Getting people through the door is one measure of a successful event.

But from a marketing perspective, there’s another opportunity that can be just as valuable:

Who are those people – and how are you going to reach them again?

Reach Marketing Group (RMG) look at ticketing as more than a transaction. Done properly, your ticketing and registration process can become part of your wider marketing ecosystem,  helping turn event attendees into an audience you can communicate with, nurture and potentially bring back to future events or promote other products and services. 

And this applies whether you’re selling $100 tickets or running a completely FREE event.

Through Australia’s Biggest Gig Guide (ABGG), powered by Reach Marketing Group, event organisers can access ticketing solutions powered by 123 Tix – either by establishing their own ticketing platform or having ABGG create the event through ABGGTix.

But the real marketing opportunity begins when someone registers.

Why Give Away a Free Ticket to a Free Event?

It sounds unnecessary at first.

If entry is free, why make people get a ticket?

Because without registration, your marketing might generate hundreds or thousands of impressions, video views, clicks, likes, shares and “Interested” responses — but many of those interactions don’t give you a direct relationship with the potential attendee.

A free ticket changes the call to action from:

“Come along this Saturday.”

to:

“Reserve your FREE ticket.”

Now your marketing has an action people can complete.

And that action can help you build something extremely important:

Your first-party audience.

Subject to your privacy obligations, consent settings and applicable marketing laws, attendee information collected through your ticketing process can potentially become part of your ongoing marketing strategy.

That means one event can help market the next.

Stop Starting Your Marketing From Zero

Consider a venue running one event every month.

For Event #1, it has to find an audience.

It advertises on social media, creates content, sends people to the website and promotes through event guides such as ABGG.

People register.

Then Event #2 arrives.

Should the venue simply start all over again?

It doesn’t have to.

Your previous customers and registrants are now an extremely relevant audience: people who have already demonstrated enough interest in your organisation, venue, artist or event to register or purchase.

With the appropriate permissions, your next campaign can include previous attendees rather than relying entirely on finding new people.

Repeat that process over 6, 12 or 24 months, and your marketing asset can become increasingly valuable.

Build Your Email Marketing List

Email remains particularly useful for event marketing because it gives businesses a direct channel to communicate with people who have already interacted with them.

Rather than relying entirely on a social-media algorithm deciding who sees your next announcement, an appropriately permissioned database can allow you to communicate directly with subscribers.

Imagine being able to announce:

“Our next event has just dropped – tickets are now available.”

Or:

“You came to our last event. Here’s what’s happening next month.”

Or:

“Early-bird tickets are now live.”

Or even:

“Thanks for coming! Here are the photos, highlights and details of our next event.”

Your database can support pre-event campaigns, reminders, announcements, post-event follow-ups and future-event promotions.

The objective shouldn’t simply be to send more emails.

It’s to build a relevant audience that wants to hear from you.

Segment Your Audience Instead of Marketing Everything to Everyone

As your database grows, another opportunity appears:

Segmentation.

Not every attendee is interested in every event.

If your venue runs live music, comedy, workshops and community events, someone who registered for a rock gig may behave differently from somebody who attended a business seminar.

Your historical customer data can potentially help you create more relevant segments based on things such as previous registrations, purchases, event types or engagement.

Instead of:

SEND EVERYTHING TO EVERYONE

Your marketing can become more targeted.

For example:

Past live-music attendees → upcoming gig campaign

Previous festival customers → festival presale

Workshop attendees → next workshop

Past VIP purchasers → VIP offer

Previous free-event registrants → similar free event

Better segmentation can make your marketing more relevant and can reduce the temptation to bombard an entire database with every promotion.

Your Ticketing Data Can Also Support Retargeting

Email isn’t the only opportunity.

Depending on the marketing platforms you use, your consent framework and the applicable platform and privacy requirements, customer or website audiences can potentially support retargeting and audience-based advertising.

For example, your campaign strategy might include people who:

visited an event page but didn’t purchase,

previously registered for an event,

purchased tickets to a previous event,

or engaged with your event marketing.

Rather than every advertising campaign targeting completely cold audiences, you can develop campaigns for people who already have some relationship with your brand.

That’s an important distinction.

Someone who has never heard of your venue is a very different marketing prospect from somebody who bought two tickets six months ago.

Build a Marketing Funnel Around Your Event

This is where RMG’s marketing perspective becomes particularly important.

Your event shouldn’t necessarily be treated as one advertisement followed by one transaction.

Think of it as a journey:

Awareness → Event page → Registration/Ticket → Reminder → Attendance → Follow-up → Database → Next event

Now you have a marketing funnel.

At the top, you’re using social media, advertising, content, ABGG listings, websites, search and other channels to generate awareness.

Your ticketing page provides the conversion point.

Email and attendee communications help bridge the gap between registration and event day.

After the event, your database provides an opportunity to continue the relationship.

Then the next time you launch an event, you’re not necessarily beginning with an empty audience.

You’re building on the work you’ve already done.

Ticketing Links Also Make Your Marketing More Measurable

There’s another reason RMG recommends using ticketing links wherever practical:

Measurement.

Likes are useful.

Video views can be useful.

Website traffic is useful.

But registrations and ticket purchases represent actions further down the marketing funnel.

If an advertising campaign generates lots of traffic but very few registrations, that’s information you can investigate.

Perhaps the creative needs work.

Perhaps the offer isn’t strong enough.

Perhaps the audience targeting isn’t right.

Perhaps people need more information before committing.

Conversely, if registrations suddenly increase after a particular campaign launches, you’ve got a signal worth examining.

The objective is to move from:

“Our promotion seems to be doing well.”

towards:

“Here’s what people actually did.”

Free Tickets Can Be Particularly Powerful for Marketing

This is why we believe free-event organisers shouldn’t dismiss ticketing.

Imagine 500 people attend a free community event without registering.

You had a successful day, but how easily can you contact those 500 people afterwards?

Now imagine 500 people reserved free tickets.

You potentially have a measurable registration audience, subject to the appropriate permissions and privacy requirements.

You can also see registrations accumulating before the event.

You can send operational updates.

You can remind registered attendees that the event is approaching.

You can scan tickets at entry.

You can compare registrations with attendance.

And, where consent permits, you can continue marketing relevant future events.

The ticket may have cost $0.

The marketing value of the relationship doesn’t have to be $0.

Don’t Forget the People Who Already Bought From You

Businesses often spend considerable amounts of money trying to acquire new customers while overlooking people who have already demonstrated interest.

Your previous attendee database can potentially become an important source of repeat attendance.

Think about the opportunities:

“We’re back.”

“Tickets are now on sale.”

“Early bird ends Friday.”

“Here’s another event we think you’ll be interested in.”

“Bring your friends this time.”

“Thanks for attending — here’s what’s next.”

For venues, promoters, festivals, artists, sporting organisations, community groups and recurring-event businesses, the cumulative value of that audience can grow significantly over time.

Your Database Is an Asset – Treat It Like One

Building a database doesn’t mean sending people endless promotions.

Quite the opposite.

Good database marketing means respecting the relationship.

Get the appropriate consent.

Be clear about what people are signing up for.

Protect their information.

Make unsubscribing straightforward.

Segment communications where practical.

And send things people are likely to genuinely care about.

In Australia, organisations conducting email and SMS marketing also need to consider their obligations under laws including the Spam Act 2003 and applicable privacy requirements.

A large database that ignores its emails isn’t particularly useful.

A relevant, engaged audience is.

Where Australia’s Biggest Gig Guide Comes In

Australia’s Biggest Gig Guide is powered by Reach Marketing Group, which means we approach ABGG as more than simply somewhere to list events.

We want to help event organisers connect the pieces:

Event discovery.

Promotion.

Ticketing.

Audience development.

Data.

Future marketing.

Through ABGG’s relationship with 123 Tix, organisers have two straightforward ticketing pathways.

Run Your Own Ticketing Platform

If you’re regularly running events, ABGG can help connect you with a ticketing platform powered by 123 Tix.

This gives you the ability to create and manage your own events, ticket types and registrations and develop your attendee database over time.

That can make particular sense for venues, promoters, festivals, community organisations, sporting groups and businesses with recurring events.

And remember:

Free events can still use free registrations.

Your customer doesn’t need to pay for the registration to be useful.

Or Let ABGG Create Your Tickets

Don’t want to manage the ticketing setup yourself?

Ask ABGG.

ABGG can create tickets for your event through ABGGTix, powered by 123 Tix.

That can include paid tickets or FREE registrations.

So instead of simply promoting:

FREE ENTRY

You can potentially create a much stronger marketing call to action:

GET YOUR FREE TICKET

Now your advertising, social posts, ABGG promotion, website and other marketing channels have somewhere specific to send people.

Then Let Reach Marketing Group Help You Market It

This is where the complete strategy comes together.

Ticketing is one piece.

Marketing is another.

Through Reach Marketing Group and Australia’s Biggest Gig Guide, the objective is to help businesses create a connected pathway from finding an audience to converting registrations, and then building an audience they can continue communicating with.

That could involve your event marketing strategy, social content, paid advertising, email marketing, database campaigns, retargeting strategies and ABGG event promotion, depending on what your organisation needs.

Instead of treating each event as an isolated campaign, start thinking about how each event contributes to the next one.

Your First Event Finds an Audience. Your Next Event Can Start With One.

That’s the bigger opportunity.

A person sees your promotion.

They click.

They register.

They attend.

With the right permissions and strategy, that relationship doesn’t necessarily have to end when they walk out the door.

They can become part of the audience for your next campaign.

And your next one.

And your next one.

Don’t just market an event. Build an audience.

Don’t just collect ticket sales. Build relationships.

Don’t just count attendees. Create a marketing asset you can continue developing.

Whether your event is paid or completely free, a ticketing link can be the beginning of something much bigger.

Ready to Get Started?

Australia’s Biggest Gig Guide – powered by Reach Marketing Group – can help you get your own ticketing platform powered by 123 Tix, or create your event tickets through ABGGTix, powered by 123 Tix.

And if you want to take the next step, Reach Marketing Group can help turn that growing audience into an ongoing marketing strategy.

Reach. Register. Retarget. Return.

Speak to us at ABGG about setting up your ticketing platforms and options, and speak to us through Reach Marketing Group about setting up your data-base and automated email campaigns.