Janneke van Egmond is an editor and marketer at Eventbrite Benelux. With years of experience as an account manager in the event industry she knows what makes organisers tick (and what keeps them awake at night).
Running a venue or music festival can feel like riding a roller coaster, blindfolded. You may get a rush of pure joy at the end, but the unpredictable turns and drops can rattle even the most experienced live music producer.
But what if the future of your business weren’t so mysterious? What if you could get a real sense of your show or festival’s status with the click of a button? How would it change your business if you could be certain you’d cover your guarantees, and rest assured that sales are on track?
The right data can change the course of your business. No more roller coaster; you can see for miles ahead.
“Data is the closest thing we have to predicting the future,” said Linda Chen, Eventbrite’s Global Performance Marketing Manager. “Without reliable data, we’re just guessing as to what’s working. Understanding your data doesn’t have to be costly or time consuming. In fact, making data-driven decisions can actually save both time and money.”
As you’ll read in this guide, Jacob Matthews, the former Director of Marketing for Republic Live and founder of The Why Co, used data to save team members 5+ hours per week while improving ad conversion by 20%.
The Four Levels of Data Mastery
You’re wearing a lot of hats. Whether you’re a venue manager running 30 events per week or a promoter trying to sell out a 30k+ festival, the last thing you need is another to-do list.
Luckily, making data-driven decisions doesn’t need to take extra time. In fact, once you’ve learned to use your data to its full potential you’ll save time. How? By streamlining your entire process.
Here are four levels of data domination you can use to streamline your data, in order of difficulty. Stick with the simplest, fastest solution that still gets you all the information you need.
Level 1: Master your built-in ticketing reports
Ticket sales are probably your most important source of data. If you don’t understand how many tickets you’ve sold and how, you won’t be able to ask more advanced questions.
The easiest way to understand your sales at a glance is to use your ticketing platform’s reports. These should help you understand if your sales are on track, which marketing efforts are driving the most sales, and where your buyers are coming from. With a few clicks you can view reports by a single event, a single ticket type, or across events and ticket types.
If you use Eventbrite, you have 24/7 online access to more than 15 different reports and chart views that you can customise for your needs.
You don’t even have to be at your desk to use your data. Mobile solutions like the Eventbrite Organizer app enable you to watch ticket sales live on your phone and even stay up to speed with check-in data in real time. Having data at your fingertips empowers you to direct your staff from wherever you are, know your most important tasks from the moment you wake up, and always be connected to your network — even without WiFi.
Adding tracking links or a pixel to your ticketing website can help you get even more granular with your ticketing data. A tracking link is a unique URL for each promotion you do for your event, and a tracking pixel is a bit of code that tracks visitors to your website. By using these you can see exactly which ads drive sales, figure out how many times fans interact with your site before making a purchase, and follow visitors across
the web to retarget them with ads.
This is an abbreviated version of the Britepaper ‘Use your live music data to stay in the black’. Want to read the full story? Simply download the Britepaper via this link to find out more about what data can do for you.
Music may be an artform, but running a live music business is also a science. Here are the kinds of questions that data (and this Britepaper) can help you answer:
• How should we stock the bar for tonight’s show?
• Is it time to start the show, or should the opener play a couple more songs?
• Are display, social, or search ads driving the most ticket sales at the least cost?
• Would those people have bought tickets anyway, or is it worth the spend?
• Did that radio ad actually drive any sales?
• If the show is in a week, how many tickets should I have sold by now to be on track?
• Will my emails perform better if I send to smaller, more targeted audiences?
• Is my team wasting time on manual tasks?
Want to find out why hundreds of thousands of music events have chosen Eventbrite’s event technology platform? Click here.
