Social Media for New Customers

There are several ways an event manager can attract new customers. The best way is through existing customers. Through the quality of your shows or events and the excellence of the customer experience, you want existing customers to communicate their positive experience to new customers. Social media can make it easy for them to do so.

These days, people are likely to inform their friends and colleagues of interesting shows or of their attendance via social media such as Facebook and Twitter.  Major sports teams report that one-third of their tickets sales comes from social media.

Measuring Marketing for New Customers

Chances are that as an event manager, you use a number of marketing approaches to get word out about your event. You may use posters, radio advertising, email blitz, newspaper advertising, website announcements or blogs, social media or any other types of communication methods. A good way to continually drive revenue is to measure the effectiveness of each of these marketing channels. There is no use in spending time, money or effort on a channel when the returns are low.

If you are using your website or your blog to drive interest in the event, it is a good practice to check the analytics around the web or blog pages. Google and other organizations provide useful analytics and statistics so that you can see your page views and assess the extent to which they are driving interest. You may be surprised to see how few people arguing a page that you may have put significant effort into. On the other hand, a page that you thought was relatively dormant maybe getting lots of views. Analytics will help you direct your efforts.

Another best practice in measuring the effectiveness of each marketing channel is to ask ticket buyers how they heard about your organization or the event.  A good time to ask is when they are purchasing a ticket. The question should be optional of course so the buyer is not forced to take time to answer it.

Tactics for Existing Customers

Existing customers are those folks who have already attended one of your events. So, you probably have their name and email address in your customer database.

The happier existing customers are with your organization and the events, the more tickets they will buy. So how to make them happy? Well, providing the absolute best experience possible is a proven method. The core part of the experience of course is the show or event itself. Allocating your finite resources to delivering the highest quality show will help produce a good experience.

Event managers realize that everything else associated with the show is also an important part of the experience. The house operations, the look and feel and overall vibe of the environment, the ease with which they can purchase their tickets and find their seats, and how well they are treated by the house staff are all critical components of providing a great experience.

Besides the experience, there are other ways event managers can encourage existing customers want to buy more tickets to more events. An appropriate level of communications from the event manager can help significantly. For example, sending people a short email after an event and asking them what they thought of it or letting them know that you appreciate their attendance is usually quite appreciated by audience members. You would not want to overdo it, however.

Also, most of your existing customers want to be informed of new shows coming up. Most would be bothered if you did not inform them. So having an effective method for letting them know about upcoming events is helpful.

Finally cross-selling is an element of any revenue plan. When a customer is purchasing tickets for an event, they appreciate seeing what other events your organization is putting on. Furthermore, they appreciate the ability to easily buy tickets for other events should they wish.

An event manager can drive ticket sales significantly by engaging with new and existing customers and providing the best experience possible.