How we used audience segmentation to help Texas Ballet Theater grow their subscriber base

When the Texas Ballet Theater needed a way to reinvigorate their marketing, we created a comprehensive marketing campaign that expanded their ticket sales from a steady group of subscribers into a larger group of new season ticket holders.

The Problem

Season subscriptions to Texas Ballet Theater, while strong, had stagnated. Subscribers were offered the same options year after year, purchase the entire season or purchase single tickets at a later date. Within performing arts, the prospective ticket buyer ranges from the devoted fan to the person that wouldn’t even consider attending. Marketing resources are precious, and we have to ensure they are being invested where they will yield the highest ROI.

The Solution

Using data to drive decisions, Schaefer proposed restructuring subscriber packages to give existing patrons more choice and convince new people to become subscribers and single ticket purchasers. Beyond subscriptions, the campaign was designed to have a positive impact on single ticket purchases. Single ticket sales launched in the middle of the campaign on July 1^st, and within the first day, more than 3,500 individual tickets were sold.

The Approach

One of the largest components of our overall campaign was audience segmentation. To accomplish this, we appended audience data from TRG Arts – the Ballet’s consultant.

We divided the Ballet’s existing consumers into four distinct groups of:

1 – previous year subscribers
2 – lapsed subscribers
3 – multi-performance buyers
4 – single ticket buyers

By building package options, we were able to convince larger subsets of people to subscribe to Texas Ballet Theater.

We added historic subscribers and single ticket purchaser data to create persona profiles based on audience demographics and psychographics. We then built lookalike audiences based on the four groups and mapped each of the groups’ behaviors to identify purchasing trends across multiple digital channels. This gave us the insight needed to better understand their consumption habits and likelihood to purchase either a full or partial season or if they were likely to be a single-ticket purchaser.

Once we isolated recurring trends in the audience segments, we hyper-targeted the right ticket package to each group through paid digital media. Further, website retargeting enabled us to identify those that had expressed interest but not yet purchased and then retarget them with the TBT message most likely to yield a purchase.

Goals

• Clearly brand the full 2019-2020 ballet season, while also promoting individual performances on their own merits.
• Earn more new, full-season subscribers.
• Define the main buyer personas and outline their purchase-decision journeys to understand their motivations for purchasing a full-season subscription and a single-performance ticket.
• Outline a way to recapture people that did not renew their full-season subscriptions from the previous year.

Results

• Paid media campaign delivered 1.8 million targeted impressions, and generated more than $40,000 in ticketed revenue in just a few weeks.
• After only 2 weeks of a dedicated full-season campaign, subscription sales up by nearly 3% YOY.
• New subscribers up by 45% YOY.
• Exceeded last year’s launch-day single ticket sales by more than 10%.
• Total ticket sales up 18.43% YOY, despite a later season launch than 2018.
• During the campaign, overall website sales totaled $199,000.