Episode 45: Six tips for selling event tickets

Jun 11

“If you build it, they will come” only worked in the movie Field of Dreams. The reality is that it takes a lot of work to first get people aware of your event and then to buy a ticket.

If you are struggling to sell tickets, you're not alone. One of the most frustrating aspects of hosting events is the fact that a large portion of your guests will buy their ticket or tickets in the week prior to your event or the week prior to your ticketing deadline. Without fail. People are very last minute. I've been doing this for nearly 15 years and that has been a consistent pattern with every single event.

So, what can we do about it? Here are the six tips and takeaways that I've developed from planning and successfully executing hundreds of events.

Six tips for selling event tickets.

#1 - Sell tickets in pairs or groups.

Nobody wants to attend an event alone. Make it easy for people to get their partner to come with them or to invite a group of friends by selling tickets in pairs or groups.

It's not just about creating bundles of tickets. How you price, promote and sell those bundles will depend on your target audience.

A set of four tickets could be packaged and sold as a family pack, if your event is family friendly. Maybe it's a ladies’ night out. Or if you're hosting a professional conference, you might have a ‘bring your colleagues’ bundle. Pairs of tickets could be marketed to couples, best friends, sisters.

Keep in mind that groups and pairs of tickets don't have to be sold at a discount. Especially if you bundle the tickets with other things. How you bundle, price and promote pairs or groups of tickets will depend on your target audience.

#2 - Make the ticket purchasing process frictionless.

There's a reason why Amazon is the top retailer in the world. They have mastered the art of frictionless transactions. When it comes to your registration platform and selling tickets to your event, you want to make that process as frictionless as possible. Only collect the guest information you absolutely need. Make sure your platform is set up to accept a variety of online payment options, including Apple and Google pay or any of those quick, one-step payment options.

You want minimal barriers to purchase. The more steps a potential guest must go through to register, the less likely they are to complete the process. Make the registration process as seamless as possible for your guests.

#3 - Incentivize action now.

You want your guests to act sooner than later. You can incentivize action using FOMO or fear of missing out. You want to create a sense of urgency by conveying scarcity. Scarcity can come in the form of limited time or numbers of tickets available or both.

The most common method to get people to buy early is an early bird special. It's usually a reduced price on tickets for a limited amount of time. If you're going to create an early bird special, the price difference between your regular ticket and whatever the incentive price is must be significant enough to incentivize people to act now.

There are three factors when determining an early bird.

1. The type of event.

2. Your regular ticket price

3. Your target audience.

For instance, if you're hosting a black-tie gala with a regular ticket price of $125 per person, a $5 off early bird rate is probably not going to be enough of a discount to sway someone to act now.

But if your audience is families with small children, and your regular ticket price is $25, $5 off per ticket can be significant. So again, it's the type of event, your regular ticket price and your target audience.

You don't always have to go lower in price when creating incentives for people to buy tickets. You can create higher end experiences that have a higher ticket price and are limited in number such as VIP packages.

There are lots of ways you can charge a little bit more without adding a ton of expense. The exclusivity of those packages is what will help them sell more quickly.

If you're creating a sense of urgency through scarcity, you have to be able to let guests know about it. You must promote it heavily. And it should be very visible when someone goes to your registration page. You can use a countdown clock if time is your scarcity. Or you can show on your registration site how many tickets are left at each of the various rates to create that sense of urgency.

#4 - Use cross-promotion.

What is cross promotion? It's when you partner with one or more organizations that have a similar target audience and agree to promote each other's events.

There are four keys to a successful cross-promotion partnership.

1. The audiences have to be the same.

2. The size of the organizations supporters and followers have to be similar. If one organization has an email database of 10,000 people and the other has 2000, it's not fair to the organization with the larger number of followers, unless you can make it balance out somewhere else.

3. The details of the partnership need to be agreed upon well in advance and need to include a list of quantifiable actions for both parties.

4. It has to be relatively easy for each organization to implement. Each partner must provide the other one with graphics, copy, videos or anything need to promote their event to make it easy for them and vice versa.

#5 - Use social proof.

It's hard to know who or what to trust when purchasing things online. Social proof helps validate a purchase. Use social proof on your registration site and when promoting your event via social media.

You can do this by getting testimonials from past participants about how great your event is. Show screenshots of event survey results that are favorable. Use photos or video snippets from past events showing lots of happy people.

#6 - Examine your event using the five Ps.

The five Ps are Product, Price, Place, Promotion and People. In order to have a successful event, those five Ps have to be in alignment.

When I talk about building an event around your target audience, this is what I mean.

Product: The product is your event and everything about the event. The branding, the quality, the features of your event. Make sure your event is packaged in a way that appeals to your audience. This could include the type of event, the format, how long it is, the dress code, the entertainment, all the event elements. Everything about your event is the product. So, make sure your product is something your audience is excited to attend.

Price: It doesn't matter how amazing your event is if the price is out of alignment with your event and your audience. Out of alignment can mean it's priced too high or too low. The price must match the perceived value of the event. For instance, if you saw a Rolex watch for sale for a hundred dollars, that's out of alignment. You're going to think something's wrong. You're going to think it's stolen or that it's not genuine. So a price that’s too low can be out of alignment just as much as a price that's too high.

Place: Place not only includes where your event is located, but how people gain access to your event. That includes the date or time of year the event is held and access to tickets through your registration site. Your event, location, date and access to tickets needs to be convenient for your target audience. If not, it could be affecting your ticket sales.

Promotion: You need to promote your event in places where your audience will see it. Duh, right? For example, for one of my events the audience is 99% lawyers. One of the places we promote the event is in local legal publications. Knowing your target audience well means understanding how and where they get information so that you can promote your event in those places.

People: Not only does this include knowing and understanding your target audience, ‘People’ includes everyone involved in making your event happen… staff, sponsors, vendors and volunteers. Having the right people can make or break your event, especially early on if you're hosting a new-ish event. Your staff, sponsors, vendors, volunteers, board members are the people that are going to help sell your tickets and get people to your event.

Listener action item.

I recommend following tip number six, no matter what. You should do an audit of your event using the five Ps just to make sure everything's in alignment. If it's not, try to change something about your event to start to move it into alignment with your audience. You don't have to make big sweeping changes. Make small changes over time to get your event in alignment with your audience.

If it's too late for that and you just need to sell tickets this year, pick one or more of the tips for selling event tickets to implement now. Keeping in mind, the capability and capacity of your registration site and your staff and volunteers.

Selling event tickets is not a ‘set it and forget it’ process. You have to continually monitor your strategy and tactics to determine what's working and eliminate what isn't.

Whether you decide to sell groups or pairs of tickets, make your ticket sales process frictionless, incentivize action with FOMO, find a partner to cross-promote, or use social proof to sell tickets or all of the above, know that you're not alone.

There are many small nonprofits struggling to get people to attend their event. But with these steps, there are measurable and relatively simple ways to sell event tickets. And some of these, you can even start right now.

Now that sounds like a plan. I'll see you next time.