The West End: Going Strong!
175: Mark Your Calendars for April 11th in NYC
Good morning/afternoon/evening!
I’m in NYC on April 11th with an in-person workshop.
I’ll be announcing the full details next week. But we are going to do “The Customer Centered Strategy” and during the session, we will cover:
How to do market research even if you don’t have a research budget.
Ways to create a proper position for your business.
Targeting and why you can’t be everything to everyone.
The marketing mix and adjusting it for your specific situation
SMART objectives and why they are essential for progress…especially in a challenging economic situation.
And, more!
A few of you asked about the event in DC and I’m going to hold off on that one because part of the thing I enjoy about the in-person events is getting out of DC to other places. So I’m putting my full effort behind NYC.
To the Tickets!
BTW, my name was used in a song…seriously.
I. SOLT’s data shows stability in the London theatre:
The West End and London are hanging tough.
The Big News: People are still going to theatre in London.
In other parts of the world, the news is different.
This tells us that everything depends on your market.
Some markets are great. Others are not.
Some shows are selling like hot cakes. Some are not.
Is there a throughline?: No.
As I will cover below, there are 5 things you can do to focus your thinking no matter what size organization you are in.
The big key is that the numbers from SOLT are favorable and optimistic all things considered.
The challenge is sustainability right now as the UK deals with a cost of living crisis, continued negative economic impacts from Brexit and COVID, and changing habits from COVID lockdowns.
We also see that inflation is eating away any real revenue gains.
The key word: balance.
Can we use this for anything?
I’ll share 3 things I see when I look at this data:
Know your market. London theatre is going to have a premium to it in all markets because it is the West End and it is London.
Look at the numbers. People are still spending on theatre, events. In looking at other data, sports attendance in the UK is up as well. So figure out why they are spending money with you, not just that they are spending money with you. Knowing what is driving the decision might help you spot opportunities that will help close the gap that inflation is leaving.
Don’t neglect broadening your audience. Green shoots now can turn into weeds later. You have to keep an eye on building a sustainable recovery.
II. Strategy happens at 3 levels:
Lots of hits for Dave: “What gin do you prefer?”
The Big Idea: The old strategies and ideas may not work in a new environment.
Coming up with new strategies to take you forward no matter what the economic environment is at the heart of my workshops in NYC, London, and Sydney. (I’ll be opening the April NYC registration next week.)
3 levels?:
Corporate
Brand
Marketing
Tactics go below that.
Listen to the podcast for the travel analogy.
The important point: I get a lot of questions about how a lot of these ideas apply to smaller organizations/challenger brands and the answer is that none of this is one size fits all.
You have to use the context.
The process that anyone can use to develop a winning strategy in any market:
Understand what success looks like. Can you answer that question?
Do some research built on a hypothesis. You know, what question are you attempting to answer? At the start of the year, I asked how I could deliver value for folks now. I found that helping people navigate an uncertain market and create paths towards stability in the long-term was where I could add the most value. What about you?
Pick your destination. This means targeting a specific segment of the market by job title, behavior, vertical, however your research shows you that the market breaks down.
Know your value proposition: Why are people picking you?
Use your marketing mix to tackle the market. Product. Price. Place. Promotion.
Those 5 steps are non-negotiable and helping folks answer these questions for themselves is the heart of what I am up to in 2023.
P.S. I talked with Angela Higgins live in the Cover Genius booth at INTIX in Seattle.
III. Do you have ‘Rock the House’ games:
Joe Rixon’s sports business frame is interesting.
To quote the kids, “Joe is a G!”: I like this idea of focusing on maximizing the environment a couple of times a year if you are building a program.
Also, Joe Rixon is my dude from way back.
A bigger point is the need to invest in your brand at all times which doesn’t happen as often as you’d think in sports business or entertainment period.
Joe makes the point that some institutions might not be able to make “branded spend” and I’d spin it around to say, “you can’t afford not to spend some money on branding.”
Research says: Most businesses want to split their short/long investments around 50/50.
Most people I see might be spending 10% on branding activities…if they are lucky.
Why does brand investment matter?
Your brand acts as a shortcut to the buying decision.
Your brand can lessen the need for price-based promotions. (DISCOUNTS!)
Your brand can help you improve your profitability by allowing you to price your tickets more effectively.
P.S. There is data that shows that your brand-building activities can lead to short-term sales, but your short-term sales activities don’t really help your brand.
Which I’d figured out a long time ago, but didn’t know if it was just an anomaly.
IV. LIV Golf’s revenue is ‘virtually zero’:
I promised to come back and give it a real analysis.
Again, crazy stuff: I’ll focus quickly on the brand of LIV because that’s one of the legal arguments.
Brand 101:
Brand equity grows slowly, but can come down fast.
Meaning makes a brand.
What you think of your brand is meaningless, but what the market thinks of you is the important thing.
LIV’s case rests on anti-competitive behavior.
I don’t know if that holds up here.
The golfers made a decision, signed with an upstart league, and the PGA has decided they don’t want them to be hired to play in their tour because they were helping a competitor grow another business.
Legally, I think this is tough cookies.
Back to the Brand: The lawsuit teaches us a few brand management lessons:
Money doesn’t buy you a brand. The nearly 3/4 of a billion spent to establish LIV has generated almost no revenue for the tour despite sports rights being hot properties.
The PGA Tour has made a case that they are as big or bigger than many of the people playing on the tour. This is important because when you do a proper bit of brand research, history is one of the key areas you look at to understand the brand associations.
The almost zero revenue number points to a limited amount of brand equity for LIV because in an overheated sports rights market where people are constantly trying to create an advantage for their streaming service or their live broadcasts, if there was value to be created, someone would have bought up the rights and spent the money to obtain the access.
P.S. Speaking of brands, the NHL and Disney work to reach a younger audience: I’d need to see the data on this situation because the Nickelodeon/NFL partnerships were built on some really solid marketing work.
That is why those games have worked so well.
V. Links:
Iceland’s Airwaves Festival’s focus on local talent pays off:
Makes sense.
Arsenal changes their ticket plans for next season:
Cutting down on BOTS, touts, and opening more inventory to members.
Slow motion ads help sell premium products:
Spoiler: the perception of value is elevated.
Keep this concept in mind at all times. You are working to elevate the perception of value in all of your marketing efforts.
Honestly, when I think of Broadway, I think of the Ambassador Theatre and the St. James Theatre. So this is a combination in Dave’s vision of NYC.
Linktree: Find everything I’m up to.
Join the ‘Talking Tickets’ Slack Group. Almost 300 people from around the world.
Cover Genius will be at the TPC in Birmingham in March.
You’ll be able to find out how refund protection can:
Generate a new revenue stream that can equal over $100,000 a year in new revenue.
Why refund protection helps guests by tickets and gives them peace of mind. 48% uptake should tell you a little bit.
How offering these options improves customer service including a boost to the all-important NPS score. Cover Genius has a 65…better than the 43 of the newsletter!
Don’t forget to mark your calendars. I’m coming to:
London
NYC
Sydney
And, more this year.
Want me to come to your town?
Let me know and let’s figure it out!
Great podcast conversations: Take your business to new heights by learning from the best in the business.