Getting as many people as possible through the door is a top priority for almost any event organiser. After all, selling more tickets increases revenue and leads to a healthy return on investment.
We’ve got some tried and tested tactics for increasing event ticket sales, so read on to find out more!
Get your ticket pricing right
Before you do anything else, you need to decide on a realistic price for your event tickets. Setting the price too high and no one will want to pay it, but setting your prices too low could mean you struggle to cover all of your costs. Therefore, you need to find a happy medium.
Firstly, work out a minimum breakeven price to make sure you don’t sell tickets at a loss. To do this, use the following formula:
Minimum ticket price = total event costs / expected number of attendees
This calculation requires a good idea of what your total costs will be as well as a rough estimate as to how many people will attend. If you have hosted a similar event in the past, you can use this as a guide for these calculations.
Once you’ve got your breakeven price, you can then mark up the tickets to make a profit. In deciding how much to mark up, you should consider your competitive position. Are there any competitors doing a similar sort of event, if so how much are they charging? Do you have a solid reputation and brand image that people are willing to pay extra for? Or are you new to the market? Does your event have any unique elements or a WOW factor that people would be willing to pay for? Answering these questions will help you come up with a ticket price that people are willing to pay as well as make a profit on.
Create an event landing page which stands out
Your event landing page is likely to be the first place that people go to to find out more about your event and decide whether they’re interested in attending or not. So, it’s safe to say that this web page needs to be both informative and attention-grabbing to encourage people to convert and buy a ticket.
This page should answer all of the key questions about the event such as, when, where, what, who etc. As a general guide, the page should:
- Outline the basic details of the event
- Use attractive images and a catchy headline as well as any other relevant media such as a video
- Include a contact section so that people can get in touch
- Have a clear call to action
- Be easy to share across social media.
Following these steps will help to increase ticket purchases from this page and ultimately generate more revenue.
Utilise word of mouth marketing
One of the biggest influences on people’s decision to attend an event or not is recommendations from friends or family. In fact, 66% of event-goers say their friends were the main reason they chose a particular event.
Therefore, those that have attended your event previously are actually your biggest advocates and can help you increase ticket sales for your event, they just need a little incentive.
Ways of encouraging people to spread the word include:
- Group discounts – offer discounts to attendees who book in groups.
- Gamification – set up a rewards system where attendees collect points for sharing the event and getting their friends to sign up.
These tactics are especially valuable if you’ve already hosted successful events in the past and have a tribe of loyal attendees, as they will be able to help you spread the word.
Leverage your most effective marketing channel
It doesn’t come as a surprise that there are many online channels which can be used to promote an event, as well as plenty of traditional offline marketing methods.
A really important tip is to understand which channel is the most effective and put a large chunk of your budget towards that. If you’ve organised an event in the past, take a look at which channels drove the most website visitors and ticket sales. It’s highly likely that emails will be high up in your list since email marketing drives the most ticket sales for 76% of event organisers.
