By Nicole Wetzell & Anastassia Lavrinenko
Preparing your season announcement will always involve juggling a lot of strategic decisions and tasks against tight deadlines — that's part of the business.
With some thoughtful planning, you can make the process more manageable and less of a three-ring circus—even if programming delays have thrown off your timeline (we love you, artistic team, really).
Pick Your Focus:
Part 1: First, the Obvious
Part 1: First, the Basics
If you haven't already, start with the basics of project management:
Review your season announcement checklist and start assigning point people to each project and tasks within each project or milestone.
Reflect on past decisions by pulling out of notes, journals, and debriefs to revisit what worked, wasn't effective, and why you made those choices.
Review past subscription offers to see how they performed and where there's room for improvement.
Don't have a checklist? Get one that combines 15 years of season announcement experience by joining our email list. Plus, you'll get priority invites to Executive Roundtable Discussions. Sign up here.
Part 2: Maximize Tessitura (or Your Ticket System) To Its Full Potential
Having ticket and fundraising software with a thoughtful set-up is the secret ingredient for selling more tickets and getting more donors.
Ticket Operations
Review your TNEW Pathway
Ask a couple of your customer service associates to review the purchase and renewal pathways and to debrief you on where your audience may be tripping up during the purchase experience.
Remember, you can complete the full purchase by using a test (or fake) credit card number 4111-1111-1111-1111 (use any expiration date and CVC code).
Update stored procedures, reports, and Analytics dashboards.
Clean House (or Data Hygiene)
Merge and purge duplicate accounts if that process has fallen off the bandwagon.
Have your ticket associates fix capitalization and spelling in your current subscriber accounts and any audience segments that are low-hanging fruit, like lapsed subscribers and multi-ticket buyers.
Clean or archive price types, zones, and offers.
Activate pricing rules and memberships
Pricing rules and messages in Tessitura can do a lot of heavy lifting if configured thoughtfully. Here are a few ways you can use them.
Subscriber Upsells: You can create a price message that will pop up in the purchase pathway and upsell discounted or tickets to high-demand shows. For example, encourage them to purchase tickets to high-demand shows before they go on sale to the general public.
Bundled Offers: Consider adding bundled incentives, such as a free parking pass or drink voucher with specific package purchases. You can even use Tessitura’s features to target these offers to first-time subscribers or long-time patrons.
Memberships are an excellent way to deepen relationships with your audience and create additional revenue streams. Here’s how Tessitura can help you elevate your membership program:
Tiered Membership Benefits: Use Tessitura to define and track benefits at each membership level clearly. Include perks like exclusive pre-sales, behind-the-scenes content, or access to special events.
Integrated Upgrades: Prompt members to upgrade their memberships when they purchase tickets or make donations. For example, show them the added benefits they could unlock at the next membership tier.
Part 3: Patron Engagement & Personalization
Consumers expect brands to deliver personalized interactions:
According to a study by Salesforce, 73% of people want experiences tailored to their needs.
Yet there's a disconnect — 85% of brands feel they're offering personalized experiences, only 60% of people agree, according to Shopify.
Bridging this gap pays off—Deloitte found that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than those that aren’t.
The data is clear. You can stand out by making the process more tailored to your subscribers.
First, subscribers should hear from you more than once per year during renewal season in more ways than just email.
Connect Beyond Email To build a relationship with your audience that feels authentic (not transactional), reach out to subscribers in meaningful ways beyond the standard renewal season email.
“How’s It Going?” Calls
Schedule casual check-ins with subscribers to ask about their experience. What do they love? What could you improve? Use these calls to gather testimonials and ideas for new perks.
Review Subscriber Benefits
A study by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania suggests that people are more likely to renew their subscription when they take advantage everything their purchase has to offer.
Review what benefits are popular, unpopular, and any opportunities to introduce new perks that your subscribers are requesting or even ones that people didn't know they wanted.
Identify anyone who is not attending shows and/or not taking advantage of their subscriber benefits. Find time to call them, give them make up tickets to a show they missed (this one will go a long way), and invite them to a pre-show event or to take advantage of a benefit.
Create a Messaging Matrix
You can segment your subscribers by first year, second year, loyalist, etc, and start to develop strategies for how you plan to talk to them, special offers and perks that would appeal to each group.
A little preparation can go a long way in making your season announcements smoother. While your to-do list might feel endless, we’re here to help you focus on what matters most and bring those extra programs to life. Schedule a mini-strategy session with us today. Schedule a mini-strategy session.