Influence: Get Exclusive

Do you want to sell more tickets to your event? Do you want higher profit from your tickets? Of course you do! Read on for this special blog post only for Ticketbud blog subscribers… Okay, so this totally isn’t a special blog post just for subscribers, but it made you more interested, right? Right? *Crickets* Exclusivity (and in another name, scarcity) are powerful drivers to humans. Everybody wants to have something rare or something unattainable by the general public to enhance their self worth. One of my favorite books of all time is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini. The six principles of persuasion it describes are so powerful that even United States PSYOP teams read it. One of the six principles in the book is the Principle of Scarcity. Essentially, it boils down to people wanting what they can’t have a lot of. In the book, the principle is demonstrated by an experiment with two jars of identical cookies. One of the jars is filled to the top, the other jar just has a few left. Despite the cookies being from the same package, volunteers reported that the cookies from the nearly empty jar tasted better. SO yeah, “cool story bro, what does that mean for my event” you ask? Well I’m glad you asked, here are several easy ways to increase your ticket sales without having to put in much work. 1. Early Bird Tickets Although this one is very obvious, I often only see bigger events putting out early bird tickets. Anyway, what are early bird tickets anyway? Early bird tickets are a cheaper, but more limited (there we go!) ticket type that encourages people to purchase tickets to their event earlier than they normally would. So if you’re thinking of starting selling tickets two months out from you event, try selling a limited amount of early bird tickets three months out. Early bird tickets have several main advantages and allow you to kill two birds with one stone – see what I did there? With early bird tickets, you not only get a better idea of your audience size and as a result can plan more accordingly in the upcoming months, but you again have that exclusivity factor – the tickets are less expensive, but there are also a fixed amount. In events on Ticketbud that actually do utilize early bird tickets, they almost always sell out. People want to take advantage! 2. VIP Treatment This one is a great one to do, but ONLY if you have the resources necessary to actually make it an awesome experience for those who have purchased a “VIP” ticket. For bands and musicians, VIP tickets are super easy to do – backstage meet and greets and autographs are perfect for people who are huge fans. If you’re doing some sort of art festival, perhaps a VIP ticket might give the attendee access to a private room with some hors d’ouevres and wine and some special art pieces. If it’s a comic convention, a VIP ticket might give attendees access to certain stars or exclusive product before anyone else. It’s really all up to you of course, but when people buy VIP tickets they expect to be treating like VIPs so if you’re just doing a small art festival or intimate concert, it’s probably best to skip these. 3. Fanclubs and Loyalty Discounts Being part of a group that not everyone can enter gives a sense of “cool”. I don’t mean this in a mindset where you exclude people, but rather where you reward attendees for having attended your convention for 10 years or getting someone a free drink since they come to your bar without fail every weekend for the past year. It could be something that people pay for, like how bands have fan clubs that get exclusive content, or it could just be something that attendees get “for free” provided that they’ve been part of your events for a long time. How you determine it is up to you, of course, however finding the most hardcore fans or attendees and rewarding them is always going to look great for you because these are the types of people that will share your gifts to their friends and on websites such as Reddit or Facebook. 4. Wait Lists and Lines This is the most apparent in nightclubs and other dance venues – the line. Here in Austin, we have a barbecue called Franklin’s Barbecue. Let’s go through this whole post and see if anything sticks out to you : it’s only open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and it’s famous for having 4+ hour long waits, with people showing up there at 7:00AM to get in line. People there rave about the barbecue and as a result it has a 4.5 star rating on Yelp with 1000 plus 5 star reviews. Now, is Franklin’s good? It is. But is it possible that perhaps, since people have to devote so much time and energy to achieve it plus the actual wait and the limited time, it tastes better than it really is? Think back to when I mentioned those cookies in the jar. Now I’m not here to knock Franklin’s, but I would personally love to see reviews for it if it was open all day and the wait was 20 minutes. So, let’s wrap it up here: people love exclusivity and love to be considered elite, and like to have things that other people don’t have. Sort of paints people in a bad light, but don’t think of it as a negative, think of it as a positive! Otherwise, we wouldn’t have progress. And you, the event organizer, wouldn’t have ways to increase your ticket sales and profit from people wishing to get in on your exclusive action.]]]]> ]]>