I met a couple people at NACMA who asked for some background on our ChooseYourOwnTickets.com site... Be careful what you wish for, here's more than you could ever want to know:
Target
Our primary target was people interested in learning more about tickets but who felt intimidated to call a sales representative on the phone. Our outbound sales team has done a fantastic job at converting prospects when given the opportunity to speak individually on a one-to-one basis, but we needed a way to 1) make people feel comfortable enough to call or 2) replicate the personal feel of a one-to-one conversation online. Our secondary target was a broad mix of all past buyers, alumni and basketball fans in Milwaukee.
Goal
Our bottom-line goal was to break even on our investment with row27 to develop, host and maintain the site. We also wanted to improve our customer service, as measured by 1) fewer general, time-consuming, non-buying questions to our ticket office staff, 2) more calls to our sales representatives from fans with specific, buying questions and 3) fans being more ready to buy when they do call a ticket representative. Lastly, we wanted fans to feel like they were a part of our program and to forward the site to their friends and family.
Details/Logistics
We feel that printing ticket brochures is an antiquated strategy, as it is overly expensive, untraceable and boring. ChooseYourOwnTickets.com was designed to be the complete opposite: fully-traceable, viral, interactive and engaging at a minimal investment.
Created by row27 Studios, ChooseYourOwnTickets.com was inspired by the classic “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, whereby the reader can make decisions regarding how to let the story unfold. Our ticketing microsite is designed in the same fashion, whereby the user is prompted to enter their preferences regarding number of games they would like to attend, where they prefer to sit, how much they would be willing to spend, and so on. The site then presents the best fit based on these preferences, suggesting the person’s ideal ticket package. Potential buyers are then able to purchase the tickets online right away, or are given a number to call if they would feel more comfortable purchasing over the phone.
The language used on the site is intentionally informal, as we wanted to decrease the intimidation factor as much as possible. We want to communicate to fans that they shouldn’t be afraid to give us a call, that we’re not slick used-car-like salesmen, but rather friendly people who genuinely want to help them enjoy Marquette Basketball however they feel comfortable.
ChooseYourOwnTickets is also designed to upsell fans who were originally interested in a smaller plan/package; both the single-game ticket page and mini-plan ticket page give fans the option to learn more about how to get better seats through a full-season ticket package.
Additionally, the site lets people input their information if they would prefer to simply have one of our representatives contact them directly. Fans are also encouraged to share the site with friends and family via Twitter, Facebook and email.
All links to purchase tickets online were tagged with a unique “Came From Code” which allows us to trace all sales that originated from the site. A Google Analytics account was also created to monitor web traffic.
Results
ChooseYourOwnTickets.com significantly out-performed all of our goals. Ticket sales revenue from the coded links alone more than doubled our total investment – a figure that does not include sales from individuals who preferred to call us directly instead of checking out online. We did our best to track call-ins – a conservative estimate of this amount is roughly equal to that online sales. Overall, the site more than quadrupled our investment before accounting for the intangible benefits of improved customer service.
On top of this direct revenue, our ticket office received notably fewer calls from people with the usual time-wasting questions/complaints, and those that did call in were better educated and more ready and willing to buy.
As of February 15, 2011, the site has been visited 19,856 times from 16,689 unique IPs. Roughly 75% of this traffic came during our peak season-ticket sales season, as we averaged about 1,520 hits per week from the site’s launch in mid-August through the end of October. These numbers were aided by the site’s sharing features, as 857 visits originated from either Facebook or Twitter.
Anecdotally, our fanbase’s reception of the site was overwhelmingly positive. We noticed comments (from real fans/student/alumni, not affiliated with our department in any way) on Twitter saying things such as:
- “Coolest website I've ever seen for buying tickets to a basketball game. Way to go @muathletics”
- “So I am pretty much in love w/ Marquette's ticket site: http://chooseyourowntickets.com/ Interactive, customized, awesome.”
- “Holy cow, the @MUAthletics #mubb ticket website is amazing. Freaking out about it with my co-workers. http://bit.ly/byoJ7c”
Since the site’s launch, we only received negative feedback from one person: an elderly woman who called to tell us that she was offended by the inappropriate language on the site, specifically the word, “cool.”
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