Last month, we published a post that broke down how universities and colleges are using advocacy marketing to support their athletic programs. From football to track, collegiate athletic programs are using advocacy marketing programs (managed through SocialToaster, might we add) to assist with a number of strategic sports marketing initiatives including fundraising, recruitment, and, you guessed it, ticket sales.
Today, we’re diving in on that last point to show how university and college athletics departments can use the power of advocacy marketing to drive ticket sales and ticket revenue for upcoming games, matches, meets, and other sports events.
What Makes Advocacy Marketing So Powerful?
In an advocacy marketing program, your school’s biggest fans (alumni, faculty, students) sign up to share your latest content on their personal social networking pages. Not only does this help to increase the visibility of your content but it also drives significant social engagement.
In fact, studies show that people pay more than twice as much attention to posts from their friends than they do posts from branded pages. The more fans you have sharing your content, the greater the impact your advocacy marketing program can make.
But enough about the generalities of an advocacy marketing program, let’s talk specifics. Namely…
3 Ways To Drive Collegiate Ticket Sales Using An Advocacy Marketing Program
1) Share Event Content That Generates Excitement And Anticipation
If you want to sell tickets to a specific game, you need to create and share content that fosters a sense of excitement around the upcoming event. Get your fans fired up! Communicate and underscore why this game in particular is the “can’t miss” game of the season.
We see our university clients employing the following tactics:
- Create a personal video from a player asking fans to come out in support of the team
- Showcase highlights from previous games
- If it’s a rivalry game, recap the previous year’s game and your school’s quest to defend or reclaim the title
Be sure to utilize a mix of video and image posts. You want to create content that elicits an emotional response from viewers and tap into their fear-of-missing-out (FOMO).
Once you’ve created your content, ask your advocates to share that content with their social networks. Be sure to include a strong call-to-action in the post to drive people who see your content to purchase tickets for the upcoming event.
2) Increase Redemptions Of Ticket Discounts Or Promos
Do you offer discounts on tickets for current students? What about 2-for-1 tickets to certain games? From promo codes to freebies, you can lean on your advocates to share awareness and drive redemptions of these discount codes to increase ticket sales.
To kick your discount redemptions up a notch, consider creating a unique offer just for your advocates. After all, they’re donating their time (and social media feeds) to help your athletic program sell tickets. Show them that you appreciate their effort by giving them access to unique opportunities that aren’t available to a casual fan. You can also leverage a unique offer to create excitement about your advocacy marketing program and assist in recruiting swarms of eager content-sharing acolytes.
3) Run A Ticket Lottery with SocialToaster
Not all advocacy marketing platforms are created equal. The SocialToaster platform comes complete with a host of special features, including our signature ticket lottery system.
Through a ticket lottery, your university can:
- Allow advocates to earn the opportunity to buy high-end tickets at a discounted price
- Allocate rare sets or special VIP packages
- Provide a broad discount to a set number of tickets
- Give away free tickets or VIP experiences to your most active advocates
The more an advocate shares, the more entries they have in the ticket lottery, the greater their opportunity to win.
Just to clarify, this is not a lottery in the traditional sense. There isn’t a magic ball-spewing machine to shoot out the perfect match of numbers and there’s no cost to entry. Instead, people earn their entry by sharing your branded content (similar to a traditional sweepstakes or contest).
Check out our post on ticket lotteries to learn more about this powerful advocacy marketing feature.
Score With Your Fans
Whether your goal is to sell tickets to one game or a whole season, universities and colleges are using advocacy marketing programs to help drive ticket sales and increase revenue.
Want to learn more about how SocialToaster can help take your ticket sales to new heights? Schedule a free demo with a SocialToaster collegiate campaign strategist today!
