On the trail of the missing hordes

Walk-ups, advance bookers and non-bookers: a study commissioned from Cultural Intelligence by the Arts Councils of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

My first reaction to this recently published research was to congratulate the box office staff at the 23 venues that took part. On average, they capture the names and addresses of 80% of their ticket buyers. And that includes 58% of walk up bookers (that’s defined as people who buy tickets less than an hour before the performance). What an achievement! On behalf of marketers everywhere: we’re very, very sorry for ever having doubted you.

These data capture rates are important because many marketers have been worrying that when they analyse their box office data they get a misleading picture of their audiences. After all, this data can only tell us about the people who buy the tickets. It can’t tell us about the people who come to the event with them. And what about the ticket buyers whose names and addresses we don’t manage to collect? What if all these missing people are really different?

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Are You Stalking Your Audience?

Heather Maitland sees too many arts organisations squandering opportunities to use their customer databases for effective audience development

I come across too many organisations who are not making effective use of the information they hold about their ticket buyers. It’s not just that they are wasting a valuable resource, they are probably actively putting off their potential customers too.
Their strategy for using their customer database is to send direct mail about an event to people who have recently been to something similar at the venue. Sounds harmless, doesn’t it? But the trouble is that no-one is taking a strategic overview of who gets what. And the more often a customer buys tickets, the more often they get direct mail. Some venues are mailing their core customers at least once a fortnight. That’s stalking!

Not only does it mean that response rates to direct mail will be low because it’s predominantly the same people getting it, but also that the organisation’s most loyal customers will feel that their loyalty is not recognised and valued. They will probably view these letters as irritating junk mail…

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