickets will also be sold locally (i.e., offline) for the event but those locally purchased tickets won’t have the same online purchase fees added to them.
In the description section of your page (learn more about that in #5 below), you should include full pricing details about your at-the-door ticket price, your advance purchase price, and any special ticket level prices. An event that consistently sells out is HIS Radio’s Secret Keeper Girl Purple Party Tour. Below, you can see how the various tiered ticket prices are displayed on the event’s ticket sales page here on AttendStar.
Similarly, the Naval Air Weapons Station’s China Lake Air Show provides all pricing details in its ticket sales page here on AttendStar as you can see below.
2. Date and Time above the Fold
As with the ticket prices, the date and time should be highlighted and displayed multiple times on your ticket sales page – particularly above the fold. A great way to do this is to include the date and time in an image used at the top of your page. See #4 below for more details about using images on your webpage. Also, be sure to include rain date information if your event is outside!
3. Location and Map with Directions
Make it as easy as possible for people to find and get to your event by including the specific location along with a map (a link to the map on Google is best) and directions from the north, south, east, and west. This is also a great place to hype easily accessible parking as well as free parking if you’re offering it at your event.
4. Great Images
Invest some time (and possibly some money) into creating colorful, eye-catching, and well-designed images for your event ticket sales page – particularly the header image you use at the top of the page. This large banner image is so critical in terms of getting the attention of visitors and enticing them to browse the page further so they’ll ultimately buy.
Below is the banner image used at the top of the HIS Radio’s Secret Keeper Girl Purple Party Tour ticket sales page. Notice how colorful it is. It’s very well designed, includes eye-catching visuals, and includes all of the important event information such as the date, time, and place.
Another great example comes from the Naval Air Weapons Station’s China Lake Air Show. The banner image includes a fantastic picture of Navy aircraft as well as the date, a mention of the sponsor, and a callout hyping the marquee “performers” – the Blue Angels. You can learn more about the importance of promoting your performers on your ticket sales page in #9 below.
5. A Great Description
The description of your event should be complete and free of spelling and grammatical errors, and it should be written to sell your event. Tap into your audience’s emotions and make them understand why they don’t want to miss this event!
Yes, you should include information about activities, performers, speakers, and a schedule that visitors can download as a PDF file. However, don’t just focus on these features of your event. Instead, hype the benefits of enjoying these features by attending the event. That’s what makes people buy! You can follow the link to learn more about features vs. benefits in copywriting.
Sticking with the examples used above, below is an image from the description on the ticket sales page for HIS Radio’s Secret Keeper Girl Purple Party Tour. Notice that it includes all of the information you’d expect about timing, purchasing, and pricing (including a tiered ticket pricing structure with an early bird price for advance purchases). In addition, it includes a simple but compelling description of the event purpose, activities, and more.
In the ticket sales page for the Naval Air Weapons Station’s China Lake Air Show, all of the important details are included as well as useful pictures from an actual event, tips, a menu, and more. The page even highlights the caterer!
6. Frequently Asked Questions
Always include a frequently asked questions section on your sales page. This section will reduce the amount of phone call and email inquiries you get about your event, which will free up more of your time to make sure the event goes off without a hitch.
Your FAQs should include information about cancellations, refunds, inclement weather, parking, food, fees, what attendees should or can bring to the event, if pets are allowed, and more.
7. Social Media Links for Following and Sharing
Social media marketing is a powerful way to spread the word about your event. This type of word-of-mouth marketing is so valuable, so make sure there is a way for people to share your event ticket sales page on their social media profiles. At a minimum, include links or buttons to share the page via Facebook and Twitter!
You can see the Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons in the upper right corner on the HIS Radio’s Secret Keeper Girl Purple Party Tour ticket sales page and the Naval Air Weapons Station’s China Lake Air Show in the images in #1 above.
8. Your Contact Information
Despite your efforts to write the best description and frequently asked questions possible, people will have questions about your event. If you want to maximize your ticket sales, you need to be available to answer those questions. To that end, your sales page needs to include your telephone and email contact information.
Including this information along with your address builds trust with consumers. Let’s face it. Any event takes on an added level of legitimacy (and will sell more tickets) when people can associate real people or a real organization behind it, and that starts with making it easy for people to contact you.
9. Details about Performers, Speakers and/or Exhibitors
As I mentioned earlier, hyping your marquee performers, speakers, or exhibitors in the banner image that appears at the top of your event ticket sales page is a great idea. Yes, you want to promote all of your performers, speakers, and exhibitors, but the ones who will draw the biggest crowds should get top billing. Simply seeing their names will motivate some people to buy tickets.
In addition, include photos, bios, and social media links for your performers, speakers, and exhibitors. This is a great way to not only encourage more people to buy tickets but also to reach out and start talking about your event on Twitter, Facebook, and so on. Every one of those conversations is a form of word-of-mouth marketing that increases awareness of your event and could lead to more ticket sales!
10. Sponsor Logos
If your event has sponsors, make sure you promote them on your ticket sales page. Include their logos, descriptions about them, and links to their websites or social media profiles. Again, you’re trying to give people as many ways to feel connected to your event as possible so they buy a ticket and talk about it via social media and offline. At the same time, you want to give your sponsors their money’s worth.
11. Multiple Opportunities to Buy Tickets
Chances are people will have to scroll to view your full event ticket sales page, particularly if they’re viewing it on a mobile device. Make it as easy as possible for them to buy tickets no matter where they are on your page by including buy buttons at least three times on the page. Never make them have to scroll very far to get to a buy button!
12. Tracking
How do you know how your ticket sales page performed and how effective all of your marketing efforts to drive traffic to the page and convert visitors to buyers were? You don’t if you’re not tracking them, and you can’t do that if you don’t have the right tracking codes and features working on your sales page. Be sure to set up Google Analytics on your page as well as conversion tracking for Facebook ads, Twitter ads, and any other online ads you’re using.
13. Mobile-Friendly
The vast majority of people view websites on mobile devices today. According to data from comScore, 65% of all digital media time is now spent on mobile devices. Desktop computers have become secondary! That means your event ticket sales page must be mobile-friendly or you will lose ticket sales. It’s that simple.
14. Opt-in Form
The power is in your email list these days, and your event ticket sales page is a perfect place to boost your email subscribers. Include an opt-in form that asks people to subscribe to your newsletter. Once you have their email addresses, you can send them your newsletter, special offers, and so on. There is no better way to keep your brand top of mind and build a relationship with consumers that leads to sales than content marketing, and email marketing is an essential component of every content marketing strategy.
As AttendStar President Gary Bradshaw says, “40% of people who visit a ticket sales page won’t buy a ticket to ‘this’ event, but they are prospects for later events!”
15. Custom Code and Integrations
Depending on the ticket management provider your using, you might be able to add custom code and useful integrations to your ticket sales page. For example, AttendStar users can use MailMunch or OptinMonster to grow their email lists and integrate opt-in forms and other features directly into their pages.
16. Search Engine Optimization
You want Google to find your ticket sales page, right? Search engine traffic is important, so you need to identify the keyword phrases that you want your sales page to rank for and then use those keywords in your page as well as in the page description for search engines. Just don’t overuse those keywords or you’ll do more harm to your page than good!
17. Socialization
As I mentioned earlier in this article, social media marketing is one of the best ways to boost word-of-mouth marketing for your event, and the online conversation can boost ticket sales significantly. With that in mind, you need to give people a way to socialize directly on your event ticket sales page.
At a minimum, include a section where people can communicate through Facebook comments without leaving your ticket sales page. This type of conversation can be very effective in increasing consumer confidence, which leads directly to more sales.
18. Advertising Retargeting
Ad retargeting is incredibly effective because it’s based on people’s behaviors. Here’s how it works. You put a pixel of code on your event ticket sales page or in specific places on your page. That pixel tracks visitors to your site. As those people visit other websites in the display advertising networks that you run retargeting ads on (such as Google AdWords or AdRoll), they are shown your ads. If you want to learn more, you can find a great explanation on Moz.com.
Retargeting works because the people who are retargeted with your ads have already shown interest in your brand by visiting your event ticket sales page. If you’re not already using this form of online advertising, give it a try. Just make sure you have the pixel(s) placed on your ticket sales page correctly!
19. Videos
You can also include videos on your ticket sales page. Show videos of past events, performers, speakers, the venue, activities, and so on. Videos can get people excited for your event because they’ll get a taste of exactly what they’ll experience if they attend. The key here is bringing the experience to potential attendees audibly and visually.
As an example, Foreverlin uses multiple videos in its event ticket sales page on AttendStar as shown below.
20. Legal Information
Of course, you can’t forget the legal information on your ticket sales page. For example, you should include terms and conditions, refund policies, cancellation policies, and any other legal language necessary. It’s a good idea to consult with an attorney who can write language specific to your event, so you have peace-of-mind.
Your Next Steps
How many of these features do you use on the ticket sales pages for your events? Every one of these features can increase the number of ticket sales, so it’s important that you use as many as you can!
Marketing starts and ends with your sales page. It’s where people get information about your event, consider buying a ticket, and make a final purchase decision. Make it amazing buy incorporating the features that have been proven to boost ticket sales.
