SARA BILLMANNDI RECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

UNI VERSI TY MUSI CAL SOCI ETY (UMS)@SARAB I LL , @UMSNEWS

ANWAR NASIRAUD IENCE SERVI CES MANAGER

LOS ANGELES PHI LHARMONIC & HOLLYWOOD B OWL@SPELLANWAR, @LAPHI L

Bringing Them Back for More

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What Do You Want to Get Out of Today’s Session?

Some Definitions

Acquisition = finding new customers

Retention = how many of your customers come back (a.k.a. “loyalty”)

Churn/Attrition = the inverse of retention: how many of your customers do you “churn through” and lose?

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Where is Your Churn Coming From?

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Where is Your Churn Coming From?

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Where is Your Churn Coming From?

Source: Social Security Administration, via 538 blog

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Patron Process Map

Awareness Research Purchase Getting To The Venue

ParkingPre-Show

Action Ticket Activity

Finding The Seats

Showtime Intermission Departure The After-Show

Getting Home “Thank you for coming!”

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AwarenessResearc

h

Purchase

Getting To The Venue

Parking

Pre-Show Action

Ticket Activity

Finding The Seats

Showtime

Intermission

Departure

The After-Show

Getting Home

“Thank You For Coming”

Patron Process Map

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Acquisition vs. Retention

Dollars and “sense” – what does it cost?

Acquisition$$$$$

Retention$

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THREE SCARY CHARTS

Why Should We Care About Retention & Churn?

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Total Household Retention (past 4 seasons)

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Or, Another View

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 50%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

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The Impact of Churn

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ARE THERE ANY BENCHMARKS TO KEEP IN MIND?

MAYBE. BUT WE’LL GET TO THOSE A LITTLE LATER.

Measuring Retention

Measuring Retention: Where To Begin

Identify Your Buckets What specific programs are you interested tracking What portion of the audience are you looking to

retainIdentify Your Key Drivers/Motivators

Why should your audience come back What would retaining these groups mean to you and

themOrganize Your Reporting Structure

Group like programs

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Measuring Retention: What You Need to Know

How many households purchased tickets in a given amount of time

How many of those households are newTotal number of orders (if possible)Total number of tickets soldTotal dollar value of tickets soldWhat programs were purchased

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From that, you can calculate

Frequency: how many orders did each household place, on average (how often do they come)

Party size: how many tickets were purchased for each order (how many people come)

Income per household: Total income/number of households

Yield (revenue) per ticket: Total income/total number of tickets

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Mind Your Programming

Consider the Type of Programming

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Mind Your Programming

Compare “Apples to Apples”

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One-Year, Three-Year, Five-YearLook at how many ticketbuyers (or donors) in

a given year return the next year.Think about it in terms of school – e.g., the

class of 2013.

Measuring Retention

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It’s Math Time!

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What is your retention rate for Year 1 “Class” of ticketbuyers in Years 2, 3, and 4?

In Year 1: 16,000 ticketbuyer households.In Year 2:

5,500 of those households return Plus 12,000 new households.

In Year 3: 4,000 of the households from year 1 return

4,200 of the new households from year 2 return 13,000 new households

In Year 4, 3,500 of the households from year 1 return

3,300 of the households from year 2 return 4,300 of new households from year 3 return

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Answers

Class of Year 1 (Base = 16,000): In Year 2: 5,500 / 16,000 = 34.3% [one-year retention

rate]

In Year 3: 4,000/5,500 = 73% OR 4,000/16,000 = 25% of class retained for two

years

In Year 4: 3,500/4,000 = 87.5% OR 3,500/16,000 = 21.9% of original class retained

for three years

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Extra Credit

Class of Year 2: In Year 3: 4,200/12,000 = 35.0% [one-year retention

rate] In Year 4: 3,300/4,200 = 78.5% OR: 3,300/12,000 = 27.5% of original class retained

[two-year retention rate]

Class of Year 3: In Year 4: 4,300/13,000 = 33.1% [one-year retention

rate]

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Retention as Inverse of Churn

One-Year Retention: Class of Year 1: 34.3% (churn rate = 65.8%) Class of Year 2: 35.0% (churn rate = 65%) Class of Year 3: 33.1% (churn rate = 66.9%)

Two-Year Retention: Class of Year 1: 25% Class of Year 2: 27.5%

Three-Year Retention: Class of Year 1: 21.9%

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SORT OF.

So Are These Numbers Real?

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UMS: Students vs. Non-Students (baseline = Year 1)

Overa

ll rete

ntion

Non-St

uden

t rete

ntion

Stud

ent r

etent

ion0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

Year 2Year 3Year 4

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Retention by Genre (baseline = Year 1)

Thea

ter

Dance Jaz

z

Classic

al M

usic

"Oth

er"

Wor

ld M

usic

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Year 2Year 3Year 4

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Think of How to Slice and Dice: What are you Curious About?

First-Time Ticketbuyers

New Subscribers vs. Overall Subscription Retention

Number of Households Purchasing – but what about LEVEL of purchase/revenue increases & decreases?

A word about donors…#bringthemback

Strategies for Improving Retention

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Don’t Let Them Lapse

Clear plan from new acquisition with focus on retention

Think two steps ahead

Teach them how to behave

Engagement – Engagement – ENGAGEMENT

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Increase Frequency in Year 1

4.1% of ticketbuyers purchase 23.5% of the tickets.

64% of ticketbuyers purchase only 30.8% of the tickets.

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Re-Engage Lapsed Buyers

LYBUNT = Last Year, But Unfortunately Not This

SYBUNT = Some Year, But Unfortunately Not This

Decide when you consider someone “new”

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Identify At-Risk / Pain Points

New Subscribers, anyone?

What about new ticketbuyers?

Remember the Patron ProcessMap?

Surprise & Delight

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Ease The Path

Make the Next Transaction Easier

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Ease The Path

Auto Renew

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Develop Loyalty Programs

How are your current strategies

reinforcing good – or bad – behavior?

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Make Loyalty Visible and Beneficial

• Access to What Matters Most• Subscriber Lounge• Gifts On Seats• Public “Thank You”• Subscriber/Donor Valet Parking

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Make Loyalty Fun

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The Most Important Thing(s)

Start tracking

Benchmark how YOU are doing, and track for improvements each year.

It’s ok to throw out true outlier events from your analysis.

Internal data management is critically important to successful tracking.

You must get comfortable with doing the math.

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Questions ???

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Thank You

SARA BILLMANNDirector of Marketing & CommunicationsUniversity Musical Society (UMS)

sarabill@umich.edu@sarabill, @umsnews

ANWAR NASIRAudience Services ManagerLos Angeles Philharmonic & Hollywood Bowl

anasir@laphil.org@spellanwar, @laphil

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