BEST PRACTICES TO SELL YOUR EVENT

Discover all our tips to help you sell out your event through our ticketing service Shotgun

1. Program when you should go on sale

• What time of the month ? Prefer to go on sale at the beginning of the month rather than at the end of the month, when your audience benefits from its strongest purchasing power.
• Watch your competitors calendar, just as you should avoid producing your event in front of another likely to also interest your audience, the same goes for its announcement schedule, avoid to do a big announce the same day than another promoter.
• When your audience is connected, the better you know your audience the better you’ll communicate with them, use insight tools at your disposal (like Facebook/Instagram/Shotgun CRM) to know when your audience is connected to optimize your announcement.

2. Create a momentum when going on sale

• The moment when you go on sale is crucial, it sets the tone of your sale cycle and allows you to anticipate the sales dynamic to come. You have to sell the most tickets to your most engaged community so that they become ambassadors for your event by encouraging those around them to come together.
• ‍Save the date : Announce the opening date for tickets in advance. For example, you can send a « save the date » email to your entire audience with the possibility of adding this date to their personal calendar so that they receive a reminder notification when the day comes and not miss the first tickets; or you can share a regular countdown to draw attention to the d-day.
• ‍Stay tuned as the ticketing launches. When you put your event up for sale, it’s not just about pushing a button and letting it go. As we said above, this moment is crucial. You’ll need to stay connected with your audience, react to their enthusiasm, answer responsively to any questions they may have and ensure that everything runs smoothly.
• ‍Right after the first reach : you can thank your audience for their enthusiasm and support, and communicate to the public the sales dynamic if you think it can hurry them to book their tickets.

3. Set an evolving fee structure

• Reward your most loyal community : for example, you can have a preview private sale at very preferential rates. To know more about this topic, check our article about the reward program.
• ‍Gratification of early purchase: encourage the public to buy early with public evolving rates. Remember a ticket’s owner is a potential ambassador of your event. You can set different levels with scalable pricing (early, nice, regular, last chance).
• ‍Rate change can be set by gauge or by period, the first option is more flexible and can allow you to relaunch the sales dynamic when you feel it by creating frustration, as long as your strategy remains fair.
• ‍Regularly communicate the filling gauge for more transparency and motivation.

4. Create special offers for alternative networks

• Adapt your marketing strategy to your audience: depending on the typology of your audience, it may be interesting or even imperative to create special offers for specific communities (student associations, works council, government system to facilitate access to culture, etc.). Learn more about segmenting and targeting your audience.
• ‍Create special operations with promo codes without giving the impression that you are selling off your event. You can multiple operations as long as the promotion does not publicly allow to buy a cheaper ticket than those who have already bought theirs. If so, do it in private with the audience you want to benefit from it, justifying this promotion in a positive way.
• ‍Make sure you have the good tools within your ticketing solution that make it easy to create and manage those specific sales channels and promotions (for example, within Shotgun Smartboard you can easily create private reseller channels or set promotion codes for special operations)

5. Reduce possible friction at the act of purchase

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes to anticipate any obstacles to booking.

• Facilitate access: if the location of your event is not downtown, communicate access facilities, reassure your public on this point, offer a partnership with a VTC service or accommodation on site, indicate the main routes, …
• ‍Allow smaller budgets to attend your event: if possible, offer your audience to pay in several instalments
• ‍Show your audience you’re using a secure online payment gateway: your ticketing solution should be secure, and if you’re selling within your own website you should install SSL certificate on your web hosting account.
• ‍Offer several payment methods: some people don’t have a credit card, if you don’t want to exclude them from your events, you can offer an alternative method, like Paypal for example.
• ‍Booking a ticket for an event must remain an exciting moment: Make it smooth to book, prefer an ultra-simplified purchase funnel not to bother your audience with too many steps and request for personal information that could discourage them from going all the way.