Tricia Culhane explains why collecting data about audiences and visitors can open the door to long-term relationships.
Loyalty schemes can hardly be described as a new concept. Supermarkets have rammed them down our throats for years, with Do you have a club card? now surely the most overused phrase at checkouts across the nation. But the simple reason that supermarkets persist in supplying their shoppers with yet more plastic to store in their wallets is that loyalty schemes work.
Mutually beneficial to both parties, loyalty schemes provide shoppers with discounts, incentives and exclusive offers to encourage them to return, whilst simultaneously providing supermarkets with an invaluable wealth of information about both their shoppers themselves and, more crucially, their shopping habits. Yet although many arts and cultural organisations have implemented some form of loyalty scheme, the sector as a whole often shies away from exploiting the range of easily achievable benefits.
Capturing interest
Loyalty schemes have traditionally focused on data capture. From their first visit, each patron is already demonstrating a specific interest in your organisation, therefore placing a tentative foot on to the first rung of a loyalty ladder. Patrons can be persuaded fairly easily to continue climbing this ladder, but only if their initial interest is encouraged and rewarded appropriately and it is here that the capture of data is key. Yet as well as collating this wealth of patron data, loyalty schemes, if created, implemented and managed effectively, have the potential to boost revenue, help successful cross-marketing and generate the level of goodwill that most arts and cultural organisations ultimately aspire to.
The broad variety of arts and cultural organisations that make up the sector means that there could never be a one-size-fits-all loyalty scheme suited to all and nor should there be. Loyalty schemes can easily be designed and implemented for each organisation, but, in so doing, the individual needs, characteristics and goals of the organisation must be considered carefully.
Theatres and performing arts organisations seem to have a natural advantage in setting up loyalty schemes as they often gather large quantities of data through their box office, making it easier to target those most likely to join their loyalty scheme. Yet a loyalty scheme that comprises a membership card and a publication or two per year might not be enough to attract and retain many members, and, may not be working hard enough to benefit your organisation.
Free or general admission organisations undeniably have a more difficult task in collating personal information about their patrons, yet are still able to offer, and thus enjoy the benefits of, loyalty schemes.
Loyalty and the arts
So, how can every organisation in the arts and cultural sector ensure it implements a loyalty scheme that will be attractive to its patrons and collect the data necessary to prolong patron relationships, whilst reaping the additional benefits that the scheme can provide? As mentioned above, theatres and performing arts organisations, with their store of patron data and box office information, have the capacity to directly market their loyalty scheme to potential members; however, making this scheme attractive to patrons can present the biggest challenge particularly if they visit infrequently or have no particular sense of loyalty or attachment to an organisation. Rather than simply following the supermarket model of offering points per purchase and the odd discount here and there, theatres and performing arts organisations can make their loyalty schemes work much harder for them.
Dynamic loyalty schemes enable effective cross-marketing for example, venues can offer additional points to patrons booking show tickets for traditionally quieter evenings or booking periods, or for poorly selling shows. Theatres and performing arts organisations can offer loyalty scheme members extra points for pre-ordering programmes, merchandise or even interval drinks, thereby boosting revenue and also reducing queues on show nights. Events or preview shows can be marketed as members only, creating, if marketed effectively, demand to attend amongst members and demand to become members amongst the rest.
In addition, organisations that sell a large percentage of their tickets on the door often find that these sales cannot be linked to customer records at busy times. Issuing your members with some form of swipe card that they can use at the point of entry ensures that their visit will be recorded against their personal details, so your patron earns loyalty points, and you can keep the queues moving at your busiest times and continue to build up patron information.
In joining a loyalty scheme, patrons are requesting a deeper relationship with an organisation than that of casual visitor. Therefore, by fulfilling your own commitments within the partnership through recording member preferences, rewarding loyalty and engaging personally with them, approaching your members for financial assistance will then seem more appropriate, and will be far more likely to succeed than it would with casual visitors. With loyalty schemes fully customisable to an organisations requirements, it is even possible to attach additional incentives such as extra points for donations made or promotional merchandise purchased.
Free entry arts organisations would seem, then, to have an uphill struggle in attracting members when they often know very little about their patrons. However, loyalty schemes for these can have much the same structure as those within theatres and performing arts organisations. It is only in the process of attracting members and monitoring member activity that there will be any variation.
Attracting members often requires that general admission or free entry organisations must offer more benefits from a loyalty scheme than organisations that already own their patrons details, yet the rewards they ultimately gain are identical. Issuing members with some form of swipe card that they will be encouraged to use upon entry and for purchases made within the organisation, will provide you with the data necessary to record preferences, market effectively, build a lasting relationship with your patrons and carry out detailed reporting, whilst also boosting revenue.
Loyalty pays
The effective implementation and management of loyalty schemes is of enormous benefit to all parties involved, so the seemingly universal uptake of such schemes run by supermarkets is hardly surprising. Easy to establish, fully customisable according to organisation, season or audience and with significant rewards to be gained, such schemes are crucial for arts and cultural professionals in helping them to follow the lead shown by commercial organisations and thus reap similar rewards within their own sector.
Tricia Culhane works in Marketing for Blackbaud. Blackbaud is a global provider of software and related services designed specifically for arts, cultural and not-for-profit organisations.