I’m back from a few ticket and technology conferences and one of the key themes from the places I’ve been is how much technology is doing to “disrupt” tickets.
And, boy, can you call me dubious of these claims.
Let’s take a look at 3 of them real quick and try to make heads or tails of whether technology is being “disruptive” or if it is just more of a distraction.
Technology Is Making It Easier For Your Tickets To Be Anywhere Your Buyers Are:
This is actually true.
Undeniably.
But it isn’t the right question.
The thing is, do you really need or want your tickets to be everywhere?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that, in fact, you don’t.
For a while now, we have heard a lot about how the “era of mass is over.”
And, we have seen declining rates of online advertising effectiveness brought on by any number of issues including too much advertising making it easy for people to tune out, too little differentiation from product to product, and too much cookie cutter in everything about it.
Which brings us back to the idea of technology and distribution being some sort of game changer in ticket sales.
Distribution is great.
Especially if that distribution comes in the form of a better and easier buying experience. Unfortunately, in many cases that hasn’t been the case.
Combine a sometimes unfriendly buying experience with an overwhelming amount of inventory for a lot of events and add in a little bit of seeing the tickets everywhere: What do you get?
You get a formula that almost guarantees lower conversion rates.
Higher customer acquisition costs.
And a sense that fans are tuning you out.
What would be truly disruptive about technology and tickets?
How about instead of putting tickets everywhere with cookies and other tracking technologies, why not develop digital marketing that wasn’t focused solely on mass marketing and the idea that more is more?
How about contextual marketing using digital footprints to drive those decisions?
Or, what about creating databases that are segmented, conversational, and that feel personal? I mean, my colleague, Ramit Sethi, has over 1,000,000 on his mailing list and he cuts and segments his list constantly, working to make his messages feel personal, and figuring out how to offer a digital buying experience that is meaningful to his audience.
What he doesn’t do is pray that distribution and putting your product everywhere is going to be “disruptive” or successful.
Technology Has Made Customers’ Love Netflix, We Have To Keep Up:
This is code for, we aren’t really sure how to market or sell our own product, so let’s offer up a Netflix style subscription model and hope for the best.
Which is just bad marketing.
Because as I have said over and over and over again, discounting destroys brands and my colleague, Martin Lindstrom, has written a fantastic book on the subject that is based on the most extensive neuropsychological study ever done on marketing and buying.
But the Netflix model of subscription ticket sales is catching on like a plague of some nature. So it must be disruptive, right?
Wrong!
It isn’t disruptive, it is destructive.
What is driving this idea forward is a number of different things, here are just a few:
- Consumers waiting until the last minute to purchase (brought about by the flooding of the market with tickets and pricing strategies that are just borderline stupid.)
- The fact that despite tickets sold being propped up by consolidation deals, discounts, some single games, and a few packages, the reality is that real attendance in most sports and most areas is down, down, down.
- These subscriptions are just thinly and poorly veiled discounts. Which as we have discussed over and over again are the fastest way to destroy your brand’s equity and to put yourself in the buyers’ mind as a discount brand for most of a decade.
If the Netflix model isn’t disruptive, what is?
Here are a few ideas that are way better than knee capping your brand value and your price integrity:
Add additional value to your ticket purchase: Everyone would love to be in the NBA Finals. That’s a guarantee sell out, I think. But the thing is, there are only, at most, 7 of those games each year. And the idea that winning will solve all of your problems in attendance is just false. All you have to do is look at the two teams closest to me in MLB to see that this argument doesn’t hold water.
The reality is that whether you win or lose, customers will buy or not based on the value they feel you are providing them.
So the quickest way that we can get people to actually buy?
Offer more value.
This might be opening up early for a happy hour like they do at Nats Park.
This might be like building out a new bar or experiential piece of your park like Comerica in Detroit.
It could be setting up a bar using old prop furniture like they do at the Sydney Opera House.
You are really only limited by your imagination.
Make Promoting Your Events A Priority:
I had a great conversation during my travels about the state of entertainment marketing and I found that there is a huge divide between what a lot of people in marketing think the job is and what the job really is.
Here’s my working definition of marketing: Marketing is everything you do, everything you make your customers and prospects feel.
A working definition for you might be: to be an agent of change, to get to the core, to share value, and to create connections that turn into relationships.
That’s so missing in so much marketing and advertising.
We have fallen into a trap of doing too much cookie cutter advertising and it has gotten to the point where if we check the box or two, we are good to go.
I’ve run my newspaper ads!
I’ve done some digital stuff!
I’ve got some billboards! Radio! A few print ads!
And, almost all of it is based on the idea that if we see that ad we are going to automatically understand exactly what and why we should care and buy.
The world doesn’t work that way.
We have to get into the habit of driving demand.
Too many marketers and sellers default to price.
But what is more important is what is important to the people you are trying to communicate with and sell to.
Instead of falling back on cookie cutter ads and marketing, how about you focus on things like:
- Tell stories about how exciting, moving, life affirming your events are.
- Focus on the community and culture of your events, building, game.
- Try to convert, convince, and implore people to step out of their comfort zone and try something new: YOU!
I mean these are just two of the biggest issues I see when I hear the technology argument, but there are tones more.
Why don’t you share some of your favorites below?