Are You Still Running An Event With Only Offline Sales? Not Moving To Online Ticketing Is Costing More Than You Think
If you haven’t switched to online ticketing you’re leaving money on the table. A number of established events are still using offline ticketing. Some feel their customer base is more comfortable with physical tickets, some just aren’t familiar with online ticketing and how it can make the whole process so much easier.
What’s holding you back? Are you unsure about the process? Do you think it will be expensive and cut into profits? Whatever your concern, there’s a solution that’s going to save you time and effort, as well as earn you more revenue. Moving to online ticketing is easier and cheaper than you think.
Why move to online ticketing?
According to Google, 71% of all ticket purchases are made online, and this figure continues to grow. Event organizers still relying on offline ticketing and manual processes are missing out on some great benefits. Organizers who have implemented event management and ticketing software, have experienced outcomes such as:
- Increased attendance by 20 percent
- Increased organizer productivity by 27 percent
- Decrease in costs 15-30 percent (Frost & Sullivan, 2014)(Enterprise Event Marketing, 2016)
While most online ticket purchases happen on desktop computers, there has been a significant increase in purchases from mobile devices. In the past few years there has also been a major shift from physical tickets and at-home-printing, to a complete mobile ticketing experience. Online ticketing companies with a mobile optimized user interface and checkout have been able to capitalize on this to ensure more conversions for their event organizers.
If you’re only selling tickets offline and at the door you are certainly missing out on registrations and ticket sales. Even if there is a percentage of your target audience that prefers to buy offline, you will be surprised by the numbers you’re missing. You are also creating more work for yourself. Online ticketing improves efficiency, providing greater reward for less effort.
Increase Registrations and Ticket Sales
Learn more about your target market, build relationships, gain insights and convert more sales. Experienced ticketing providers know how to convert more traffic from your event page into ticket sales/registrations. Many sales are lost at event pages with the inability to convert. An intuitive and mobile optimized user interface and checkout experience has a significant impact on conversions.
- Reach new audiences – through digital channels.
- Make ticket purchasing more convenient for buyers with mobile and desktop purchasing.
- Gain valuable tools and features to help convert more sales, sell merchandise and collect donations for fundraising.
Increase Efficiency
- Online ticketing means less work for event organizers, freeing staff to manage the event.
- You don’t have to manually process or print tickets, which is time consuming and costly.
- There is less room for error than with a manual process.
- Easy event day check-in with free scanning apps
What does an online event ticketing platform actually do?
An online ticketing platform manages registrations or ticket sales for your event. Manual ticketing can be complicated and time consuming, with a lot of room for human error. A good ticketing company will provide you with a platform and service to make this a much simpler and more reliable process.
Here is some of what Ticketbud offers:
- A free event landing page that you can easily set up with your branding, images, event and ticket information. Set it up in minutes with no special skills required, edit directly on the page.
- Payments are processed with secure payment providers. We also ensure you can get early access to funds (daily, weekly or monthly payouts).
- Promotional tools to assist in driving more sales.
- Inbuilt communication centre to communicate with attendees and send feedback surveys.
- Free mobile app for quick event day ticket scanning (manual check-in and guest lists available).
- Valuable insights with comprehensive event reporting and complete access to your attendee information and data.
- We also have rentable devices such as point-of-sale for on the door ticket sales and wi-fi routers to ensure a reliable wi-fi connection.
Things to be aware of:
The little guy shouldn’t miss out on customer support
First time and smaller event organizers need customer support. You will have questions you want clarifying along the way and you will want someone to talk to. Ticketbud treats customers fairly. We don’t reserve our customer service for the big players. Ticketbud tailors our customer support based on your requirements, and it won’t cost you extra.
Flexible Payout Options
Make sure you can get access to your ticket revenue early to help cover costs of pre-event expenses. Some providers will only give you access to revenue after your event is complete. Ticketbud offers daily, weekly or monthly payout options. Why wait?
Price Transparency
What price are you really paying and what do you get for your money? Many providers make it hard to see the final cost and you end up paying much more than you thought.
Ticketbud has all-inclusive pricing: Ticketing fee of 2% + 0.99c service charge per ticket sold. We also offer a discounted price for non-profits.
This includes everything from customer support, unlimited ticketing options, promotion and communication resources, mobile check-in app and comprehensive reporting. The only additional charges we have is if you want to take up event protection coverage or rentable devices for your event.
Don’t be fooled by the starter or essentials packages offered by other providers. They are often not ideal for first time users, can be highly restrictive and rarely include customer support. Numerous event organizers have come to Ticketbud after using another provider. They didn’t get the customer support they needed or they were pushed from an essentials starter package to a professional package because they needed more than one ticket type.
Access to Unlimited Ticket Types
Flexible ticketing options allow you to create any ticket type you want. Some providers charge a higher rate for this. The reality is that most events are going to need more than a General Admission ticket option.
Offering different ticket types for various audiences is proven to help sell more tickets. This is called ticket programming. You may want to offer general tickets, discounted tickets (child/student/senior), early-bird rates or ticket packages/bundles. Complimentary tickets or special promotional codes are also useful to offer a discounted ticket to members, sponsors or special guests.
People are more inclined to purchase tickets when there are special offers and early bird rates. It’s human nature, everyone likes to get a good deal. If you want people to commit early, you have to incentivize them. You can also offer VIP packages at a higher rate to appeal to a different market and maximize sales. Some organizers sell tiered parking rates at events as additional ticket options. This is why you need the flexibility to have unrestricted ticket types.
Check out our blog on 11 things to look for when choosing an online ticketing platform.