Spektrix Insights Report 2019: Executive Summary

Focussed on metrics for audience engagement, revenue management and customer and donor experience this report includes a quantitative analysis of over 25 million items purchased across the Spektrix system in 2018.

This analysis is placed within the wider context drawn from our economic landscape, the arts sector and other related industries such as retail. It includes a range of case studies from the organisations that sit in the top 10% of our key metrics.

Executive Summary

Our Findings

Against a challenging economic backdrop for arts organisations (1), there are positive signs of resilience and investment in future-looking strategies. Yet there is a great deal to learn from one another as we see considerable variance between organisations.

Loyalty is a real growth area

Encouraging loyal audiences remains an area with sizeable uplift potential:

• On average, 56% of transactions recorded by an organisation in 2018 were made by customers new to that organisation.
• Proportions of returning buyers and frequent bookers are largely unchanged since last reported in 2017.

Make it personal

Customisation yields results:

• On average, targeted segmentation roughly doubles email marketing engagement.
• Microtargeting based on recent customer behaviour has shown to increase engagement by 20x in some cases.

Mobile is the future

New insight into customer and donor behaviour finds the move to online, and specifically mobile, is dramatic:

• 60% of transactions are made online.
• 46% of visits to our Spektrix online purchase path are on mobile phones.
• Even as online transactions become more prevalent, in-person contact remains an important channel for higher value transactions. On average, these are 40% larger than online transactions, likely due to in-person cultivation of major gifts and group sales – but the pattern is also evident in everyday transactions.
• Donations with ticket sales are more than 6x more likely when a transaction occurs online. However, they are worth almost 2x in value when made in-person or on the phone.
• Online upselling of supplementary items occurs 1.7x more often than in person and phone, however in-person upselling represents 35% more in value.

Unmet demand from audiences

There appears to be considerable unmet demand for wheelchair accessible seats available for online booking:

• Only 15% of United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland organisations had one or more online bookings which included a wheelchair hold last year.
• On average, in the United Kingdom and Republic Ireland, 4% of bookings including wheelchair access needs occurred online – nearly 5x lower than in the United States and Canada where equal access to online booking is mandated by law.

Untapped opportunities

Yield management metrics indicate some organisations are leaving vital revenue on the table. Those that implement a strategy to maximise revenue on high-demand events, and tend to have an upward trend in their prices as the show approaches, can make an extra 10%+ on their original base price.

Considerations

These findings paint a complex picture of audience behaviour and expectations, but also show some useful common factors for successfully connecting with audiences and building effective revenue.

• Audiences expect a customised approach. Whether it is what they are booking, the channel they are using, the emails they click on, or what they choose to support with donations, a one-size fits all approach is often less than half as effective as a custom approach.
• Customer and donor context matters. A focus on customising offers, donation asks and communications based on audience members’ interests is effective – approaches that also take into consideration people’s immediate context are even more so. Cues like device usage, recent website visits, in-person visits and basket abandonment can help organisations design relevant and effective engagement triggers.
• Investing in technological tools is important, but is only part of the picture. Thanks to the continued move to online transactions, applying effective audience engagement and revenue generating tools online (and in particular on mobile) is more important than ever. However, investing in the customer and donor-facing team’s ability to connect with audiences in person and on the phone yields major gains in revenue and engagement that technology is hard pressed to match.

For more information and to access the full report

(1)  UK Consumer confidence reached a five year low in early 2019 and retail sales have again decreased year over year. In the US the middle class has seen stagnating real wages (after inflation) for many years and lower-income families have seen their real wages drop.

What next?

Spektrix provides free, comprehensive advice to arts organisations who have read the report and wish to understand how the insights affects them, and how they can capitalise on it. You’re welcome to access that support regardless of whether or not your organisation uses Spektrix. Drop a line to consultation@spektrix.com to get started.