A few articles today with a similar theme: focusing on the customer. Before we get there a chance to meet me in NYC in 2 weeks: I’m hosting a special day with me in New York City on Thursday, September 28 called ‘Rethinking Revenue: Creating New Opportunities in Any Market’.I’m limiting this to 15 people or less.The fee is $495 and I will buy the first round at happy hour when we are done.In the session, I’ll share things with you like:
Why you need to know the real buyer.Why you should be speaking about outcomes and how this will drive up your fees and your sales.Why even if you aren’t in marketing, you are in marketing and how you can use that to your advantage.How to use my good friend, Google, to uncover secondary market research to help you find new opportunities.Plus…MORE! MORE! MORE!
Do you want to join me?Reply here and I’ll get you set up.Again, small group so that you can get individual attention!Don’t miss it.To the Tickets! Suite Experience Group makes it easier to buy suites: This hits home. Why?Because I had moved on from tickets a few years ago because I was into brands and brand management. My wife asked me to help get her a suite for a game and the process was horrendous. I realized nothing much had changed in the years since I’d started working on other stuff. I identified an opportunity. That’s what Suite Experience Group has done as well. Corporate buyers don’t want or need a full season in a lot of cases. They may not even know they need tickets to the game that they are looking to buy until a week or two before the game. Timelines have shrunk for a lot of things. Yet, in most teams, the flexibility is not available. I talked with Scott Spencer early on in the podcast journey, a lot of it holds up over time. The key for suite sales that translates to any area of event production and ticket sales:
Your ticket buyer is the customer. If you don’t adjust some of your policies, there are tons of other options available to them. Amazon/Apple/Google Pay/etc. have changed the way that a ticket buyer thinks about friction. If there is a drawn out purchase process, that’s likely going to cost you sales now. Suite Experience Group looked at other hospitality groups for inspiration. Are you looking outside of the sports/entertainment silo for inspiration? If not, let me know.
Newcastle United surveys fans and the fans tell them how it is: A lot of organizations take the same approach to customer feedback that I take with my family: I don’t ask questions I don’t want the answer to.Don’t tell my wife!? This is our secret. Football clubs in the UK do a good job of having the voice of the fan in the organization. Some do a better job of acting on it than others. The important things in this piece that you can apply to your own organization and processes:
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. I have a podcast with Caspian Turner about accessibility that I’m going to release in the next week or so that focuses on all of the things we miss when we talk about accessibility. Just as important, think of all the opportunities we gain by thinking about accessibility. The same applies in any number of areas. A subhead in the piece is “the proactive approach”. It is always better to be on the offensive. I teach you to always be in the market, listening to your customer because they will be an early warning system for you and can help you cut off some bad situations early. The battle between long-time supporters and expanding your fan base. “Legacy fans” was a term thrown around with disgust by supporters during the Super League fiasco. It is still thrown around, actually. In my opinion, it isn’t one v. the other. It is a marriage of both. The lifecycle of a supporter and fan isn’t a straight line. It isn’t surprising that the lack of merch in the membership packages is a huge deal. NPS scores shoot up for any product or service that includes some physical representation. Also, it is something kids and supporters anticipate…they’ll pay more for it, but it is a key touchpoint. Just look at all of the Tottenham membership stuff that is laying around my house? Cormac loves it.
Consider all of these things. How do you get the voice of the fan into your organization? Do you want to find a better way of learning from your fans? Let me know. I’m going to do a future episode of ‘The Business of Fun’ about listening to your customers.
Email me. Text me. Send me a letter. Tweet me. DM me. Leave it in the Slack Channel. Whatever works.