E-mail…Yeah, That’s the Ticket

Cross-promotion helps build relationships TiCKETMASTER HAS A UNIQUE problem when it comes to online sales. Unlike an Amazon.com, which can always order more books or CDs to satisfy customer orders, Ticketmaster has a fixed number of seats for each event it promotes, so some customers – who go to the site for those specific tickets – inevitably go away disappointed.

Last year, Ticketmaster Online (separate from the “offline” ticket sales division) began using e-mail marketing to try and build relationships with ticket buyers, even when they’re not vying for the latest hot seats. For this to work, of course, the offer has to have value for the recipient, notes Steve Rudman, vice president of relationship marketing for Ticketmaster Online-City Search.

The e-mail efforts have utilized an opt-in house file of customers who asked for information about particular artists and events. The small campaigns launched so far have been “unique and exclusive,” says Rudman.

About 10,200 Bob Dylan concert attendees, for example, received an e-mail announcing the publication of “Early Dylan,” a new book of photographs of the singer. A link to purchase one of 100 copies signed by the author resulted in the book selling out in 48 hours, with a 14% clickthrough and 7% conversion rate.

THE TEXT BEAT While the Dylan e-mail included images from the book, another campaign to 1,000 Go-Go’s fans was text only, because the content of the message was the driving factor, says Rudman. The band, best known for 1980s hits like “We’ve Got the Beat,” wanted to do viral marketing to create a buzz for a summer tour and a new album.

The text e-mail went out in June on the morning of the band’s first-ever online chat, and included links to the chat, the Go-Go’s Web site, and tour date and ticket information. The chat got a 9% clickthrough, while the site and ticket link logged 5% clickthroughs.

For an e-mail marketing offer to be successful, it needs to be compelling to the recipient. An offer from the band Yes had a very low conversion rate because it didn’t live up to that criteria, Rudman says. A year after the CD “The Ladder” was released, 4,500 Yes concert attendees were sent an e-mail – with a message written by the band itself – for a special offer on the album, along with a link to streaming concert footage. While the video received a 75% clickthrough, the CD offer did poorly, most likely because fans had long ago already purchased the disc.

Ticketmaster also uses e-mail to bond with purchasers of tickets to non-rock and roll events, such as Broadway theatergoers. Rudman notes that a high number of Broadway-bound patrons actually live outside the New York metro area. One simple text e-mail offering discounted hotel rooms during their next stay resulted in a 28% clickthrough to a hotel booking site, with a 25% conversion rate.

A WAY TO COMMUNICATE One reason e-mail is so compelling is its ability to create a dialogue with consumers. John Rizzi, president and CEO of e-Dialog Inc., Lexington, MA, which helps Ticketmaster run its e-marketing campaigns, notes that when marketers send e-mail to consumers, they need to be prepared to get e-mail back from those recipients – and be ready to respond to it.

For example, says Rizzi, one recipient of a Ticketmaster e-mail alert about Bruce Springsteen tickets responded: “Got my tickets. Thanks. Can you tell me when circus tickets go on sale?” Many marketers might ignore such a response that had nothing to do with the initial contact – and they’d lose a sale. After all, this was a customer waiting with credit card in hand ready to make a purchase. So the Ticketmaster rep looked up the URL for tickets to the big top, e-mailed it to the customer, and told them to enjoy the show.

Ticketmaster has been online for five years, and selling tickets online for about two years. Rudman told attendees at the recent Direct Marketing Association net.marketing conference in Boston that the company – which sells 26% of Ticketmaster’s tickets (about 2.5 million tickets per day) – is the number two e-tailer after Amazon.com.