Ticketing experts generally advise event planners to pay attention to their ticket sales curve. Often, attendees purchase their tickets either at the moment the tickets go on sale or right before the event. To prevent the pressure rising just before an event, when it is difficult to guess whether last minute sales will actually happen, there are marketing campaigns you can run to boost sales. Black Friday is a great opportunity. Here is how to make the most of this major marketing event.
Contents
- Make your flash sales count
- Use your best channels to communicate
- Sell your tickets online
- Set quotas and an end-date for your sales
- Beware of peaks in traffic
1. Make your flash sales count
Offering discounted tickets is not enough to sell during Black Friday. Your offer needs to be sufficiently attractive for a potential attendee to decide to purchase a ticket for your event when hundreds of other products and services are also offered at heavily discounted prices. A 24hr flash-sale with a discount of 40 to 60% can convince your audience to make a decision. Whether it is a discount, a free gift offered with the ticket, 2-for-1 tickets, etc. the buyer needs to make a decision within a few seconds and in a few clicks.
For the 2018 Foire de Paris, the event organisers used Weezevent to set-up a 24h flash sale allowing them to sell 1,000 tickets at a 30% discounted price. This amount of daily ticket sales has only been topped during the 13 days of the event itself – and for a special Valentine’s Day offer. Yet, Black Friday occured 6 months before the event. It is, therefore, proof that this kind of marketing campaign works. As a reminder, here is how to create and structure ticket types for your event.
2. Use your best channels to communicate
For large-scale marketing events such as Black Friday, consumers are generally saturated with messages on every possible communication channel. If you want your campaign to be effective, you will need to think about how to reach the people most likely to purchase your tickets at discounted prices, rather than aiming at maximum exposure. This should be reflected in your choice of communication channels.
You should favour your most cost-effective channels, rather than the ones promising “miracle” results. Here are three examples – up to you to assess whether they would work for your event:
- Ultra-targeted newsletter: Weezevent helps you analyse your event and list the people who have attended your events most frequently. That way, you can refine your message. For instance you could write: “You are among our most loyal customers, and we think Black Friday is the perfect opportunity to say thank you with an exclusive offer”. This will prevent you from sending a generic email that may go unnoticed among the 30-50 other Black Friday offers that your contacts will receive.
- Instagram: Using the Close friends list, you can post a Story sharing an announcement or a promo code to a chosen list of contacts. You can edit your close friends list by clicking on your profile picture at the bottom right of the app, then on the 3 horizontal bars and finally on “close friends”.
- Google Ads: Using the search engine ads, you can target the people who are already looking for tickets for a concert or event similar to yours. An attractive message and precise targeting will ensure that you don’t throw away your money. Clearly display “-50% on [artist] concert tickets in [town]”.
3. Sell your tickets online
As indicated in the name, Black Friday happens on a Friday and most people won’t take a day off to enjoy the many deals available in the shops. This is why Black Friday has become such an important Internet operation and you should sell your tickets online. Otherwise, you may miss sales opportunities because most of your potential attendees will want to make the most of Black Friday in the morning before work, or during their lunch break. You should offer a limited number of tickets or at least announce it in order to reward the quickest buyers and profit from your operation.
4. Set quotas and an end-date for your sales
If you feel that a high number of people will want to benefit from your offer, you should make a limited amount of tickets available so as not to find yourself in a difficult situation if your event cannot welcome everyone. You should also set an end-date for your offer. Black Friday can be extended to the following Monday (Cyber Monday). You should base your decision on the time you think your potential buyers will have and remember that the more limited your offer is – in time and quantity – the faster the purchase decision will be.
All quota and date options are detailed in our help section here: Creating and structuring ticket types for my event.
5. Beware of peaks in traffic
Among the events that generate the most traffic on e-commerce websites, Black Friday is at the top. On Weezevent, your minisites and ticketing widgets are protected because our system automatically adjusts to peaks in traffic. However, if you have added your Weezevent widget to one of your website pages, you should ensure that your page can withstand the potential surge in visits.
Now that you know everything about Black Friday, it is time to start preparing your offers for this once-a-year opportunity. Click on the button below to discover how our services can help you:
