Did you know that the ticketing or booking agency and software you choose for your event or experience can play a huge part in making or breaking your ticket sales?

One of the things we find with so many of our event and tourism experience clients is that this is so often an afterthought when really it should be part of the discussion much earlier on in the piece.

It's regularly seen as boring but necessary admin that needs to get sorted out before we ultimately put tickets on sale or open up to bookings, but not something that can have a direct impact on the success of our campaigns overall.

The reality is - it can have a huge impact for a variety of reasons, and it can give your marketing team even more avenues and options to work with so you can be seen in more places, and ultimately sell more tickets and drive more bookings.

Why Ticketing or Booking Platform Companies Care About Supporting Your Marketing in the First Place

When you think about what a ticketing agency is (we’re going to dumb it down and go right back to basics here) - their entire business is about selling tickets or converting bookings, and part of that business is on bringing you as an event promoter or tourism operator on to work with their platform in the first place.

It's in their interest to support you through your marketing and sales process, and the good ones are ready and waiting to do that, and they have the systems, data, and marketing channels available to allow for that.

Ticketing and Booking Platform Companies Are a Treasure-trove of Data and Databases - You Just Have to Know How to Tap Into Them

When you think about all the different types of events or experiences that a single ticketing agency or booking platform is hosting, they have a wealth of data and customer information that they’re collecting day in, day out. 

They know who is booking what and where and the volume of those requests on a huge scale. 

If you knew you could potentially tap into those networks and reach active ticket buyers or people making activity bookings for a specific area, demographic, or timeframe, it would be an absolute no-brainer to do so, right? 

The thing is, many of these platforms allow you to do this one way or another. You just have to know which ones, and who to ask. 

Omnichannel Visibility is Key to Strong and Sustainable Ticket Sales and Bookings

The name of the game in any event or experiential marketing is to get people to not only spend their money but also their time coming along to (often) a physical location. 

The way you do that is to get as many people talking about you and seeing you via as many channels as possible. The more buzz and excitement there appears to be, the more other people start to feel the urgency and excitement to participate. It’s a steamroll effect and you go to the top of their mind when considering what they want to spend their time and money on in a given timeframe. 

Generally, the more channels you can have a consistent presence on and the more social proof you can demonstrate, the better your chances of success. 

Several of those channels can be through your ticketing or booking platform provider, but many event or experience promoters don't even realise that they can get support from their ticketing or booking agency in the first place, so they never ask the question.

What we see time and time again is event organisers or tourism operators don’t build this conversation into part of their planning process at the point that they’re choosing which platform to go with. 

So we’ve put together a list of ways you might be able to get support from those agencies so you can start the conversation and make a decision from a more informed place, and hopefully see higher momentum when it comes to ticket sales or booking conversions. 

7 Questions to Ask Your Ticketing or Booking Software Provider

1. Ask what kind of marketing support they can provide you in the lead up to the event or on an ongoing basis.

Is it a one and done type of arrangement where they’ll assist with the announcement but then do nothing else, or do you get a range of support options you can tap into from start to finish or via an ongoing arrangement? 

Ask about the full scope of options, complementary and paid if offered, and make sure you also ask how effective those options have been in the past for events or experiences similar to yours. Are they fluffy options that sound good but don't have any real impact, or are they effective?

2. Ask about their database and whether you can leverage it somehow.

How big is their database or list? Can you tap into it somehow?

Is it just emails or do they send SMS or do they have chat marketing support options?

Do they offer dedicated EDMs for events or experience promoters?

Do they have daily, weekly, monthly newsletters with event listings that people can peruse?

Do they have segmented lists?

Do they split their database out in terms of interest type or event type?

Do they host their own marketplace that you can tap into can provide additional traffic to your event or experience?

3. Do they have paid options?

For example, for an additional rate, can you secure sponsored posts, EDMs, or SMS marketing that other promoters don't have access to? 

Can you buy a marketing package that includes a certain number of EDMs or social media posts to that agency’s database? 

4. Can you leverage their social media channels?

How frequently do they post?

How engaged are their followers?

What kind of reach are they getting?

Do they offer cross posting, advertising partnerships, influencer marketing, etc? 

5. Do they run advertising campaigns themselves?

What do those campaigns look like?

How do they work? 

Can you offer to pay a fee in exchange for running an ad to a hyper-targeted sub-section of their database?

For example, could you target people who've engaged with their social media platforms or email list who are also in your region or interested in similar events or experiences to what you're selling?.

6. Can you place tracking pixels?

If you’re running (or plan to run) any type of paid social campaign now or in the future, you absolutely need to be collecting any data you can.

Even though the web is slowly and steadily moving away from cookie tracking, it's still viable and there are options for server-side tracking also (which without getting too techy is a more advanced way of tracking and optimising for conversions than traditional browser-side tracking).

Will the platform allow you to place your tracking for Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google (and YouTube), TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. on your booking real estate via their platform? How advanced is their system? 

7. Will they allow you to collect and use the contact details of any opt ins?

Beyond tracking pixels, the most valuable data at all is actual owned customer data, and we're not just talking names, emails and phone numbers. We're talking behavioural data and insights such as whether people like to attend a particular type of event, or whether they have any patterns of going on holiday and booking into experiences at particular times of year.

Many platforms will provide you with this data but some won't (they may not even collect it) so it's worth asking what data you'll receive as a result of choosing their platform or marketplace.

After all, the people who purchase tickets or make bookings for your event or experience are effectively your customers, so providing those customers have opted in to share their data, you have as much right to it as the ticketing or booking provider does.

Moral of the story - don’t be afraid to have these conversations and have them early on in the planning process.

At the end of the day, your ticketing or software provider has a vested interest in your campaign’s success. The more tickets or bookings they sell, the more money they make. The more other promoters will want to use their service, and the more likely you are to return to them next time ‘round. 

These are just some of the many considerations that should go into the campaign planning process well before the first posts or ads or emails go live.

If it's feeling overwhelming and you want to avoid having to worry about these details and focus on what you do best in your business, we can assist with taking some of the load from consultation to full campaign management.

Book a free consult if you're interested in discussing options - we'd love to chat!