Getting ready for the use of mobile devices for shopping and completing transactions is so two or three years ago.
“People were saying at that time how mobile is coming and how everything is going to be on mobile devices and now we look at where we are and I think we are already there,” said Amanda Severs, director of client services at digital marketing agency Rockhouse Partners.
Severs and a group of her contemporaries will serve as panelists at the International Entertainment Buyers Association’s 45th Annual Conference Oct. 10-13 in Nashville on the topic of Mobile Ticketing and Marketing: More Data & Dollars.
“I don’t think that mobile is necessarily the next thing. I mean, everybody is on their phones nowadays and so for us from a marketing perspective there are a lot of interesting things going on with social media and onsite data capture through mobile apps at live events,” Severs added.
Those in the entertainment buying world are the lucky recipients of the mobile boom that makes capturing data and selling tickets easier for marketers. The numbers tell the story.
“According to Internet Trends, more than five billion people have a mobile phone,” said Joe Kustelski, CEO of international web-based ticketing service provider Etix and panel moderator. “In the United States, just over half of the time spent per day with digital media is happening on a mobile device. Mobile video is a big thing with us right now because that accounts for over half of all data consumed from a mobile device.
“That number is continuing to grow, so if we think about how we market live events there’s a very high correlation between people consuming video images and that translating into a better conversion rate. I think for all marketers there is the fact that the behaviors are changing and people are consuming video all around content. As a marketer your job is to show, don’t tell. People seek compelling content, but they’re much more likely to click the big button to view.”
Kustelski said that more than 50 percent of all page views on the Etix platform are through a mobile device, whether phone or tablet.
“The way that we think about it is that over 30 percent of all our transactions happen on a mobile device,” he said. “When we think about the critical moments for a marketer, there are two moments. One is what we call the ‘I want to know’ moment, when people are sitting around talking about the show and they pick up their phones and get the answer right then. Our job is to get that ‘I want to know’ moment and translate it into an ‘I want to buy’ moment. That ‘I want to buy’ moment is happening increasingly more on mobile devices.”
Kustelski said those moments are encouraged by creating an optimized mobile experience for the consumer.
“That’s basic stuff,” he said. “Just recognize that people are looking at content on small screens. Give people the mobile opportunities and experience that they deserve. Have a big buy button. Have forms that are easy to fill out for transactions. We’ve all tried to buy something on a mobile device where that wasn’t the case but we all know what it can be like when it’s done well.”
The importance of creating compelling content, having a responsive website and more is underscored when it comes to marketing to Millennials, where an Internet Trends study shows that 87 percent of that audience never put down their cell phones.
“They put it next to their bed when they sleep and when they wake up they check their smart phone,” Kustelski said. “So we know that 87 percent of the most attractive target audiences we have are glued to their phone. That really tells us it is not only very, very important today but it is going to continue to be more important.”
Design is also a consideration that must be addressed for mobile devices. A solid design makes the video and content resonate in a more favorable way with the user and is more likely to end in a buy.
“As we think about what we call UX, the User Experience, it really is about designing for mobile first,” Kustelski said. “If you design it well for mobile it will look great on a big screen. The converse is not necessarily true. We’re very much advocates of a mobile-first approach to User Experience design.”
Severs said that she works with a number of venues from a marketing perspective, and one thing she notices is that smaller venues try and bite off more than they can chew, at least at the outset.
“We have done some work with venues that are super small, and we tell them that before you start doing all the fancy stuff and trying to build a mobile app and even more so trying to maintain a mobile app to really focus on what you can do with your existing channels to optimize them for mobile,” she said. “That really starts with the basics of making sure you have a responsive website that adjusts well on mobile devices and tablet devices. Then also email marketing. We see email marketing as probably one of our biggest drivers for all of our clients. At least 65 percent of our clients have emails being opened on mobile devices.”
Severs said that her company tries to instill in its 100 to 115 active clients the importance of measurement.
“That is really just making sure that before you jump the gun and try to spend your marketing dollars in a lot of different ways to really look at what’s working first,” she said. “We try to focus people on the fundamentals and getting those aligned because you’re selling the most tickets through your website and after that probably through your email. Make sure those things are as optimized as can be before you start focusing on social media or online advertising.”
Severs said she can foresee some innovations coming such as targeting consumers based on location services.
“A lot of people say, ‘Whoa, this is really creepy, kind of like Big Brother,’” she said. “But I think we are going to see more of that. You might have expressed interest in seeing an event such as Disney on Ice at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. You may have just looked at the page or clicked on something. But while you are at the Children’s Museum down the street you might get a notification about a reminder to purchase tickets for the event.
“Then you go to the event. You visit the merchandise stand and then you pass the beer stand for a Budweiser and you get a notification on your phone for a discount on beer or something like that.”
Severs said that the data capture component holds her greatest interest and is an area where so much more information can be obtained that can be turned around and marketed to consumers.
“The average order size for a ticket purchase is generally around three tickets,” she said. “But we really only have the information of the one person who bought the tickets. I think when we look at how we identify those other two people who are at the venue but did not give us their information … that’s the whole challenge that marketers and ticketing companies face today is identifying those people. That’s where everybody is kind of moving when they try and capture people’s information on site. The whole purpose is to turn those people into long-term customers and generate that loyalty over time. We’re definitely going to see more of that.”
Interviewed for this story: Joe Kustelski, (919) 653-0508; Amanda Severs, (434) 953-8668