Ever wonder about the biggest marketing challenges facing theatres today? We do too. So we asked. We interviewed 5 different theatres from around the country to hear about their greatest marketing wins, challenges, and opportunities from 2014. The answers may surprise you... Building on our 5 Ways to Drive ROI presentation from last year's Annual LHAT Conference, we'll share real testimonials from some of your industry peers to identify what's working, what isn't, and what's on the horizon. From SEO strategy to mobile optimization to email marketing best practices, we'll cover a variety of marketing topics to help you sell more tickets, capture prospects, and boost brand awareness. We'll also help you improve your marketing strategy with a list of ways you can get started TODAY.

1. 5 Ways to Drive ROI: Act II
2015 LEAGUE OF HISTORIC AMERICAN THEATRES
Presented By
Amanda Severs | Suzanna Best
July 20, 2015
#LHATNashville

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Follow along!
bit.ly/LHATRHP15

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Join the
conversation!
#LHATNashville

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What was your
biggest marketing
challenge
last year?

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What worked?

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The Fitzgerald Theater
Ellie McKinney
Director of Events
and Performance
Programs
“You have to functionally goal set,
analyze and use your data. It’s not
sexy. It’s a slow burn.
We have good search results
because of our name recognition,
but it also takes more...”

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Ellie McKinney
Director of Events and
Performance Programs
1
OPTIMIZE SEARCH
RESULTS FOR
YOUR EVENTS.

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Customer journeys begin with a search.
74%of the Fitzgerald Theater’s website traffic originates on
search engines like Google.

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Mastering the Google Knowledge Graph.
Our venue websites see an average 25% lift in organic
Google search traffic from proper Schema.org implementation.

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The Carolina Theatre
Aaron Bare
Chief Operating
Officer / Marketing
Director
“What’s the next big thing
in marketing? It’s nothing
that brilliant...
It’s email.”

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Ellie McKinney
Director of Events and
Performance Programs
2
CAPTURE AND
LEVERAGE EMAIL
MARKETING
DATA.

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If you can’t get a purchase, get an email.
The Carolina Theatre added 20,000 email addresses last year.

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It costs $0 to run the most basic contest.
The Carolina Theatre
reached
54,000+
fans through
posting contests on
social media.

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Smaller sends lead to higher returns.
Personalized emails
improve click-through
rates by
14%
and conversion rates by
12%.

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The Altria Theater
Samantha
Sawyer
Marketing Manager
“We send a lot of emails.
Developing a template that
highlights multiple shows and
still gets people to click is
crucial.”

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Ellie McKinney
Director of Events and
Performance Programs
3
DESIGN ALL
DIGITAL ASSETS
FOR MOBILE
VIEWING.

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Email still yields the highest ROI.
62%
of Altria Theater’s
emails are viewed on
mobile devices.

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Mobile trends will only continue to grow.
42% of Etix
pageviews occur
on mobile devices.
This has grown
72%
since 2013.

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The Orpheum Theatre
Erika Newton
General Manager
“We started working on ways to
increase social followers and grow
our email database.
Automated tools are extremely
useful for organizations who have
limited budgets.”

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Ellie McKinney
Director of Events and
Performance Programs
4
AUTOMATE
EVERYTHING.

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Early prospect capture drives conversions.
Orpheum captures an average 100 email addresses before
tickets even go on sale.

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Engagement at peak interest is essential.
Welcome emails
typically have
4x
the open rate and
5x
the click rate of other
campaigns.

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Take advantage of the afterglow effect.
Thank you emails
achieve a
13x
increase in revenue
compared to
promotional
emails.

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Dallas Summer Musicals
Tony Joy
Advertising &
Promotions
Coordinator
“Our team must be able to
measure conversions from
multiple channels…
It’s how we make decisions and
adjust our marketing spends.”

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Ellie McKinney
Director of Events and
Performance Programs
5
TEST.
MEASURE.
REPEAT.

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The Inbox is a competitive game.
Test 20% of your list so that the other 80% receive a
winning subject line.

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Knowledge is power… and revenue.
The average conversion rate for venue websites is 2-3%.

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5 Ways to Drive ROI
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5
Optimize your search results.
If you can’t get a purchase, get an email address.
Design for mobile on all marketing channels.
Automate your event life cycle.
Test and measure. CONSTANTLY.

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How you can get started TODAY.
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Perform a search for your venue on your
desktop and phone.
Try to purchase a ticket (online and by phone.)
Sign up for your email list.
Set up an automated “Welcome” email.
Look at your Google Analytics… every week.

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Say hello.
Ready to get started?
Suzanna Best
Sr. Account Manager
suzanna@rockhousepartners.com
Amanda Severs
Director of Client Services
amanda@rockhousepartners.com
rockhousepartners.com