Getting Them to Buy Tickets Early
There are times when it can be difficult to get people to purchase tickets to your event.
Unless there is some big incentive to buy early, most people tend to wait in purchasing something. Last minute ticket purchases can create havoc for event organizers. On occasion we all need a little extra motivation to take action. There is one technique you can use to help motivate people to purchase tickets for your event early.
The Scarcity Principle
In the marketing work there is one very simple and effective technique to getting people to buy, it is know as the scarcity principle. In his book, Influence, Robert Cialdini talks about how scarcity can be used as a motivating factor to get people to take action. The scarcity principle can also be used to get people to purchase tickets to your event early.
How You Can Use Scarcity
The foundation of scarcity principle is to let people know that there is a limited amount of availability. If you are the consumer and the item in question is something of interest, you need to get it before someone else does. Look at all the Christmas shopping havoc for hot items.
In the case of your event, scarcity can be applied to your ticket sales. By limiting the number of tickets you’re going to get more people to act sooner. Be upfront and let people know how many tickets are available for your event. As your event approaches update the number of tickets available. You can use your web site or email marketing to encourage people to act sooner rather than later.
One of my clients used the scarcity principle effectively to sell out all their reserve seat tickets for their event. They keep people informed of reserve seat availability on their web site and via email. Another client used the “Limited Number of Tickets Available” to sell out their event before a single person walked into their event. There are events I know that have gotten so good at using scarcity they sell out their event 30 days in advance.
Use Scarcity Responsibly
I’m not a big fan of the “Oh my God the world is going to end if you don’t buy now.” You should encourage people to act promptly, but you don’t need to sales pitch people to death.
The whole limited quantity aspect works. You can use it across all your advertising channels at no additional cost. The next time you have an upcoming event think of ways to use scarcity and get people to buy early.
> Leave a Comment About this Post
Want to get additional marketing info? Check out the articles below:
- The Danger of “Free Event” & “Great Event” Thinking
- Event Marketing: Stop Reducing Your Event Ticket Price
- Event Promotion: A Big Bucks Idea for Your Next Event
- Promotion: Using Video to Front Load Event Value
- Let Other People Sell Your Event for You
- The Event Promotion System
Get Your Free Event Promotion & Event Marketing Video Training
Great information. I have a special event childcare company. We do large children's events for adult functions. We often have a limited amount of spaces available. However, getting parents to register early is a real problem for us. I am going to share this info with my partner. I think it might!
Thanks!
Micah Johnson
Anywhere Childcare
Posted by: Micah Johnson | 09/20/2009 at 09:03