Best practices for SMS marketing to ticket buyers

In recent years, text message marketing has emerged as an effective way to engage customers. In the world of ticketing, SMS marketing campaigns can directly impact ticket sales. In this article, we explore some best practices for SMS marketing to ticket buyers so you get the most bang for your buck!

Pick the right campaign for SMS

First things first. You gotta pick what campaign you’re going to use SMS for. Look for elements of exclusivity, scarcity, and high demand. SMS is a powerful channel that isn’t saturated yet (like we see with email), so you can guarantee you’ll have your customers’ full attention. However, collecting the consent in the first place and keeping those contacts on your list is tricky—so you want to do what you can to keep those contacts. So, be super deliberate with picking the most suitable campaigns. Presales, event announcements, and offering discounts are solid choices for SMS.

You can use SMS as a standalone channel, but combining it with other channels, like email, is a strategic way to ensure you get in front of even more eyes.

Build a targeted segment

Segmenting your audience always matters, but it’s especially vital in SMS marketing. You’ve got permission to have this person’s immediate attention—make sure you use that power well!

So focus on high-intent buyers. Consider: Have they bought this artist or band before? How much did they spend on those tickets? If it’s a presale, did they sign up to be notified? The more hyper-targeted, the more likely you’ll get a ticket sale.

Pick between MMS and SMS

You’ve picked the campaign, and you know who your audience is. Now we get to dig into the message itself. First, do we want to send an MMS or SMS? With MMS, you can include an image (or gif) and have a longer character limit; with SMS, you’re limited to text and emojis. So, does your campaign warrant an image and more text to play with? If so, choose MMS. Golden nugget: 51% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if they receive a text message with images and media. If you can get away with a brief message, SMS is the way to go.

Keep the message brief

You’ll be restricted in your character count based on format (160 characters per SMS, 1600 per MMS), but within that, you should do what you can to capture and keep their attention. Do this by being as direct as possible! You won’t need to bloat your message since your audience targeting should do most of the heavy lifting here.

Include a link

As with any good marketing message, you’ll want to include a CTA. In this case, including a purchase link will do wonders. Not only are you driving customers to take a particular action (buy tickets!), but you’ll also be able to use this to measure your click-through rate.

STOP to unsubscribe

Need we say more? Make sure you include a line about opting out of your brand’s SMS marketing. Regulations under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act—an act protecting consumers against unwanted and spam-like communications by telephone communications, including text messaging—require providing recipients with a way to opt out of being contacted. The safest way to meet these requirements is by including an opt-out option in all your messages.

Leverage SMS automation

Looking to reach your audience at the right moment? Ditch manual scheduling for timely message delivery. SMS automation is a game-changer that allows you to schedule messages in advance, set up messages based on specific user actions, and track campaign success. Whether you want to send pre-event reminders, ticket purchase confirmations, abandoned cart reminders, or post-event follow-ups, SMS automation is your secret sauce to success. Just remember, less is more! Avoid overwhelming your subscribers with a ton of messages.

Measure your results

You’ve sent your first SMS—congrats! Now to measure the results. You’ve got two ways of measuring success:

• ✅ Revenue attribution: the holy grail. How much revenue did your SMS message drive? With Hive, you’ll be able to see revenue directly tied to your campaigns once you’ve integrated with your ticketing platform.

• ✅ Click rate: this is a key reason we recommend including a link in your message. You can’t measure clicks if there’s no link to click on! Click rate is vital to help you know if your message resonates with customers.

• ❌ Open rate: this is not available with SMS! You read right. Cellular providers don’t offer this level of tracking. That’s why the above two measures are so essential. Plus, they give you a much more accurate benchmark of engagement.

Wrap Up

SMS is a powerful channel when used well. To ensure you leverage your precious contact list, follow the best practices outlined above. It’ll help ensure you keep your costs low and ticket sales high to ensure you have the highest ROI possible.