We were was asked to do a short presentation at Digital Doughnut, a Digital Marketing meetup in London. We discussed digital marketing in the context of ticket sales in the live music industry.

We've been working in mobile, ecommerce and ticket sales for the music industry for a while and have found out some trends in this field.

Selling tickets to a tour has a lot of moving parts, the industry is fragmented, and endless number of things affect the outcome.

Different artists have different audiences which have different needs based on location and demographic.

The current hot topic is if streaming compensates artists fairly since record sales have diminished so severely.

The music industry is the first industry to have been forced to reconsider its business model since digitalisation of goods and services at the turn of the century.

The average US consumer spends half of their annual music budget on live shows.

On top of that, their streaming habits and album purchases are likely to be highly influenced by the live shows they see. Touring is literally what drives streams as well as album, merchandise sales and other potential revenue generators.

We're not the only ones who have noticed this. So has Spotify.

Therefore increasing concert attendance is what will improve the artist revenues. To do that strategically and effectively, knowing the audience is key.

The terminology of 'fan' and 'audience' is often used interchangeably. We like to make that distinction clear;

The fan is nice – they're easy to know and identify, because those follow on social media, like photos, retweet tweets and are on the mailing list.

This means that the 'attracting an audience in order to fill the venue' goes, in most cases, way beyond the scope of just the fans.

In other words – if you want a sold out show you need to reach outside the circle of the easy to reach fans, and to the more casual audience.

Luckily the audience is happy to tell us who they are, and do so all the time on social media.

Looking closely at these pictures reveals quite a few mother-daughter, father-daughter, mother-son and even the whole family relationship dynamic amongst the concertgoers.

Arcade Fire's fans & audience members.

This could technically classify as partially the same demographic: but notice the completely different concertgoers.

So the product is live shows and you have in front of you who you're talking to.

We hope it makes crafting the correct message easier, looking at the faces of the actual people actually coming to your shows.

Now, having got their attention, is the time to give them something to buy.

Be sure to measure all the things in real-time.

The onsale are the first 24 hours the tickets are, you guessed it, on sale.

There are often fan pre-sales, or member pre-sales and so on, but the onsale is the big event. Selling out on the onsale is what makes the news "Madison Square Garden sold out in 2 hours". It makes the news because it really doesn't happen that often.

Our product, Promogogo, specifically addresses the needs for touring musicians and their representatives (hello managers!). It's easy find content from your audience, engage with them on social, create campaigns and track your sales.

For a limited time, you can try it for free, or get in touch with us to request a demo.