Selling tickets for yourattraction is always a industry hot topic
But what is interesting is that even some of the most basic elements of online selling techniques are often missed when it comes to online ticketing.
Driving your website traffic towards purchasing tickets quite simply the most obvious function your website is there to perform. Yet the amount of times we see traffic drop off before users even get to the ticketing page of a website is massive. That means there’s a load of users (potential visitors in this case) that have been driven to your website, from one medium or another (such as social media or Google search) and they leave your website before purchasing tickets.
In some cases these users might be on a fact finding mission, looking for information about an upcoming visit, checking out what you have on or searching for your prices. No matter the reason they are on your site, you have the chance to sell to them in that moment. The big issue is, not that many ticketing sites are set up for actually promoting the sale of tickets. Crazy right?
What’s the point of having your website there if it’s not to sell tickets? Yes there are other functions such as FAQs etc., but the focus should be to sign post users through the online ticketing journey so easily that they are at the basket confirmation screen and paying for their tickets before they know it. There’s an online retailer who does this so well. Yep you guessed it, Amazon.
For so many users of Amazon, the purchasing process is so easy you hardly have time to consider your decision, increasing impulse buys and reducing basket abandonment (when you exit a website before paying for what’s in your basket). Amazon signposts every step of your ecommerce process, from using colour, being clear about pricing, offering multiple delivery options and remembering all of your contact information. Now we’re not saying that your attraction needs to have ‘exactly’ the same functionality as Amazon, but that you should strive to make the user journey on your site as easy to end up at the payment confirmation screen as Amazon. The best way to do this is by signposting your user throughout their journey on your site, and it all starts with the basics.
You must have a BOOK TICKETS button on your website that can be seen everywhere on any device. That means having a call-to-action (CTA) on your homepage, in your header, somewhere sticky as the user scrolls, so it’s constantly signposting them to perform the action you want to promote. No matter how simple this might sound, there are many sites out there where the book now or book tickets buttons are no where to be seen. Please don’t make that mistake.
Once the user has then found your book tickets button, you need to ensure the rest of the journey is clearly signposted and the user can easily interact with your website. The best way to test this is to have a go at booking a ticket through your website yourself, or ask family and friends to try and report back to you on how they got on. Is it obviously signposted or could you find some areas to improve. Just small improvements might be the difference in users completing their purchase and buying tickets, vs. people who give up and eventually close the tab before they buy.
If you’re looking for a bit of free advice and guidance on how to improve your online ticketing journey, we offer a free ticketing journey review. The review is carried out by Lee Drew, Head of VisiSoft, he’ll record a video review so he can best explain to you which parts of your ticketing journey could benefit the most from improvement and provide advice on key elements.The review is completely free of charge. If, after you’ve seen your review, you decide to become a VisiSoft customer, we will help you to implement all of the recommendations made. Find out more here and claim your free ticketing journey review.