SOR 69: Why William Rader Got Into the Online Ticket Space and What You Can Get Out Of It
Guest:
William Rader (@wellattended)
Who is he?
in addition to being a professional performer, William is also the entrepreneur behind online ticketing platform WellAttended
Listen Now:
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StitcherYou’re probably already familiar with some of the major players in the online ticket space. Vendini. Brown Paper Tickets. My guest today is William Rader, and none of the available ticket services were doing exactly what he wanted them to do. So he got to work creating one that did.
WellAttended is the name of his service, and he’s going to tell you more about it in this episode. My intent in bringing William on to have this conversation is not to tell you you have to use WellAttended.
What I do hope you’ll walk away from this episode with is an idea of the possibilities that are available. How would you want the ticket buying experience to be for your patrons? What do you want them to experience when they want to buy season tickets, for example?
Please note I’m not being paid anything for this. There’s no affiliate link, this isn’t a sponsored podcast episode, I don’t get a commission if you end up using the service we talk about in this episode.
In this episode:
- partnering to grow your audience – if you can capture the new faces that see your show, then partnering with someone that brings in their audience can be a great growth catalyst
- what’s missing from many ticket services – distraction-free ticket sales, online product sales, lag time in payment
- online vs. phone sales – convenience is king
- ticket sales as feedback – you can’t wait until opening night to figure out if your marketing strategies are working, so easy advanced sales let you know what’s moving the needle (or if you need to pull out bigger guns)
- fees – how much and where does it go
- season tickets – William’s current initiative is integrating season ticket packages and individual ticket sales into one system
- customer refunds – one click refunds
Items mentioned:
- WellAttended – the online ticketing system discussed in this episode
- Science Has Finally Figured Out How To Win Rock-Paper-Scissors – the article William mentioned about understanding the behavior behind the game
- 7 Reasons Why You Should Sell Tickets Online – from the WellAttended blog
- The Email Marketing Primer For Theatres – as you build a growing list of email addresses from your online ticket buyers, here’s a guide to using those emails to keep selling more tickets
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Thanks to William Rader for joining me here, and thanks to you for listening.