Fifth Wall Fridays: Love Your Non-Subscribers
Twice a month I offer expansions on the themes and topics that Michelle Paul and I wrote about in our book, Breaking the Fifth Wall: Rethinking Arts Marketing for the 21st Century. If you like these, you can buy the book from us here, or on Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Nobles’ Nook.
Don’t Force A Subscription
In Section I, we suggest that “some people will never subscribe, but that’s ok.” I want to elaborate, and offer some additional thinking.
Yes, I agree subscriptions are the lifeblood of many arts organizations and I’m not discouraging you from selling them. Go ahead, sell them like crazy and treat your subscribers like the lifeblood of your organization that they are.
However, some people are simply not subscribers. Their lives don’t work that way or they simply cannot make that big a commitment either financially or in terms of their time. But you probably have people who spend just as much as single ticket buyers over the course of a season, who are not subscribers.
Once your subscription marketing has ended, why not spend as much time and effort as you do on your subscription campaign on converting single ticket buyers into multi-buyers and treating them specially as well? I’m not talking here about offering discounts or barraging people with e-mails or postcards.
Rather, make the single ticket buyer feel special. Maybe not as special as the subscriber but do something to lure them back to your theater. Maybe it’s a free drink at intermission, or free parking or some other perk that does not discount the price of your event, but offers additional value.
It seems to me like there is still a huge chasm between the subscriber and the single ticket buyer and room for innovation.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Learn More about PatronManager, the powerful CRM platform that helps you sell more tickets, raise more money, and cultivate stronger bonds with your audience, all in one database.
Hi Gene,
I couldn’t agree with you more about companies changing the way they do business – and not considering the customer. I think it is a disease that government has as well. They make changes (or not) based on what they want, not what is best for the people!