ts.com

Seven years of circus success

Zippos Circus has been using ts.com’s online ticketing solution for nearly 7 years, offering their customers an alternative way to buy tickets to the circus, through their Website.  During that time they have seen their Website ticket sales rise year on year helping to reduce their administrative costs and enabling them to give their customers an even more enjoyable visit to the circus.

Martin Burton, Director of Zippos explains, “When customers visit our website the first page they see shows them clearly where to click to buy tickets online.  It’s simple process for them to buy tickets, and then they receive an email confirming the purchase and giving them all the information they need to visit the Circus.  When they get to the Circus on the night they just walk straight past the normal ticket queues and into the Big Top, using their print-at-home email as their ticket.

“It helps to reduce our administration costs and gives our customers an even greater experience when they visit us”, he continues.  “And I am happy as I can see the money dropping into my bank account with minimal effort every day”.  

But one of the key factors that Zippos Circus benefit from is the ability that online sales gives them to capture the names and addresses of their customers.  They then use this information to advertise forthcoming shows to the local audience – weeks in advance of putting up any posters.  

“We used to use direct marketing to send out our flyers but, with the rising cost of production and postal charges, we looked to ts.com’s email marketing functionality to help boost our marketing,” Martin comments.  “We now select all the customers in a particular postcode area from our database and then send them a series of emails starting up to 4 weeks prior to us arriving in a town, even before the first circus posters have gone up.  The emails cost us virtually nothing to produce and have links through to the Website to make it easy for people to book their tickets.  Our Customers are happy too as being part of our Internet Club gives them automatic discounts. It’s so easy.”

The results are plain to see.  In the 2005 season 20-25% of all credit card sales came through Zippos website, and during the 2006 season that had risen to 30-35%.   On one particular November day this year 70% of all credit card sales were taken through the Website to Martin’s delight and joy!  

“We hope to continue to expand our Internet marketing in 2007.  It costs us almost nothing to send out the emails so we cannot lose – every internet sale is a bonus for us. Using ts.com’s ticketing solution reduces the cost of selling tickets in advance and increases our chances of selling more tickets, as email marketing is so cheap.  It is the simplest way to make money that I can think of and our customers benefit too, so it’s an all round winner!” concluded Martin.