Sizing up the opportunities for events listings
A variety of models allow media company to monetize events listings. When selecting a platform, take into account the whole events strategy. Here are some factors to consider:
1. What kind of listings?
Typically local media aim to aggregate all listings in their communities. But niche magazines and channels can also target events toward an interest or demographic. Is skewing young or older important? Do you want all community events or mostly music?
If curating for a unique brand of listings, look for a platform that will curate listings to bring a criteria to the forefront, rather then posting all listing in chronological order with featured at the top.
Some platforms, such as Spingo, offer more sophisticated curation with a manual review of every listing, while competitors like Zvents claim their automated listings are most complete.
Most listings platforms at least start with data from Eventful (which also supplies a white label platform), and while vendors claim differences between databases, we could not find a discernible difference in the quantity of listings. Zvents was a stand out in the variety of its ticketing relationships, which are already integrated, important in markets with big theater districts.
The other difference between platform was the flavor of the events - more community oriented versus entertainment oriented, or where the geo-targetted parameters are set, either towards a region, or divided into neighborhoods. Clarity about strategic parameters is the first step in deciding which platform will deliver.
2. Self-serve entry and upselling
Self-serve entry and upselling is now a standard feature of most platforms, and provides a great way to secure a small revenue stream without telemarketing. No strategy for events should leave this out - and all newspaper sites in particular should allow self-entry to accomodate community events getting "left out" of shrinking print newsholes, plus save money on calendar entry.
Show you the money? Check out metrics for a 14,000 UV entertainment weekly that is seeing a sale a day here, or metrics for the 3 million plus UV site, Cleveland.com, the site of the massively trafficed Cleveland Plain Dealer, whose homegrown self-entry events site sells 25 listings a day. The platform should allow for ads as well as featured listings for best effect.
3. How will company convert existing events promoter relationships?
For media with deep existing promoter relationships, an onboarding plan with support from the platform vendor is a must. How will the media curate it's legacy event relationships? Will the vendor accomodate new listings sent by email from a large promoter? If there are no legacy relationship, a turnkey platform may be ideal. But if listings are part of the traditional set of relationships, use them or lose them.
4. Monetization opportunities
A key strategic consideration is how the events franchise overall will be monetized. Listings upsells are just a start; other revenue streams can be layered on to the franchise.For some media an income of $50,0000 to $100,000 from events is a home run; while for others the listings platform is seen as primarily a way to keep the community happy and readers engaged, while saving money on data-entry.
The fact that market leader KSL.com, the powerhouse interactive site for the broadcast division of Deseret Media, just signed with Spingo shows that major players are interested in events as an e-commerce opportunity, with additional potential.
Take a look at all the opportunties that can be layered on to events listings:
• Listings upsells to advertising and/or featured positions. The starting point is, of course, the self-serve opportunity, and the most common form of monetization among media companies we looked at. Expect between 1 and 25 sales a day, depending on market size and competition, from an active self-serve platform. Most local media companies, however, stop here.
• Telemarketing a variety of SMB's - While telemarketing can be difficult to pull off, sales on neighborhood events sites can also include any neighborhood business. Datasphere's platform, which includes telemarketing support , is the best example of this opportunity. A key to these sales is the exclusive by category by neighborhood sales pitch, resulting in big money (plus $500,000 first year) for Belo Interactive Group's TV sites, see case study here. Dataphere now also has a major newspaper contract.
If you are going into telesales on your own here are some resources from Deseret: Telemarketing managers goal/to sales tool from KSL.com, Case study: How KSL developed its telesales department, and How to Hire a Top Telemarketer from Cape Sales.
• Upsells to e-newsletters, social media and contesting
Once an events platform is in place, a variety of additional products can be added in, first and foremost ads or postiions on opt-in event e-newsletters, but also mentions in Twitter Facebook, or full agency services.
The monthly OffBeat Magazine's Weekly Beat e-newsletter shows how it's done, raking in $52,000 a year in e-ads. The opt-in databases of people interested in events provides highly saleable target market.
Once the events franchise is established, it's also easier to pursue larger events for key sponsorship positions, high-dollar Facebook contests, and so on.
• Ticketing and partnerships
Partnerships can range from small revenue shares on ticket sale integrations to sharing booth revenues in return for a large event promotion. Once the franchise is secure, aim for building the larger dollar opportunities.
•Mobile event app sponsorships
Broadcast sites have been the most pro-active in selling mobile sponsorships.
However, while events are one of the core apps, they are last on the list after weather, sports, and sometimes, traffic. So there may be a profitable event app opportunity in your market for the taking. Do events want to sponsor event apps? Absolutely! But they don't make great long term sponsors. Work out a before, during, after approach to maximize the length of time of the sponsorship.
Before, could be a simple, "Alert me when..." click to sign up for, say, upcoming theater schedules, sports seasons, Cirgue de Soleil, or county festivals (shared by the top five).
During include click to find discounts, programs, parties, etc.
After messages, can be "Didn't win?" or "Went to Bumbershoot?", click here for a thank you prize. Be creative.
• Hyper-local ad networks.
Local events inventory is worth top dollar for hyper-local ad networks. Even so, the larger money may be in selling the ad network inventory - not just the media's own site inventory - around local events.
Big events are prime candidates for mobile ad network sales, since they can include a click to call/order feature.
The most promising direction overall is mobile. "No one says no" is what we hear from sales teams that ask local businesses and events if they can reach people real-time, geo-targeted by GPS around their event or even business. Centro LIft is pursuing this model, as is start -up PopMobile, currently under-construction. DigitalFirst's local ad network play, AdTaxi, also target large accounts with the hyper-local, hyper-targetted model, that only sells to 6% of its own sites inventory.
5. Availability and price of mobile apps
Now that the opportunities are clear, what the platform will need to provide comes into clearer focus. Some platforms come with a mobile app, some charge for it, and others expect the media company to create teh app. The price and quality of the mobile app is perhaps the biggest, under-rated difference between vendors.
You will need an events app so negotiate this upfront. This is another area where Spingo as a mobile first platform excels.
6. Look and feel of the platform
One of the biggest surprises in reviewing events apps for us was that the look and feel of the platforms was actually more varied than the content.
This is huge to users. Its easy to forget that in a competitive market users will not only pick the one with the most and best listings that appeal to them, but also the one they like using.
Zvents has a serviceable, time-tested UE that has nothing wrong with it. .Spingo's UE stood out and looks more magazine-oriented and, frankly, younger. It's also more social enabled. CitySpark on the other hand sounded good on paper, until we looked at the platform, which was not only clunky but also sported an ad for belly fat in the lead position.
Another surprisingly good-looking platform is Eventful, which white labels as well as providing a database, though licencing data is their core business.
7. Ticketing relationships
While only a few media are making substantial money from ticketing, this is a major over-looked competitive factor.
Users will return to site where they can find and buy easily. All the statistics showing user favorability ratings for e-commerce sites like Amazon over ad driven sites such as news sites attest to this well-researched fact of media life.
A great test of the "amazonification" of the platform is counting how many clicks the user makes from the first click on a listing to the ticket purchase.
If it takes more than three clicks to find the "buy now" button, users are lost. It is not uncommon for local sites - including entertainment weeklies - to require six on more clicks to find the ticket purchase link, if there ever is one. Not only does this affect the user, but also advertiser churn.
Zvents is the master of ticketing relationships and "Buy Now" buttons for just about any event. But local media typically need to form their own relationships and integrations with ticketing partners. Put this in the plan!
Eventbrite is just one of the partnerships available to let media onboard events to a ticketing platform if they don't have one.
As a bigger play, Stranger Tickets allows media to create their own fully supported white labeled ticketing platform on a larger scale, competing in some cases with Ticketmaster to service for large events, such as Bumbershoot. This is a significant revenue stream for the Stranger ($250,000 first year) and worth a look if you have relationships with large events in your market, see case study here.
8. Price
There are some significant differences in the prices of platforms. Originally some companies charged thousands for set-up fees, today those fees are often waved. The set up fees and cost of apps are the most overlooked price differences. While a revenue share is the "safest" bet, licencing often winds up being less expensive if the site is a success. Too many revenue share partnerships are simply "parked," but it's an easy risk-free way to get started.
9. Competition
Competition affects the strategic choice of platform. Find out who the top players are in each segment of events - movies, theater, music, sports, community events. Search the app store as well. What competitive strategies come to mind? Are there weaknesses in ticketing, or depth of a particular niche or demographic? Does the dominant competitor have an events app? Is TicketMaster hated by the major events in the market? Is the newspaper's calendar "old-seeming"? Is the opportunity $50,000 in upsell revenues, $250,000 in telemarketing or part of the long term strategic goal of data-collection? How much focus does your company willing to spend relative to other initiataives?
A few companies with deep events relationships have successfully converted a classifieds platform to publish and upsell events, see this case study on the Plain Dealer's initiative.This was primarily a cost and time-saving device that also helped support the community by allowing them to control what and when their events were published. While this makes sense for a newspaper site, broadcast sites are better off going with a turnkey platform such as Spingo or Datasphere.
10. Email and text integrations
Events are a great opportunity to achieve long term data collection goals, as mentioned above, but only if there is an easy way to capture registrations. Is this built into the platform, and if now, what system will be used? Make sure that this is included from the start.
11. Leveraging large events
Once your media is known as a "go to place" for local events, the audience is even more valuable to larger events who want to reach "everybody" plus the more targetted market. Every CRM should have a category for events. If not, find a way to pull out the major marquis events in the area. Include sports, auto-racing, arts and festivals. Is this category increasing or decreasing? Who are the top 25 accounts and which ones are increaseing or decreasing? While hyper-local events are necessary to secure the franchise, a separate strategy aimed at major accounts can often generate as much revenue. Facebook contesting, and buying retargetted ads via ad networks (there's even an email ad network endorsed on media execs tech) can be layered on.
For best practice case studies on these opportunities please see:
Belo Interactive Group's patnership with Datasphere
Spingo powers Marquee Magazine's self-serve event revenues
OffBeat's Weekly Beat e-newsletter earns $52,000
Plain Dealer converts events to paid online
Stranger Tickets sales yields $250,000 study here.
The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and MediaExecsTech, developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine, to showcases perspectives from around the world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.
Keywords
spingo, eventful, events, cityspark
