Talking Tickets 24 September 2021: Miami! Ohio State's Attendance! La Liga! And, More!
Number 103!
Hey There!
I’m back in DC this week. I dug Silicon Valley and I hope to get back soon. How had I never been there after all the other crazy places I’ve been…who knows?
I’ve been toying with some ideas to make the newsletter/Slack Group/podcast more valuable going forward. Some of the ideas I’ve been tossing about include:
A standalone site for the ticket content
Content series within the podcast
Guest posts
More
So if you have a minute or two, let me know what you think about the future of the newsletter and community.
To the Tickets!
Big Ideas:
Investing in women’s sports is a wise decision.
Expanding the market for your products and services is smart business.
Long-term thinking versus short-term thinking makes sense here.
I’ve been highlighting a lot more stories from women’s sports lately because I was early on the idea that there was a tremendous opportunity by investing in women’s sports.
Why?
Some statistics:
Globally, women are 49.6% of the population. And, in the States, women are 51.6% of the population.
Around 40% of women and girls play some sort of sport.
If a girl plays a sport at a young age, she is 76% more likely to follow that sport throughout her life.
I point these out not as a woke thing, but as a huge, untapped market opportunity.
Because while 40% of professional athletes are women, only 4% of the media coverage goes to women’s sports.
Again, don’t do the right thing because it is the right thing…do the right thing for the potential profit.
This story hits three things I’d like to point out to you this morning:
Smart business.
Long-term thinking versus short-term thinking.
Brand management.
First, this is smart business because it gives the Irish national team a chance to improve and grow.
Paying men and women the same for their international appearances gives teams a chance to improve, meaning that they can focus on skill development, making the team better and more valuable to sponsors, partners, and fans.
The men are more likely to have big contracts from their clubs and the women are more likely to have to play in two or more countries or hold another job that limits their development, their growth, and the overall strength of the Irish National Team’s brand.
Second, long-term thinking versus short-term thinking.
If you’ve followed along here for any time, I’ve talked about a study called The Long and Short of It. This talks about the powerful impact of long-term brand investment to drive growth over time.
Investing in the women’s football team now will pay short-term dividends in positive media coverage, but the real value that will come over time when several positive impacts arise like:
Better performance on the pitch leading to a stronger brand.
More girls and women are involved in soccer, creating more opportunities for the sport to grow.
Improved awareness of the entire Irish football team because more people will be aware of the sport because it just becomes more likely that more people are aware of the team and their efforts.
Finally, brand management.
Your brand is the raw material. Brand management is the skill of turning that brand into something meaningful, impactful, and profitable.
Keep in mind that your brand is the sum of all of the interactions that people have with you and your business over time, positive and negative.
And, in this instance, the Irish National Team is using this effort to build a bunch of new, positive interactions with their audience right now.
Brands aren’t built in a day.
A few big things that have driven underinvestment in women’s sports in the past include:
Too much focus on short-term success or metrics.
Poor marketing abilities at a lot of organizations.
No attention.
In looking at a lot of these programs over the last few months, we are seeing that an investment in women’s sports can pay off pretty tremendously, but it isn’t always an instant thing.
Examples:
The growth of the WNBA over the last few years correlates with a renewed focus on the product and marketing of the game.
The AFLW has done seen tremendous growth through a focus on doing the proper marketing work necessary to reach an audience that would be receptive to their message.
Women’s football across Europe is growing rapidly. In fact, the boy just received notice that his One Hotspur membership includes a women’s benefit as well.
I keep highlighting these things because I know what doing a proper segmentation of your market looks like.
I’m reminded that volatility is usually a sign that the secondary market in a country will do well.
And, I’m reminded that by looking at the whole map of your audience, segmenting based on behavior, and targeting effectively can all drive significant business.
What the Irish National Team is doing is about equality for men and women’s sports, but it also opens the door that shows that knowing your market, focusing on marketing effectively, and brand building are important partners to any effort because just taking one action won’t be enough…success in growing women’s sports, minor sports, or any kind of live entertainment will need a focus on brand, long-term thinking, and making wise business decisions.
2. No Vaccine/No Show could be the new No Shirt/No Shoes/No Service:
Big Ideas:
Incentives work. This is a classic carrot and stick situation.
Service should be addressed.
Let me get this out of the way at the start, I’m all for using carrots and sticks to get folks vaccinated.
The science is clear that the vaccines are safe and when the kids under 12 are allowed a vaccine, the boy will be getting one. My lady and I have been vaccinated in full as fast as we could. And, we had no real side effects minus some lethargy.
Honestly, I was hoping for better cell phone reception at my house, but I didn’t get everything I’ve been hoping for.
The top line story here is that incentives work in tickets, business, school, and life.
This is a classic carrot and stick situation. Get the vaccine and you can go see stuff in NYS.
If you don’t, you aren’t allowed in.
Here is a list of things we don’t catch now because of vaccines.
This is a pro-science newsletter…so, take that for what you will.
This brings me to the second point that mandates work.
You don’t like mandates?
Here is a list of vaccinations that your kids need to go to school in my neighborhood.
On the other hand, the ongoing challenges of the pandemic do highlight a few opportunities to elevate your customer service experience including things like:
Offering refund protection to guests that may be vaccinated and have a breakthrough case or encounter an issue due to the virus.
Partnering with a business like LuvSeats to allow folks to upgrade their seats once they are in the stadium and they see pockets or seats that can’t or aren’t being used.
Using a service like Seatz to cut down on lines in concourses. Having used the Red Sox’s service at Fenway when I was there in July, I’m a big fan of the service because it was quick and easy. Plus, I probably ordered more than I really wanted to.
The pandemic keeps dragging on through middle age because of a bunch of misinformation and stupidity. So I’m a fan of using mandates and incentives where possible and feasible to accelerate herd immunity.
I’m also aware that folks are still being impacted by the pandemic and it provides a great opportunity to rethink service standards and opportunities.
To use my formula:
Recovery + Volatily = Opportunity
To put it another way, the opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea.
One more thing, never forget that self-interest typically wins out…
3. Miami’s arts’ scene reopens with safety measures:
Big Ideas:
The delta variant means that folks are optimistic but cautious.
Demand is going to be a challenge because even where there is pent-up demand, how much of it is there?
Pricing will always be a challenge.
To jump on the point above, I have spent a month in Miami, a week in Vegas, and several days in Boston and SF…that Moderna must work because I’m YOLO!
Miami is a top Dave destination. In fact, I’ll be back in a few weeks to take advantage of the pool at the Four Seasons on Brickell.
Best hotel pool in America, maybe the world.
This photo doesn’t do the setup complete justice, but it is a taste!
Back to tickets!
This story highlights the need to walk the line between optimism and caution. In general, that’s life.
What data does show us is that people are being a bit more cautious around the decision to go out to shows, concerts, and games while the pandemic is still raging in certain areas.
Since Florida was the center of the summer’s delta outbreak, it might lead you to conclude that folks might be a little more reluctant to attend indoor performances than other parts of the world, but we just don’t know.
Knowing that there are many safety precautions in place and these safety precautions are being laid out clearly gives me confidence that folks will come back more quickly than not, but follow the data.
A second consideration from this story is the one of demand.
Miami has a pretty vibrant arts and culture scene, especially when you consider that Broward and Palm Beach counties can pull from the same market and also have their own vibrant scenes.
This is a long-winded way of me saying that demand generation will be a challenge…but that’s going to be the case no matter where you are in the world.
In the Miami metro area, let’s look at some of the ways that you can be entertained:
The Broward Center for the Performing Arts
Palm Beach Opera
Florida Panthers
Inter Miami
Arsht Center
Miami Heat
Miami Marlins
I’m not even onto the happy hours, beaches, golf courses, and other diversions.
What I am onto is the need to take a step back and do that trick bit of diagnosis for your brand before you push forward.
In the rush to re-open, no one can afford to forget that people have changed, the world has changed, and demand will be different.
The final point here is that pricing is an important idea.
When isn’t pricing an important topic?
The key here is that we see the explanation of streaming events as a cause of price hesitancy and price sensitivity which loyal listeners will recognize as false.
Remember, pricing is marketing’s MVP moment and the time when you capture some of the value you’ve created for your customers. That hasn’t changed during the pandemic. What has changed is the understanding of the value and what customers value.
Keep this in mind: you don’t define value, your customers do.
To deal with this let’s look at three actions:
First, balance caution and optimism.
The examples in the Miami area are good starters. You get your safety procedures in order, communicate them, and recognize that there is likely some back and forth still to come.
Second, to deal with demand, step back and look at the market through fresh eyes.
The market has changed.
When I was in SF and Silicon Valley last week, my entire workshop was spent showing this business how different the market was from what they expected or thought it was before the pandemic.
Once we embraced the reality that the market was different, we were able to move forward.
The secret is that the market is always changing.
And, at least once a year you should be stepping back to get a fresh view of the market.
Nothing unusual about this at all.
Finally, pricing.
This stuff demands research before and after the purchase.
What makes me cringe is when folks wave a blanket statement like streaming has changed what people are willing to pay.
That’s BS because that was BS before the pandemic.
Price is a reflection of value.
If people aren’t willing to pay what you think something is worth, you need to do some research to uncover the break in the value proposition.
Simple as that.
Actually, if I could get everyone to do some proactive research right now…that’d be great, okay!
4. Ohio State and Notre Dame draw less than expected:
Big Ideas:
Winning isn’t the key to sales despite conventional wisdom.
Demand is a challenge for any number of reasons.
Again, the first step in solving this issue is to step back and get your diagnosis right.
The attendance story is going to be an ongoing one for the next few months, years even.
Why?
Because we are going to continue to see an acceleration of many challenges that were facing the industry before the pandemic with added challenges that the pandemic raised.
A shortlist is:
Cost of attendance
Number of events taking place
Competition
Brand building
More, more, more!
Ohio State and Notre Dame are hitting a wall right now because they are finding out that winning isn’t everything, the pandemic has changed folks’ behavior, and just assuming that the way things have always worked will continue to work is a bit of a bad bet.
They aren’t alone.
They are just high profile.
These stories are everywhere.
There is a bit of a theme going on here this week, with a focus on brand building, diagnosis of the challenge you are dealing with, and the customer. So let me throw this in the Dave blender and talk about the challenge of sports attendance.
Begin at the beginning, diagnosis.
I can tell you with all certainty that one of the ways I make my money is by showing people that the challenge they think they are dealing with isn’t the real problem they are dealing with.
In other words, diagnosis.
Just so you think I’m not tricking people. Let’s say you want to do sales training, I’ll ask you why.
You’ll say something about closing rates.
We will go through the closing rates of your team and you might be closing at a pretty good rate…let’s say you are closing at a rate like me around 80% of your proposals lead to engagements.
Not much sales training can do.
So we dig deeper and you tell me that your sales team is only getting to the closing stage once a month.
That’s not a closing challenge, that’s a pipeline challenge.
Go deeper, you realize that you aren’t losing people in the middle of the pipeline because you are only creating 2 opportunities a month.
Whoa!
Now we are looking at a top of the funnel challenge…which is really a marketing and value proposition challenge. Which is now a strategy challenge…and a $3,000-$5,000 challenge has now become a $25,000-$50,000 project!
Obviously, this is a real example.
The key is that you can’t just assume that you know what you really need to do because you are trying to make the pain go away. You have to take a step back and look for the root cause.
Diagnose the situation.
Get that right.
In the way that tickets are sold right now, we need to see a lot more diagnosis done because we know that real attendance was a challenge before the pandemic and is still a problem in a lot of places.
What we also know is that just looking at sales data won’t solve this problem…you have to get into the market and find out what folks find valuable, what they want, and how you can give them that.
All of this is diagnosis.
It is easy to fall back on some of the favorite objections to doing any kind of real market research like:
If we just win!
The TV and bathroom at home are such competition.
You just don’t understand.
None of these are valid. If you are using them, you might want to reflect on what you are really doing in your role because it is bad leadership and a bad job.
My example is almost always looking at how well Minor League Baseball sells around the country without the trappings of the World Series, name-brand players, and a lot of other amenities.
Want to see some great sales and marketing efforts?
Go check out the Indianapolis Indians and their marketing and sales efforts.
So get your diagnosis right.
Second, reset the customer journey.
There seem to be a lot of assumptions made about the customer journey these days, but I’ll hone in on one.
Customers know what they want.
Go back to the top and look at the scenario I laid out for you.
Customers might not really know what they want or need.
Part of the challenge of marketing and selling is creating value and desire…then capturing it in the form of sales.
Another place that marketing research helps you is in understanding the customer journey and laying out your touchpoints more effectively.
A lot of y’all learned the AIDA model of sales and sales funnels in college or sales training.
If it is all you have, it is better than nothing at all, but the true magic happens when you do your own research and layout a customer funnel for your business that is built on the real touchpoints and stops that your customer makes from the start of the journey to the end.
It takes longer, but it also pays better.
Finally, return to focusing on brand building.
To repeat an early point: your brand is the accumulation of all of the interactions you’ve had with a customer or prospect over time, positive and negative.
Some great benefits accrue to you by focusing on brand building:
Breeds familiarity speeding up sales because people like the familiar.
Helps reduce costs of customer acquisition because when you do a good job, you elevate the perception of quality.
When done well, you build up price security and lower price sensitivity.
In the context of any live performance, let’s look at the flip side really quickly:
If you are a team and you are only selling certain matchups as a premium matchup, what are you doing but commodifying the experience?
When you run price-based promotions while claiming you want to have a premium price or pricing at the on-sale as a premium, what are you doing but signaling that you aren’t really sure that your product is that valuable? And, that someone should wait for a better deal?
In both cases, you offer contradictions. And, any contradiction undermines your brand. Case in point, the experience I had at the Four Seasons in Miami in June and July wasn’t up to the Four Seasons standard and undermined my view of the brand…something I wrote to the CEO about a few weeks ago.
To tackle the problem of empty seats, I’d start with three actions:
First, I’d do some research.
We’ve talked about the preferred method of Backward Market Research. Start there.
Second, I’d get into the STP.
Segmentation. Targeting. Position.
Draw a map based on behavior. Pick a target of opportunity. And, stick a stake in the ground.
Finally, balance the long-term with the short-term.
I’ll point you to this podcast with Peter Field where he talks about his research into advertising effectiveness.
You’ll also be into the report that he created with Les Binet for the IPA titled The Long and Short of It.
It bears remembering that none of the challenges folks are dealing with were created in a day and they won’t be fixed in a day.
The best path forward is to return to the first principles and the basics.
Then build up from there.
But I think I say that all the time.
5. Some links to say goodbye this week:
La Liga’s Private Equity Deal Is Interesting: $3.2 Billion for 10% of the commercial assets of the league over the next 50 years is pretty steep. This actually makes Barcelona look pretty financially responsible.
Alexander Neef guides the Paris Opera through one of its biggest challenges: Leading the world’s most famous opera through the pandemic is especially challenging.
Pakistanis are upset with the last-minute cancellation of the New Zealand cricket team: I get the anger of the Pakistanis, but I’d almost buy someone saying they weren’t coming to America due to security concerns at this point. The decision-making process for all kinds of acts and performers are under extreme strain.
China moves to “clean up” the live entertainment industry: This is interesting to watch because the Chinese get things done when they put their mind to things. They’ve regulated tech, they’ve been aggressive in their containment of the coronavirus, and they are diligent planners. It isn’t lost on me that due to the nature of their government, it can be easier to do, but the effectiveness of some of their actions is still impressive to watch because effectiveness is never guaranteed.
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