“How do we get more tickets used?” We hear it nearly every day. One of the first conversations we have as we onboard new customers is how to set goals for their ticket usage. Without goals, companies become disorganized, and waste, on average, 43% of their ticket inventory. Setting benchmarks for ticket use works, and is why the majority of our customers use at least 80% of their tickets. How? Five easy steps:
Ticket Tuesday and No Ticket Left Unused
Called ‘Ticket Tuesday’ by one of our customers, the auto-share feature lets companies share unused tickets with staff at the last minute. Simply put: If the game or event is only a week away and there are tickets left, they are released to the company and, sometimes, customers. With this deadline in mind, the owner of the tickets is more motivated to get them used and tickets which they can’t find a home for go to a very grateful employee. Everybody wins in one of the most commonly used features of InviteManager.
Selling Unused Tickets Internally
A great way to use tickets and recoup costs is to sell tickets to employees at a discount. By charging employees for their tickets, the company avoids having to tax the employee and gives the employee a terrific perk as they can buy tickets at a great price. In fact, we have numerous customers that leverage both. Credit card payments are collected securely via a third-party integration, so that no personal payment information is retained. Selling unused tickets to employees is a great, safe, and common way to offer tickets to employees that would have otherwise gone unused.
Selling Tickets on Official Marketplaces
Re-sale, which was once taboo for companies, is becoming more common and widely accepted. Some rare team contracts prohibit re-selling inventory that is not used, however the vast majority do not and many teams and leagues even promote secondary websites by becoming paying sponsors. There are many examples of teams providing secondary services to re-sell tickets and, though time consuming, the practice is a terrific way to recoup investment on unused tickets.
Charitable Donations
One of the more common ways we see companies get use from their less popular tickets is by donating them to charity and receiving a tax benefit. Believe it or not, many charities are so used to this practice they already have finely tuned programs which get tickets used for great causes such as the Boys and Girls Club, military veteran appreciation and support, and many others. Hundreds of thousands of tickets owned by InviteManager customers are donated annually which would otherwise go to waste.
Increasing Decline Rates
One final way to broaden ticket usage which isn’t as obvious but is the most effective is to increase your decline rates. Companies often treat the approval process like a rubber stamp, and approve requests on a first-come, first-served basis. This leads to a select few employees hogging company tickets, thereby dis-incentivizing requests from a broader group of employees. On other occasions, companies hold tickets too tight to the vest and don’t actually tell their staff they have them for fear they’ll have to deny so many requests. But denying requests is a good thing! It means you have tickets which are in high demand. Open them up to more requests and you may be surprised, as many of our partners have been, at the terrific use cases uncovered by making ticket assets available to more people.
There are many ways to tackle the challenge of using more tickets. If your company is struggling with usage rates, one of these five strategies above may work for you. Please contact your InviteManager Customer Success team to learn more!
Matt leads the Customer Success team at InviteManager working with the biggest brands and content providers in the world. Prior to joining InviteManager Matt led the Premium Sales & Service team at AEG-owned Stubhub Center.