Starting your promotional strategy from stage one every time you launch a new event or product is draining and ineffective. You are burning through ad budgets and wasting time. First time buyers are expensive to acquire and are unpredictable. You cannot start from scratch every time, build a community of loyal customers that you know will be present for every event you launch after the first. Shift your focus from customer acquisition to customer retention and that is when you will see long term success for your business.
Building brand loyalty
You must capture customers’ enthusiasm the moment the show ends to turn one off ticket holders into dedicated repeat customers. The window to lock in brand loyalty is small, you need to act quick. Posting the pictures, highlight reels and clips from the night immediately after the event is over will keep your brand fresh in their minds. Sending emails about similar events to guests ensures your marketing is relevant and effective. Instead of spamming customers with emails of events that do not matter to them, group your audience by preferences and spending habits and reach out directly to those specific groups with tailored offers.
Making past attendees feel valued and important will encourage them to come back. When launching a new event, give previous buyers the opportunity to purchase tickets 24 hours before the public does. This makes previous customers feel special and encourages them to bring their friends, turning them into repeat customers as well. Beyond the exclusive presale access, making sure repeat customers feel prioritized and important goes a long way in reinforcing that loyalty. Have a dedicated VIP table, offer a complimentary drink token or skip the line access to loyal customers. Provide loyal customers with referral links, make them feel rewarded and recognized, and then they will unintentionally become your best promoters and will fill every room with family and friends who then become repeat customers as well, keeping the cycle going.
Keeping your costs low and success long term
Customer acquisition costs up to twenty five times more than customer retention. Not only is starting your marketing from scratch for every new event exhausting but it is extremely costly. When attracting new customers, you are being forced to spend a large portion of your marketing budget. Existing and past customers already know your brand and know what to expect from your events. Reaching out to past customers directly, by email, or through text messages costs significantly less. Loyal customers bring their friends and family, therefore naturally acquiring new customers and lowering your customer acquisition costs.
Having a relationship with your audience is the key to long term success. Following up with past customers on events that seem relevant and personalized to them instead of chasing new buyers every single week. Being able to see data is important in order to be able to retain customers, make sure you are on a ticketing platform that allows you to do that. AdmitONE gives venue owners, event promoters and organizers 100% data ownership. When you own your own data you have the ability to use the built in tracking tools to convert every purchase into a lasting connection. Stop renting an audience every time you launch an event, build a self sustaining brand.
