The Nats and Budweiser offer you a deal to come out to the “old ballgame”:
Big Ideas:
- Price is about value.
- Value is about three things: creating value, communicating value, and retaining value.
- When you have a great offer, don’t be afraid to pound on it.
Let me begin here by saying I went to another Nats game on Friday night to see the Nats and the Mets in action.
A couple of things I picked up on during my visit:
- The Nats are doing a really good job of following up on people’s experience using the magic NPS question. So good job. The downside of that is that the survey is much too long. I filled out the entire one, but that’s because I wanted to see how long it was and I like to ask people to fill out my surveys…so fairly play.
- The in-seat ordering in left field wasn’t working very well or wasn’t really a value add. In the other two games I went to, once I didn’t order at all. Once, I ordered but I was in all-inclusive seats. So the jury is still out.
- The lines for beer and food are still a bit out of reason. I stood in line for about 30 minutes to get a beer and when you add on the time for my son to get an ice cream, we missed a good bit of the game. The staff is very nice, but I’d say they are understaffed. At the prices you are paying for beers, not a good look.
Back to the offer being made by the Nationals and Budweiser, a ticket and a beer for $22!
What’s not to like?
Budweiser made a commitment to give away 100,000 tickets and beer to encourage folks to get back to the ballpark and this seems to be a part of that commitment.
My taste is more Pliney the Elder and Other Half, but free beer with your ticket is a nice value add.
As you might recognize this story is all about pricing! (A subject I’m going to cover at Ticket Summit in August! Get your tickets!)
In my experience working on pricing and helping make probably a million pricing decisions, there are three factors in setting the right price:
- Creating value
- Communicating value
- Retaining value
Let’s go through this offer through that lens.
Creating value:
This is a pretty good value proposition. You go to a game on the weekend, buy a ticket, and get a free beer.
You have a whole bunch of value in this proposition, tangible and intangible:
- The game
- The crowd
- The beer
- Summer
- The atmosphere of a live event
- A weekend out with friends
- A sense of relief from not being able to go to a game
I can go on, but I hope you get the point.
Communicating value:
This is where the offer could use a little work because it relies heavily on the idea that folks are going to recognize the value of going to a ballgame and having a beer with friends.
Remember the first rule of marketing is: You are not your market.
The challenge here is that we have to look outside of our “normal” markets because the market of our non-customers is always larger. Plus, we are dealing with folks that may just be coming out for the first time since the pandemic, so we are going to need to oversell the value a bit here to help folks see the value that is being offered here.
Retaining value:
Again, a spot where some improvements would help the offer tremendously.
The big point for me is to talk about the 33% savings.
Again, discounts are for dummies but discounts don’t typically drive sales anyway, they canibalize profits.
I’d also in this case, “FREE” might not carry as much weight as other ways of positioning the value.
You might consider:
- A welcome back package
- Beer and Ball Bundle
- Your first one’s on us
We can play with any number of permutations of the message, but you want to retain the value of the offer because it is a pretty good deal for folks.
If your venue is thinking about ways to enhance the value of your offering, keep in mind the three keys to value and pricing:
- Create value
- Communicate value
- Retain value
You can create value in a number of ways like this package with the Nats does when they add a free beer. You have to communicate the value and keep in mind that you aren’t your audience. In fact, in cases like this, you are likely targeting people that might not be the most rabid fans so you want to make sure you target your message at what they will value. And, retain value by making sure you don’t do anything that undermines your value like talking about discounts and such.
When you have a great offer, don’t be afraid to shout it out…do it and be proud of it.