Holiday Marketing: Go Where The People Are

Just like all retailers trying to make their numbers this time of year, all of us in event & entertainment marketing should be doing the same.  One way to market this time of year is to go where the people are.

If you are looking for lots of foot traffic and eyeballs why not market inside a mall.  Even though people may have less money to spend this holiday season that doesn’t mean they are not shopping.  I live very close to a mall and I can honestly say it’s packed.  The traffic on some weekend days is so bad they divert traffic through my neighborhood.

We are in the discretionary dollar business.  We need to convince our customers to buy a ticket over buying something else.  We already know that our tickets make “great holiday gifts”.  We include that tag line in our ads.  So why not give them the option while they are shopping at the mall? 

Malls do not limit themselves to just permanent stores.  They rent kiosk space too.  Why not spend some of the marketing dollars to promote your events at a kiosk?  If you are a venue, you mostly have several events that would work.  Split the marketing dollars between the events.  The kiosk could be manned or unmanned.  Maybe you could only man it on weekends when the most traffic will go by it.  Why not set up a computer and sell tickets directly from the kiosk?  I find you have a better chance of closing the sale if you close it right away.

We all agree that traditional advertising and marketing is not working the way it used to.  Let’s continue to think outside the box and bring our shows and events directly to our customers.

What We Can Learn From Tiger

You probably looked at the headline of this blog post and said “what does Tiger have to do with us in event & entertainment marketing”?  My answer is: what he did wrong. 

Yes, of course his “transgressions” were wrong and there is no excuse for them. But I am talking about his PR blunders.  I continue to be shocked and amazed how companies and people (famous & not famous) screw up the handling of the PR message.  Lawyers, managers, PR execs, and agents are always telling their clients to “keep quiet”.  I understand why they want them not to say anything.  The more someone talks, the deeper in shit they get.  However, staying quiet is all in the timing.  If you stay quiet too long you raise more red flags. 

In the case of Tiger, he and his people made this into a bigger media deal.  They did this by the handling of the situation.  The story first broke in the late morning.  The incident happened in the middle of the night.  This means several hours had passed by the time the story went public.  Why did it take so long for his team to respond?  The correct crafted statement could have really taken the wind out of the media frenzy.  Instead, they said nothing for a long time. When they did say something it was a very cryptic message that raised even more media attention.

In our business things are going to happen that require a PR crisis response.  How we handle the PR can make all the difference.  Long before a crisis rears its ugly head you should have a plan.  Work with your legal team.  Discuss “what if” scenarios with them.  The legal people are there to protect you from legal and civil courts but they don’t represent you in the court of the media or public opinion.  There needs to be a balance. Make sure you ready on both sides.

Have a great weekend!

Do You Really Know Your Business?

Seth Godin had a great blog post on Monday (he always has great blog posts).  This particular one was called “Watch the Money”.  In it he asked if you really understand your customer? In other words, are you your own customer?   I would like to take this one step further.  Do you really know your business?

I totally agree with Seth.  How can you know your customers if you don’t experience it?  He gave a great example that pertains to our industry.  He asks us how can we understand our customer’s complaints about buying tickets if we never buy tickets ourselves? If you are in the industry, when is the last time you bought tickets from a ticket re-seller?

As I mentioned above, why not take this even further.  How can you really know your business if you only work in one area of the business? 

If you are an event marketer, when is the last time you worked in the box office?  Have you ever sat at the window and sold tickets? Do you know “first hand” what your customers are asking? Have you worked operations for your show or event?  Yes, there has always been the “friendly feud” between marketing and operations.  But do you really understand their side? Do they understand yours? As a marketer or PR person do you get frustrated when the artist or act doesn’t want to do the interview or the meet-n-greet?  Do you really know why?  I understand you may not get to trade places with them for a day but have you ever had a one-on-one discussion with them?  Do they understand your part of the business? 

When you put promotions together, have your really thought it through? How does it affect anyone and everyone?  You can’t really know this unless you’ve been there. 

You will never really know your business until you know your business.

Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Group?

This is the story of my adventure on the other side of group sales.  I was the group leader trying to book lunch for a group of kids.

Over the holiday weekend my daughter’s pee wee hockey team was in a tournament near Patriot Place.  For those outside the Boston market, this is the New England Patriots version of City Walk or Downtown Disney.  At Patriot Place they have shops, entertainment venues, and restaurants.  We all agreed this would be a great place for the kids to have lunch after their game.

The kids wanted to go to Red Robin for burgers. So a week before the event I called them.  The date of our event happened to be Black Friday.  They informed me they could not book our group because they expected a big crowd.  I received the same response from every other family restaurant also. 

I sent an email to Red Robin explaining our situation.  Guess what, they called and made it happen!  Red Robin explained to me that they don’t normally book groups or take reservations. When we got there, they were ready for us at the exact time we asked for.  The service staff was great!  They had all 35 of us feed and out in one hour.  That is very impressive with a group of 12 year old girls.  The kids were happy and the parents only have good things to say for Red Robin.  In the end, we had a good customer experience and I know they will get repeat customers from our group.

You should also know that Patriot Place management was very understanding and tried to help us too.  They get it. They want groups coming to their place. They also tried contacting a few restaurants for us.

Here is what I don’t understand.  Why would any organization turn down guaranteed business if they have the capacity?  All of these restaurants had no idea how much business they would get on Black Friday.  In fact the weather was really bad that day with heavy rain and chilly.  This was predicted.  Patriot Place is an outdoor area with indoor shops. As we walked around the area we saw how low the attendance was due to the weather.  If you can book a group, does it not help you when the walk-up customers stay away?  Is it not better to know what you have versus not knowing?  Why are some people still afraid of group sales?

Talk Is Cheap But Its Worth Gold

People are doing more talking then ever before.  You can thank the internet and cell phones for this.  They are not just talking with their mouths.  They are writing, blogging, and social networking.  These words and conversations are what is influencing decisions and moving product. 

As event and entertainment marketers we should not only use these marketing methods, we should also listen and read what they are saying.  A lot of our marketing decisions can be made based on what our customers tell us.  So often we forget to listen to our customers.  It reminds me of the Verizon fios TV commercial where the cable guy asks “why are we listening to customers, seems dumb”.  Customers tell us everything we need to know to be successful.  So many times we just tell them what they want and need.

One the best and cheapest marketing methods: strike up a conversation.  This is really easy to do.  You know who your target market is, so go to them.  On the internet find out where they hang.  What social sites do they use?  What blogs do they read?  Read what they are saying.  Ask them questions. Don’t be scared of the negative.  Use this for positive change.  

You don’t have to use just the internet.  Meet them live, face to face.  Go where your customers are.  This could be at your venue.  Instead of walking around with a clip board, invite them to a table or booth.  Give them a gift for their honest conversation.  We are always doing contests with text messaging at events.  Why not have them text you their opinions? If you market a sports team, why not go to youth sports games? Talk to the kids.  They are your future.

I am a firm believer in having a finger on the pulse of our customers.  Two way talk will do the trick.

Hype Builds Hype

Unless you have been living in the woods with no form of communication, you most likely know what movie came out today.  I take that back, you probably do know because some werewolf is doing PR in the woods.

The release of “New Moon” is a perfect example of building hype.  Not only did they do a great job of building hype, they built hype on top of hype.  You cannot not turn on your TV without seeing something about this movie.  They are the talk of the social network sites.  They have made the stars of the movie into a screaming frenzy not seen since the Beatles came to America.

The movie has not received rave reviews.  But who cares?  If you have the right product with the right PR and hype, you can overcome anything. Do you think all those teenage girls care about reviews?  As event & entertainment marketers we can learn from the marketing of this movie.

The amount of PR this movie is getting is mind blowing.  If you handle PR in your market, you should be taking notes.  If you hire, pay, or budget PR in the live event business you should take notice.  Hollywood spends money on PR!  For some reason we dread spending money on PR in the live event business.

They have had the stars of the movie anywhere and everywhere.  They had hundreds of screaming girls at my local mall this week.  The mall management was smart and did the event in the new part of the mall.  This is an area with high price stores and no customers.  I bet that is most amount of people that part of the mall has ever seen.

We need this kind of hype filled live events for our venues.  I don’t see why we can’t. 

Have a great weekend!

Is There No Shame?

In the past I have been accused of always picking on Ticketmaster when it comes to ticketing issues.  This is not true at all.  I am an equal opportunity offender.  If an issue rears its ugly head, I believe we as an industry should bring it up and discuss it.  Today’s blog post is not about Ticketmaster.  Today I am picking on a ticket broker. 

Unless you live in the Boston market, you may not have heard about the ticket fiasco between Ace Tickets and New Kids on the Block.  The New Kids are doing a fundraiser at the Boston House of Blues for Toys for Tots.  Proceeds from ticket sales are going to the charity.  Somehow Ace has lots of tickets selling on their website for as much as $300 per ticket.  The actual cost of the tickets is $60 each. Donnie Wahlberg from the band announced his disgust that ticket brokers were scooping up all the tickets for a fundraiser.  Ace released an apology and said they would give their profits from the sale of tickets to the charity.  Ace claimed they didn’t know it was a fundraiser.

Here are my questions:

1. How did Ace not know this was a fundraiser?  If you are going to be in the ticket selling business, don’t you need to know what you are selling?
2. How did Ace get the tickets in the first place?  I thought Live Nation and Ticketmaster (not picking on TM) have technology in place to prevent this from happening? If so, who gave Ace the tickets? Was it the venue, band, promoter, etc…?
3. Once Ace realized their mistake, why didn’t they give back all the unsold seats?

As an industry, we need to stop all this crap and start marketing and selling tickets in a correct way so that our customers will want to buy our seats. The blame is industry wide.  This goes from the agents & managers, to the acts, promoters, venues, and ticket agencies. Our customers are starting to look at us as not a legit business. We are better then all this. We are not the Wild Wild West.

Current Keys To Success: Pocketbook & Misson

Last week we discussed how we should follow retails lead going into the holiday shopping season.  If you haven’t noticed already, top retailers & brands seem to have a similar message.  As Walmart’s current tagline states: “Save money, live better”.

There is an article in today’s Adage Online about marketers selling the mission.  P&G, Unilever, and Walmart are among the brands and retailers that are pushing this marketing approach.  Today’s marketing trend is all about how your brand is helping someone.

As event & entertainment marketers you might say “how do I say that when I am only selling tickets”.  The business of selling tickets is not that different from selling a P&G product.  The one big difference is that most of our products are discretionary dollars. 

Think about what your product does for your customer.  For most of our shows and events we put smiles on people’s faces.  During this time of stress and recession, this is a really great thing. Think of our events and shows as a “mental health holiday”.  Remember what I always preach “we are the escape”.  If you don’t want to discount tickets right from the start, why not price the event or tour as ”fan friendly”. 

Emotions and price are our two most sellable tools after the event brand itself.  As you put together your marketing plans, try to incorporate these two important assets.

Becareful Of Too Much Free eMarketing

We can all agree that too much of anything can hurt you.  Too much food, drink, drugs, etc…  This also goes for marketing through technology.

As many of you know, I follow event & entertainment marketing peeps through Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.  Many of these marketers are using this social technology to market, which is great.  If you are using the technology too much are you losing your customers interest?

This morning I received a Facebook invite for an event from an arena venue.  They use Facebook on a regular basis to promote their events.  Today’s problem is that I received the same invite at least 10 times.  I am sure this is not the venue’s fault.  Something is probably “whacked” with Facebook.  This is a potential hazard with using other’s free technology.  You depend on them to help you get the message out but you are also at their mercy when they f*** up.

Another potential hazard with using today’s free marketing technology is the question of when is too much?  If you send out emails everyday are people reading them or are they deleting them?    Do you start going unnoticed?  The same goes for promoting your event on the social networks.  If you are pushing every single day, sometimes several times a day, are your customers reading it? 

The internet is very different from television.  When you run lots of TV spots, you hope to reach all your potential customers with at least one of the spots.  When you send messages directly to a customer via email or a social network site, they are most likely getting your message the first time.

Feedback Friday

From: Tweeter is Finally Cool with the Younger Gen 11/02/09

I think it’s interesting to discover how different demographics use Twitter. Perhaps the older generation are using it more for business, and perhaps the younger kids are using it for more social purposes. I think you’ll find this is also relative to mobile phone use. I use Twitter on my phone, but hardly ever log in online. However, I use Facebook more online.  Iain Bluett, Ticket Alternative

From: Want to Move Tickets: Push Group Sales 11/11/09

Joe I believe the reason group sales is not held as very important to the industry is because the industry is far better at order taking and making an additional profit on the order taking transaction than they are on providing and managing a true sales process and staff which is viewed only as an added expense. Those are the thoughts of a very old timer who once knew what the term customer service really meant and worked for employers who did too.  David Rosenwasser

Have a great weekend!

Want To Move Tickets: Push Group Sales

Tickets to events are down and promoters and venues are scratching their heads on what to do.  One of the answers might be right in front of them: group sales.

Group sales have been a part of events and entertainment forever.  I believe they have not always received the respect they deserve.  Depending on the event, they have been a priority or a stepchild. 

Several years ago I was involved with a group sales dot com.  The response we received depended on who we were pitching.  If we pitched family shows or amusement parks, we were well received.  If we talked to concert promoters, not so much.  To this day, I still don’t understand the mentality of some concert promoters.  If your shows are selling out, great!  But not every show or tour does.  Why would you not want a group sales program in place to move tickets? 

Think about what group sales can do for your event.  It puts large quantities of butts in seats.  What is more important to you, moving single tickets or a bus load?  Yes, you do have to offer a package to groups.  Usually this is done with a discount.  If you buy anything in bulk you expect a price break, right? 

Group sales should be moved to the fore front of event and entertainment marketing for 2010.  Move marketing budget to groups.  This may involve putting more sales people on the streets.  This may include offering a little deeper discount for groups.  If you are not pitching bus companies and tour operators you need to start.  Many have sales departments.  They can become your extended sales force. 

Group sales today are more then school kids and seniors. Every one of us is in a group of some kind. What is your event target market?  What groups fit into it? The opportunities are endless and you might fill some cold empty seats.