Buying patterns is a broad topic that can be covered from a multitude of angles. In this article, we will cover how you can use Activity Stream to understand what kind of buyer groups can be found from your transactions.
Results may vary!
Not everything mentioned here will match your data 1 to 1, but it is meant as a visual tool on how you can find and see patterns to make better data driven decisions.
The basics
Our Customer Overview dashboard is probably the best tool for this exercise. To understand various segments of buyers we will try to compare and analyse the various data points that we find on this dashboard.
The usual suspects would be:
- Distance traveled
- Customer tags
- Category
- Gender
- Price types
- Lead time
- City/State/Country
As a first step we would recommend looking at the KPI's on top for a specific time period. Now start adding filters and comparing how did the KPI's of the average buyer change when compared to for example: Locals, Impulse buyers, Males, High value customers, Students, etc.
This will slowly start unveiling the various differences peoples have when buying tickets to your events.
Let's look at a few specific examples
The following are the main KPIs in the Customer Overview before filtering begins.
Single Item Buyers
Now I selected the Customer tag 'Single Item Buyer', which is a rare segment that every venue needs to deal with, single seats that are very hard to sell. By selecting the group of people usually buying single items, we learn that their buying pattern is quite different from the average.
From the data it looks like the Single Item Buyer for this venue is a middle-aged local that is loyal to the venue (0% first-time buyers) and spends a premium on their ticket.
Unfortunately for this venue, their lead time was also almost like the average age! Making it difficult to upsell last-minute single seats.
Comparing categories
Another way to understand your customer better would be to compare various categories.
Below you see the KPIs in the Customer Overview.
If we now choose all Children's shows, we see a very different picture. The lead time has gone down drastically, people buy more tickets, and there are a lot more first-time buyers.
This might not be news, but it does mean that when and how you do your communication should also be reflected in this. It looks like parents make their decision around 2-3 weeks in advance, and that is also when they should see and hear content about your shows. This venue also needs to have in mind, that the majority of people are only going to visit this once and don't know much about the venue in advance.