Hey!
Thank you for reading.
Since I started publishing more frequent, but shorter notes, you’ve stuck around and continued to read and share the newsletter.
You like the newsletter. Maybe you would like to join us in the ‘Talking Tickets’ Slack Channel.
This morning, I came across a tweet from Richard Shotten, a marketer, who shared a screen grab from an article in The Economist that shares a stat that half of American vinyl buyers don’t own a record player!
An interesting nugget, but what does that have to do with tickets or the business of entertainment?
Everything.
Why?
I do a lot of research with people.
The key to successful research is the development of insights.
Insights are observations and truths of the situation.
The challenge is getting past conventional wisdom to the root of a situation.
Last week, I wrote about how Mark Ritson said that American marketers are “off the boil” and in that piece, I took aim at the root causes of why American marketing is falling behind.
In too many instances, we bring a set of preconceived ideas to a situation and it stops us from seeing the true picture of a situation.
I come back to The Economist and turn it to tickets.
How do we figure out what people are buying?
The answer demands research.
I wrote about this for the ALSD.
Let’s go a step further this morning and ask ourselves how can we get people to tell us what they are buying.
Start with your grammar school lesson:
- The 5 W’s:
- Who?
- What?
- When?
- Where?
- Why?
- How?
Who is buying?
The CEO? The CMO? The sales team? An individual?
I had several premium sales leaders tell me about the shift from corporate to personal in their premium buyers when lockdowns and capacity limits were lifted.
More importantly, they told me that personal purchases were made to spend quality time with their family.
I’ve also had sales team leaders tell me that they have tickets and that they are becoming more difficult to get potential clients to commit to. They can get rid of the tickets, but they aren’t necessarily able to get rid of the tickets to the people they need to get them to for maximum value.
What are they buying? Why?
Is it a business relationship?
Personal relationship?
Is it the door to a new relationship?
When?
Early?
Late?
Due to contractual obligations?
Where? How?
Location matters, but are they buying from you or the secondary market?
Can you answer these questions?
BTW, here is a piece I wrote at the end of last year about lessons learned doing research with some of sports’ biggest brands.
Do you know someone struggling to understand their customers? Send them today’s note.
Here are a few extra links for you from stuff that I’ve found interesting to read and think about:
- Pricing Fixing is an antitrust issue; if you read the analysis, you can see where this could cause some issues for ticketing folks.
- Unilever is looking to sell Dollar Shave Club. Keep this case study in mind when people just throw around the idea that they are going to go direct to consumer or over the top like their fans and customers might not be overextended and willing to pay for the service they are providing.
- Saudi Pro League attendance is low in some places…like meager.
- Ruth Hartt shares a quote from a Bank of America executive on how the arts can position itself as a social benefit and unlock more doors to corporate philanthropy.
- Aubrey Bergauer uses Starbucks’ treat receipts to talk about building the habit of buying tickets. The good point is the leap that arts marketers and executives think people make when they never think, “Do I do that in my own life for things I’m new to?”
Join me for a 2024 Virtual Strategy Bootcamp on 18 & 19 December.
My blog has been named one of Feedspot’s top 50 global blogs for growth!