“Put Yourself In My Shoes”

How many times have you used that phrase or something like it? I tend to use it a lot.  Sadly, it seems I use it more and more these days. What if everyone did business with that phrase in mind?

When you sit down to develop the marketing strategy for a show or event, you need to get into your customers head.  What will they think? How will they perceive my message?  What will make them buy?  You have to put on your customers hat.  Remember, you may not be your own customer.  Just because you think they will see your message, doesn’t mean they will.  For example, if you plan to buy out of home advertising, where are the best locations for your customer to see it? I once had a boss who wanted billboards placed along the route he took.  He said his customers take the same route.  Our marketing research did not gel with his thought process.  We saw no increase in sales. Maybe he just wanted to see his own billboards.

The phrase “put yourself in my shoes” gets used the most when it comes to customer service.  I tend to use it all the time with customer “no” service people on the phone.  When you put your policies and procedures together for the customer experience, do you think about how the customer will deal with it?  If you answer “who gives a crap” then you are not putting yourself in their shoes. Just because it looks good on paper doesn’t make it so. Listening to our customers is what sells.  Next time you want to cut something that will affect your customers experience, put yourself in their shoes.

Post Conference Thoughts

It was a whirlwind trip to Chicago for the Event & Arena Marketing Conference last week.  If the conference didn’t create its own excitement, being ground zero for the Stanley Cup celebrations brought it over the top.

I really enjoyed Ross Bernstein’s keynote presentation on the late Herb Brooks.  Ross seemed to bring the full spirit of the 1980 Olympic hockey coach to the conference.  After hearing Ross’s speech, you can really understand how “Herbie” was able to take average college hockey players and turn them into Olympic champions.

I attended the session on viral marketing.  Wanted to hear how it is evolving or should I say “going viral”.  The session was very interesting.  When many people think viral, they think YouTube.  But viral marketing is way more than that.  Marketing on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and FourSquare is viral marketing too.  Have your Facebook fans create an “event” for your show.  Have each of them invite all of their friends to the event.  This will spread the word to thousands very quickly.

Since I have been in this business for 25 years, I don’t get overly impressed with the type of family shows that tour today.  However, I think Walking with Dinosaurs is pretty cool.  They had a Baby T at their sponsored luncheon.  Now that is what I call a really great advance costume.  Baby T is the size of an actual baby t-rex. I was also impressed with how Cirque du Soleil has grown over the past 20 years.  The brand is now worldwide with 20 plus shows and continues to grow every year. 

I was part of a panel discussion on marketing & advertising basics.  The panel took an interesting twist. Instead of talking about how to buy media or what are the right GRP’s, we discussed actually understanding our customers.  You can’t buy media if you truly don’t know your customer.  It is more than just reading the stats.  You need to ask the customer, listen to the customer, and follow through for the customer.

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.

How Do We Convince Them To Buy?

How do we convince our customers to buy tickets to our events?  This is most likely the number one question that event marketers ask.  Here are four answers:

1. Right product
2. Right price
3. Correct message
4. Know your customer

Long before you put the show on sale or even produce the show, you should ask yourself and others “will this sell tickets”?  Do the homework.  Is there a market for this event?  Over the years I have seen many events that should have never gone out.  Just because you like the idea does not mean it is ready for the world.  Research the trends. 

Instead of discounting all the time, why not just price the event correctly from the start?  If your price is too high then you will get push back from the customer.  In turn, this causes you to discount.  If we get the consumer used to discounts then they just wait for them. It can also send the wrong message.

If you are a marketer then you should know how to market your event.  Write a marketing plan.  It really does help!  When I first started in the business, I hated writing marketing plans.  Today, I totally understand why they are so important.  This becomes your bible for the correct communication for the event. How does your customer receive his/her communication?  Go where they are, not where you think they are.

If you don’t know your customer, you can’t sell the show.  This goes back to the marketing plan.  When you start the plan, research your potential customer.  What are the demographics? Why will they buy your product? What do they like and dislike?  How do you communicate to them? Where do they hang out? What are their income levels? What will they pay for your event? 

Did you notice that it all goes back to “know your customer”?

Have a great weekend!

How Well Do You Know Your Customer?

Before I get into today’s topic…

They made it official

The official announcement came yesterday for the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.  Of course this was no surprise.  We all buzzed about this last week.  I guess the only “new” news was that the combined company name would be Live Nation Entertainment.  Does this mean the end of the Ticketmaster brand? 

Yes, I think the merger will go through. 

How Well Do You Know Your Customer?

I was at a board meeting last night for the non-profit theatre I am involved with.  As with all non-profits the subject of raising money through donors was discussed.  As I was listening to this discussion on how to reach these potential donors I started thinking about all of us in the event and entertainment business.  How well do we know our customers? 

Part of fundraising in the non-profit world is researching and cultivating potential donors.  This takes some effort but there is usually a good ROI.  The art of knowing our customers in the “for profit” world seems almost lost.  I am not exactly sure why.  Is it that we have no time?  Is it because we are lazy? 

If you promote a show, how much do you really know about your potential customer?  We seem to “just decide” where the show is going to play, put the show on sale, and run the marketing. Why are you playing the show in that city?  Does the market want this event? Why did you decide to put the show in that venue?  Is it really the right place for it or did you have to play somewhere and they had the avail?  What marketing plan did you use? One designed for that city or one that seems to work and you use it everywhere?  If it worked Dallas will it work in Hartford?

If you are a sports team, who is your fan?  Do you really know your fan?  Do all your fans come to at least one game per season?  My bet is the answer is “no”.  If this is the case, why not?  What are you doing to attract new fans?  Did you ever think of doing a cultivation event to show off the brand?  Where do your fans live?  What else do they like to do and are you directly marketing in these places?

If you run a venue do you ever find out what your customers like and dislike about the venue?  If you do find out, do you try to increase what they like and fix what they dislike?  Do you ask your customers what type of events they would like to see at your venue?  Maybe they want a show you don’t book. 

 What about your sponsors/partners?  Are they happy with the relationship?  Why are they your sponsor/partner? Do you ask them what they want or do you just give them “a package” you want to sell? I bet you have a “wish list” of potential sponsor/partners that you think would be a perfect fit.  How come they are still on the wish list? 

How well do you know your customer?