You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how nonprofit attractions
are increasing attendance and sharing their missions through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attend Media.
Jenny, today’s topic for Ideas for Holiday 2024.
My favorite time of year to plan for. Yeah, it’s going to be a great year. I think a lot
of people in 2023, a lot of nonprofit attractions, especially like zoos and gardens, saw some
record years last year in terms of attendance. There’s always a challenge. How do we exceed
last year’s visitation when the visitation is a record year? One of the things that comes
to mind there is early ticket purchases. How do we get out a little bit earlier, draw
people in a little bit earlier versus that December time period? How do we get people out
in November? But with earlier ticket purchases comes another challenge, which is that it’s
2024 and we have a political season ahead of us that can maybe scare a few people away
from getting out early. So we’ll talk about some ways to get around that.
And you’re drawing on your experience in working with a major nonprofit attraction in a large
market has done a holiday event for the last 10 years and they’ve been selling out. There
are more premium nights. You’re kind of looking at this, like how can we fill in some of the
holes and squeeze as much visitation as we can out of this season?
Yeah, and you’re always trying to come up with new ideas to do that, new audiences to reach
to drive in, right? But also when we think about trying to get out earlier, when it comes
December, I think a lot of the time, a lot of the time you’re thinking and marketing,
like, well, the event sales itself, right? If it’s selling out constantly. So I think we’ve
got to be smart about how we utilize our dollars to get out ahead of it when maybe, you
know, especially if you’re like looking at performance in terms of online ticket sales,
right? It’s not going to be a strong and maybe late October or the November as it would
in December. We think we’ve got to kind of challenge ourselves as marketers to think,
how do we change it up? Do things a little bit differently? Do things that maybe don’t
always look quite as good on paper because it’s not selling itself early on. And kind of
think through the strategy and the challenge of that to put a really great plan forward
and not just allow it to sell itself out at the end of the season, right?
In the midst of a political, right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. All right.
So let’s get into it. Four ideas to sell more tickets this holiday, 2024. Let’s just
start with political. I’m hearing a 30% increase in political ad spending. Let’s just set the
stage. Why are we even talking about political? What does that mean for advertisers? Yeah.
So obviously political, I think everyone’s mind goes straight to TV, right? So historically
TV causes a lot of issues around political or spots get bumped. Your CPMs are drastically
higher than they were, you know, same time last year. And then even after the political season
or after the election, you have a lot of pent up demand, a lot of make goods that you have
to deal with from other advertisers. And then, oh, yeah, by the way, you’re going straight
into Black Friday. So there’s like that three week period after the election period that’s
still becomes a, you know, a roadblock really for attractions. Yeah. So this is like a supply
and demand. Correct. Yeah. All of this political advertising dollars are coming in. Your local
TV station only has so much commercial time to sell. That means little guys like us are
getting kicked to the curb. Right. And this is, it’s not just impacted in TV. I think TV
is just where that is where most of the heaviest spending goes in terms of political.
But, you know, you see this in other channels as well, like online channels are absolutely
impacted. The CPMs will increase. They increased during this time period just because of holiday
competition anyways. But with a political year, they increased further. I think we all know
now like Facebook tends to be flooded with political advertising. So there’s other channels
where maybe you don’t, it doesn’t feel as impactful just because your spot’s not literally
getting bumped. But if you’re looking at like a CPM comparison from the same time, you
have blasted, you know, our compared to the per year, when your CPMs are tend to be quite
a bit higher than they were. So you don’t feel it as much or you maybe you don’t see it
as much, but it absolutely is impacting your cost across the board and every channel.
And circling back to something you mentioned a minute ago is, yeah, November 5 is the election.
But now here comes that second wave of all of that pent up advertising dollars that couldn’t
run in October all the way up to November 5. Now those guys are coming back in. And frankly,
you’d kind of just going back to TV, you know, the local personal injury attorney who spends
$2 million with that TV station, they’re going to get the first seat in the in line versus,
you know, you spending 100 times more than you.
Well, they might be getting bumped because they’re spending money.
And then you mentioned three weeks later, we’re hitting black Friday. So supply is that
a premium? The CPMs, the cost is very, very high. How do we kind of navigate around that?
And you also mentioned that it’s not just TV, you know, meta has always been a political
channel. But now you’re seeing like, who and Spotify, they’re taking political dollars
as well. Yeah. So I think probably even four years ago, it was like, well, we’ll just move
our money to TV or like streaming radio, right? But some of those players weren’t actually
accepting political dollars then and they are now. So that’s changed. But I think just
political advertisers have also gotten smarter, right? So they’re tapping into all of the channels,
right? It’s not just a TV play. So almost every channel gets impacts. And in fact, one of
the channels that comes to my mind, or one of the few channels that comes to my mind is
not accepting political dollars is TikTok right now and pretty much any other channel before
that wasn’t is now. So our platform, I guess. So we’re talking about this because in a perfect
world and in a non political season, you would like to be on air or running your paid advertising
kind of that really late October, first week, November to follow through with the strategy
of let’s get people into our attraction early. Yeah. If I’ve got an annual event, it’s been
going for a few years now. Like my strategy is probably getting people out earlier to drive
more people. You know, if this is my first year coming out, I might not be trying to advertise
in October, but if I’ve got a recurring event that is my kind of marquee event for the
year, absolutely. Like the only way you’re going to drive more people is to tell people to
come earlier in the year, right? All right. So let’s talk about some strategies to get
on TV to get on radio in that thick of the political season. What do you got? Yeah. I mean,
just think of other ways to get on that aren’t just a 15 and 30 second spot and dot schedule
because that’s what’s going to be impacted. So looking for some non preemptible inventory
in this oftentimes comes with like five and 10 second billboards, news, weather traffic,
live reads on radio can be a good place to place your advertising. And you know, this is
again, really thinking of that November time period and not just through November 5th,
I believe, is the actual day of the election this year, right? So it’s not just like November
6th, you’re good, right? So how are we thinking through maybe the first couple of weeks of
November, maybe using some of this non preemptible inventory? Because that’s that’s safe, right?
My rates aren’t impacted. My schedule’s not impacted. And honestly, this can be a great
play because even if it’s not a political year, chances are you might not have like your
fully polished 30 second spot ready to go November 1st anyway. So it can also be a way to
just get out on get on air earlier than maybe you would in normal years just with the
fact that production itself can be something that postpones your start to your schedule.
Yeah, I’m envisioning these five or seven second back in my TV days, we used to call them
billboards. These are short, quick reminding kind of messaging, hey, buy your tickets now, holiday
events coming, come visit us. Yeah. And again, back to a attraction that’s got a recurring
exhibit, right, for holiday. It’s a reminder of messaging, right? Like I can put a strong
call to action. They’re like, take its on sale now, buy tickets early, right? So again,
if it’s if my first year doing it might not be my strategy, right? But if I’ve been doing
this for 10 years, this absolutely can be part of a strategy because you’re trying to encourage
people to get out and buy early. Just hammering on this billboard idea, once again, a seven
second coming in or out of a commercial pod, that’s the way we used to do it back on the day
when I was on the cell TV. I really wouldn’t be able to sell you just three or five or two.
I probably need to get you into some sort of longer term commitment that might spill into
October or September. I think that’s something that I want to share with the audience is
it might not be perfect for just exactly what you’re going to do. It really depends on
the TV station, but maybe we can be open to these ideas knowing that that inventory is so
valuable in early mid-November that I’m willing to say, hey, I’m going to promote my
fall event in September or October. Yeah, that’s actually a great point. So a lot of
times it’s like a 13 week commitment that stations are looking for. I mean, you sold it
before too. You, I mean, it’s quarterly, right? So you’re looking for something a little
bit long term. But yeah, you also, I think really the key point here is you should be thinking
through and planning this now, right? It’s not Christmas planning in July anymore. It’s been
a political year. We got to start now. But a couple of options, right? If you’ve got that
12 or 13 week schedule, maybe instead of your typical six or eight week that you’re,
you know, used to buying for a TV schedule during that holiday time period is either you’re
including for maybe four weeks prior. So that October period, you’re including the tickets
on sale now is a by early or maybe you’re just going to go ahead and tack on the fall festival
that you’ve got and use four weeks promoting that and then go straight into your holiday,
you know, November 1st. So we’re kind of shooting the dark a little bit. But you’re planning
them together, piggybacking them. And I think that’s why it’s so important. You know, another
reason why it’s important to be planning probably earlier on than many have in the past.
I think the main takeaway is get out in front of this early. If you, you know, have your TV
and radio station partners in your market, let’s have that conversation now before it’s
August and all of a sudden all the cemetery is gone. And we’ve got to approach this and
we got to be a little creative because we know 15 and 30 second spots probably aren’t going
to do it for us. Right. So let’s give our television radio partners an opportunity to come
back to us with some non-preemptible inventory that might be a little bit out of the norm knowing
that 2024 is going to be a crazy political season. Yep. Exactly. All right. Number two,
programmatic out of home. Yeah. I mean, I would actually almost say like number two is really
inventory that you have some flexibility with messaging, right? And I think we all think of
digital this way, whether that’s social display, you can change the message up. So just take a step
back here. You know, what’s different between out of home and programmatic out of home to find
that for us? Yeah. So programmatic out of home, programmatic out of home, digital out of home,
allows us to buy out of home inventory digital out of home inventory similarly to how we would
buy like display inventory online. So we’re going to buy a set of impressions. It can kind of run
anywhere across any screens that we indicate. So it can just strictly be billboard screens if we want.
It’s only going to be a digital screen because that message is moving throughout the market. It’s
not static. And it’s using kind of that technology that buy and platform to execute that buy and it
can run across really all of your major vendors, right? All that major inventory versus going to your
clear channel or going to your out front or going to your Lamar direct and only buying their specific
inventory. Right. So it’s a third party buying platform that can tap into all this inventory. But
for what we’re going to try to say here is the big thing is you have control of when and where it
runs to some degree. You can start and stop it. Yeah. And there’s like prison cons of both, but just
love the idea of using this. I think a lot of people have thought about it in the
non in the attraction space in general of like weather triggering, right? So weather triggering is
a really great way to utilize programmatic digital home in a lot of different industries. But for
non-profit attractions, you know, think of it as, hey, it’s raining outside and I’m a zoo, I don’t
want to advertise the day I can shut my message off, right? But I like to think of it as how we can
use it in terms of sell-out periods. So, you know, especially as we’re getting into that December time
period where you do start selling out every single week and you’re completely sold out the week of
Christmas. Like how can we be a little bit smarter about our, or how can we be a little bit more
strategic about our fighting strategy within a channel like programmatic digital out of home? So
I, you know, am sold out for the weekend and it’s Wednesday. I can go ahead and shut my messaging
off for the weekend or I might have a strategy. I’ve just wanted to put up messaging that says sold out.
So we, oh yeah, like it’s is my normal ad and then there’s the big red, right?
Big red sold out, right? Yeah, sold out. Yeah. Which, you know, can be a good strategy just for like
creating a little bit of like, oh no, I got a bunch of tickets for you again, right? Yeah.
So not here to tell you what the creator strategy needs to be there, but just thinking through
how you can utilize that. And I would say, it’s always easier said than done. So be careful about
thinking, hey, we sell it at 530 on Friday and we’re going to go reach out to our campaign manager
to shut the campaign off for Friday night. But it’s Wednesday and I’m sold out Thursday, Friday,
Saturday. We can shut that messaging off, right? Yeah. So the strategy that we’re talking about here
is, is pretty, it’s a heavy lift. Yeah. This is pretty manually intensive even though we’re using
computers to do it all. Right. Someone still has to go in and tell the computer what to do. Right?
So I think it’s important here is we have great communication with the person that’s hands-on
keyboard, right? And we’ve talked about how we, you know, implore our clients to own their own
platform. This is a really good example of what owning your own platform looks like. Right. So,
you know, ideally you’ve got somebody in-house who’s doing this or you’re working with an agency
partner who’s doing this and you’ve got a fast line of communication with that person that is
hands-on keyboard. Yeah. Which you don’t want to do is have an agency handler who’s going to outsource
it to another team that might be overseas or something like that where it’s a 24, 36 hour delay
between, hey, we need to kill it to actually get done. Well, and even, you know, if there’s multiple
people in place, it’s not always meaning that something can’t be done fast. But if I’ve got three
layers of people to go through to the person who’s actually going to turn it off, that’s obviously
going to slow it down. So, yeah, I mean, be realistic about what you can and can’t do. Again, I don’t,
I don’t think you have wasted impressions just because some impressions run at night, right? I’m
not going to cut my TV because I sold out for the weekend. You still want media running even on
sell-outs because you’re creating, you know, interest and awareness for other nights and weekends. But
to be realistic. But yeah, it’s Wednesday and you’re sold out for the entire weekend. Have a
conversation with your campaign manager agency buyer, whoever’s the one who’s managing this particular
channel to determine what that strategy is going to be. And you need to go in with that strategy
and advance, like, as in when we sell out 24 hours notice, the campaign shut off in version B of
creative goes up or the campaign is just shut off, right? Because are we willing to say, hey,
we’re selling out so much that we can’t even deliver our impressions in this channel and that’s okay.
We’re going to move it to something else. Like, what are we doing, right? So you’ve got to have
that strategy built in advance. Or else this is just going to be a total nightmare to try to manage
shut off shut turn on turn off turn off turn off turn off turn off. Yeah, I like what you’re saying.
We have to have some, uh, have to be pragmatic about this. But I still, I’ll get on
off my soapbox in a minute, but I still believe that, you know, we need to be stewards of the media
budget, right? I know we’re not talking about millions of dollars because some billboards ran,
but still every dollar counts. And if you look at your overall marketing budget, what’s the largest
line item? It’s your media spend. It’s your advertising budget. So I think it’s something that’s
absolutely worth putting in these extra layers of this planning and this communication to bring
as much efficiency as possible. You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast.
Conversations on how non-profit attractions are increasing attendance and sharing their mission
through marketing. Your hosts are Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of attend media. Attend media is a
media planning and buying agency specializing in zoos, aquariums, gardens and museums. For more
information, please visit attend.media. Now back to Ryan and Jenny.
All right, Jenny. So idea number one, I don’t know if there are really ideas, but topic number one
that we talked about was 2024 political advertising costs are going to be through the roof.
What can we do? Kind of with our more traditional media partners to get our message out there.
The second thing we talked about was programmatic out of home. It’d be super flexible on our messaging,
turning on and off our ad spend kind of as we’re in the thick of it. Number three, let’s talk about
Pinterest. Yeah, so I kind of mentioned early on TikTok was the channel that didn’t accept
advertising, right? But Pinterest is a channel that like political just isn’t going into it,
which just doesn’t really make sense for a lot of it. So it becomes a channel that is not
bombarded with political spend, right? So and then when we’re thinking about kind of our core visitor
and who’s coming and who’s planning holiday and we’re trying to think about strategies to get in
front of our audience earlier, it really starts becoming more of a contextual play. And Pinterest
is a great contextual channel. Also, you know, Pinterest search trends show that people are
planning Christmas like, you know, July, August, September is like really peaking in terms of those
searches. So I mean, we all know kind of the Christmas and July saying, but they’re planning out
their Christmas before Halloween, even here. So it becomes a really great contextual alignment,
right? Versus just like trying to throw it out and target, you know, anyone in our audience.
We’re really trying to line that earlier placement with people who are in Christmas planning mode.
Yeah, and we kind of want to talk to Christmas nuts, right? Yes. And have I’m the early Christmas
planner in terms of my parties and my menus and my decorating holiday cars. I’m going to want to be
the early, you know, buyer of tickets as well, too. So yeah, you want to get your Christmas card photo done
without a million people behind you come opening night, come that Tuesday in November, right?
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, a really great channel for that. You know, it’s, I think it people kind of,
they don’t like Pinterest isn’t the first like social chain that comes to mind. We do talk a lot about,
you know, making sure that you’re investing, you know, a good amount of your budget and social.
So we say, you know, at least 10% and so that really comes into play here. So if we’re thinking of
holiday planning, we’re thinking of getting ahead of kind of the rush of when people come in.
We’re thinking about expanding on our channels, right? We know we’re going to have Facebook. We know
we’re going to have Instagram. We’re probably going to have TikTok. Now we’re talking about adding
Pinterest like even more important or more reasons to add or increase that social budget for that year
and ensuring you’re hitting that kind of 10% plus spend based off of now what’s probably going to be
a fourth channel if you were to adopt this strategy. Yeah, I think the message that we want to convey is
don’t just throw 500 bucks at it and say, oh, it didn’t work. Right, right. And knowing again,
like this is early on, is someone going to buy the ticket in October or are we trying to tell them,
like, hey, it’s coming up. Don’t forget about it so that they’ll buy it, you know, November 1st.
So they’ll buy it for that opening night. All right. And our fourth on our list, influencer marketing.
Jenny, this is kind of became come a little bit of a name in the marketplace about influencer
marketing. This is probably where we get the most feedback on. Let’s talk about influencer marketing
to help squeeze as much as we can out of holiday 2024. Yeah, love it for holiday. Love it for
kind of creating that earlier demand. Kind of like what we were talking about with like TV billboards.
I think influencers also have a way of being able to get you content early on that maybe you can’t
get until a little bit later on in your campaign. So again, you’re probably waiting until you’re
kind of opening night to shoot your 30 second video. But, and you know, then that’s going to take
a week or so of like editing and then you’ve got to get a schedule, right? So it could be two weeks
after you shoot to actually be able to have that spot like in rotation or longer. Because that
influencer can probably turn that creative around in two or three days. And if they’re coming out on
a preview night, even better. So a really great way to just utilize quick content and get stuff out
early on versus waiting until you’ve got this fully produced flushed out spot. Yeah. So your plan is
you know, opening night preview night, maybe you’re working with the PR team or, you know,
for some attractions that PR and marketing are is the same person. But you’ve lined up maybe a handful
of influencers are going to come out that first night. You’re going to comp the tickets. Maybe there’s
some monetary benefit as well for the influencer. But the ask is that they’re going to create content
on a quick turnaround. You mentioned two, three days and then boom, this is ready to go in early November
to start selling those tickets. Yep. Exactly. All right. So I know you’ve kind of preached this before,
but I love the idea of using influencer marketing, especially during holiday when your operations and
your guest experience team is probably stretched to the absolute limit where parking is a nightmare,
where lines are a lot longer. You know, your your traction is at or near capacity. Using influencer
marketing to help, don’t marry or I don’t know how to say this tactfully to help like lower your
expectations. You know, influencers can provide tips and tricks, things like that, how to navigate
parking. Yeah. So we won’t say lower your expectation. Okay. Okay. But create, you know, create
realistic expectations and then my mind often goes to like Disney, right? So there is like
unlimited amount of creator accounts on all about Disney. That’s all it’s about. And it’s not just about
what it’s going to be like for me to take my kids to go give Mickey a hug and what the food’s going
to be like, but it’s also, you know, what it’s like to get up early at the hotel and like rope drop
at the park, right? And what it’s like to, you know, take the bus or the, you know, the the water
fairy or that, you know, it’s like all the different mode, the transportation that’s there. It’s like
it’s telling me absolutely everything from the time I wake up to the time I like go home. And maybe
as a nonprofit attraction, our event doesn’t take all of your day, but we know it’s not just about
what happens when you’re actually in the park itself. You mentioned parking, right? Like usually
there’s not huge parking lots and parking garages for many of these nonprofit attractions. So
there’s oftentimes overflow parking like include that in your content, right? So my influencer can
you know, maybe show like, hey, there’s a free shuttle that takes you from, you know, the lot right
down the road to here, you save $10 in parking and it’s so easy like show that, have your creator show
that. That is awesome content to show and help push people away from, you know, maybe dealing with
the stress of parking. Some people are going to do it no matter what and that’s fine, but you’re giving
people an alternative when there may be complaints or concerns about an issue like parking. I mean,
there’s only so much you can do. You’re not building another parking garage. So yeah, and you’re not
going to be showing the shuttle on your 30 second. Right, right? So we did an episode on guest
experience in marketing, you know, shout out Josh and Matt from the attraction pros podcast.
I’d like one of the takeaways from that episode was marketing sets the expectations, right? And
I’ll go back to Disney, you know, the Disney commercial is the hug with Mickey in front of the
Cinderella. It never happens, right? Right. This is an opportunity for us as marketers to
help set expectations. It’s going to be crazy the night before Christmas. Yeah, there’s going to be
large crowds. Here are some ways to navigate that. Right. Yeah. And I think a lot of do a good job in,
you know, their organic content, but again, you want some of that additional reach outside of
just your current followers because you’re also using your marketing and your influencer content
to reach new people, right? Who probably aren’t already following your brand organically on social.
And you’ve got to get that extended reach. So the influencers do a great job of being able to
to bring that to a new audience as well. Well, let’s talk about some of those audiences that content,
like the fun stuff, right? That you’re going to be implementing. So number one on my list is
no kids. Yeah. So just again, having working with multiple influencers, right? So we’re pretty big
on trying not to let me yourself to just one big influencer. Yes, absolutely. A big influencer can
do wonderful things for your your parker attraction, but how can you work with more than just one,
right? And one of those ways is working with maybe some micro and nano influencers that have smaller
following and then making sure that you’re using a variety of those influencers. So one would be the
no kids as you mentioned. And this can be great because my mind goes immediately if I think about
bringing people in earlier or bringing people in on nights that don’t sell out, what do they tend to
be weeknights, right? Well, Tuesdays. Yeah. So as as a mom with a five year old, like I can keep my
child out until 9 p.m. on Tuesday night, right? She’s got to go to kindergarten the next day. So my
no kids audience is like an awesome audience to focus on for bringing in to maybe a value night or
a night that’s not likely to sell out. Yeah, they could be highlighting like cocktails,
you know, some more I’m thinking of like a younger audience or a more fun audience if you will.
Listen, parents are fun too. Yeah, I mean, yes, the other benefit of this is you can kind of show that
experience through a different lens, right? So maybe you’re going out and, you know, showing the fancy
drink versus the s’mores and hot chocolate with your children, right? So there’s so many different
experiences that are that you’re able to kind of capture. It’s not just for parents, it’s not just
for families, it’s not just for one group. It’s a holiday event. It’s usually pretty wide appealing.
And just at risk of stating the obvious, but you’re, you know, you’re working with an influencer that
fits that mold, you know, they have no kids, right? We’re not going to fake it. It’s going to be authentic
and that plays into your strategy of hiring multiple influencers, even if they have a super small
following, that doesn’t really matter. We want them to marry the audience that we’re trying to attract.
Right, because we also wanted, you know, buildings and use of rights for this content so that we’re
able to use it in our own marketing, our own advertising to reach new people. By the way,
we did a whole episode on this. Okay, audience number two, moms.
Some moms can be fun too. But I think that this can be, you know, maybe they’re not my choosing night
crowd or, or, you know, maybe they’re not your choosing night crowd, but they’re trying to push maybe
those earlier weekends in November. I mean, again, as a mom, my mind goes straight to the fact that I
could take my kids and on a Friday night, that’s not likely to sell out in November, I can get some
awesome holiday photos with my kids without just like tons and tons of people behind me. Like,
you know, I think oftentimes we think like, oh, it’s got to be the Christmas Eve event or, you know,
the Christmas week event, right? That can oftentimes be so stressful as a parent because there’s
so many things going on, right? And now you’re going into an attraction or an event that’s so crowded.
And for some people, that’s fine. You that they love it. They thrive off of it. This is what we do
every Christmas Eve. That’s fine. But for a lot of people, it’s like overwhelming. And if I’m going
and having an overwhelming experience, I might not want to go back, but there’s so many opportunities
to bring someone in when it’s not going to be overwhelming when we’re trying to maybe increase
visitors for that particular night of the week or that particular week of the year or the event. So
there’s a lot of opportunities with influencers to share this, right? Like as a mom influencer,
I can share that there’s not that many people behind me. Look at this awesome photo I just got with
my kids or I’m going early enough that I’m actually using it for my holiday cards this year. So
plenty of things. And then yeah, sure, I’m showing this more is in the hot chocolate. And, you know,
that lens of it versus the, you know, cheersing photos, wishing and paying all that might be what
you do as a mom. He said that’s totally fine. So once again, you know, working with an influencer who’s
a mom who’s going to bring their kids, you know, do the whole family thing. That’s what they want to
see or that’s what we want to push out. Right. Okay. Our third audience, we’re going to call it first time
visitors. And, you know, stating the obvious again, but this is it for a lot of the nonprofit attractions.
This is where you get to expose your brand, your experience with people who’ve maybe never
stepped foot into your, into your park. Right. This is it. So maybe talk about some ideas on working with
influencers who can represent this first time audience. Well, again, I think, you know, using somebody
who truly is coming for the first time is great to do showing that experience from beginning to end,
what it’s like to, to, you know, park there to go in through the park to get out of there. But also,
this could be someone who’s maybe coming from maybe you’re looking at expanding your market into
a nearby city, right? 30 minutes out. Right. And how are out? So how long did it take me to get there?
Right. What was the drive like? What, you know, it’s just as easy to get there as it is to get to
this other competition, right? So incorporating some of that and finding people maybe right outside of
your market that can, you know, do that for you, I think is a great way to do that. Yeah. I totally,
you’ve, you know, throughout 2024, you’ve earmarked, maybe part of your strategy is we’re going to go
pull from this drive market, or we’re going to pull from this zip code, you know, within our market,
we’re going to pull from this audience, whether that’s, you know, a diverse audience. So we’re creating
content around that. And then another place where my mind goes is I think as, especially in like,
certain markets that might be like heavy, Hispanic, right? So I think a lot of people have some
limitations internally of maybe being able to whether they’re trying to have like bilingual
creative or messaging in their content. They may have limitations on what they can actually do
there. So going on and finding some creators who can do that for you because they are bilingual,
right? So I think that’s a great way to kind of incorporate some more diverse audiences, more
diverse messaging, you know, they’re going to do a lot better than you’re going to do it. If that’s
not something that you have been doing or hasn’t been part of your content strategy already. So this
can be, you know, other great ways of incorporating different influencers and creators in and around
your market. Okay. And number four on our list, VIP experiences. Yeah. So one of the trends that we
continue to see, especially during kind of the holiday period is the variable pricing. So more and
more nonprofit attractions are starting to adopt this. And that can be anywhere from, you know,
a value night on a Tuesday to a premium night on, you know, Christmas Eve, but it can also mean
like VIP tickets. So you pay a higher price to get the dream ticket or you pay a higher price to
incorporate a particular entrance or maybe a section of the park or I think the, like if it’s for a
light display, a lot of the like 3D glasses are kind of big. So showing this full VIP experience,
like why would I want to buy this ticket? Yeah. I want to see the lights with the 3D glasses on.
Right. Have your show. That’s going to look like. Show me that I get a special drink that nobody
else gets. Show me that I don’t have to deal with the parking and the, you know, I have valet. I have,
you know, whatever it is that you’re incorporating like, I think it’s great to show that to help sell
and push premium tickets or to just set the expectation of what the premium ticket is because there
might be people who are like, you know, that’s not really for me. Like that’s, that’s not going to make
me happy. Shut up guest experience. Right. Right. But at least I know that I’m not going to go spend
that money on it and I’ll be just fine with buying a regular ticket. So just showing all of the
different options because I think you do have to be careful when you have all of this variable
pricing and that you don’t just get super confusing, right? So if I can kind of show in my content or
utilizing some influence or what all these different experiences and price points actually can get
or, you know, do for me then that can be really helpful in terms of guest experience. All right.
So let’s recap all this here. So, you know, we’re looking at this that most of us have had a record
attendance in 2023. You know, as marketers is our job to kind of identify where some opportunities are
for that just squeezing a little bit more out of this. So we’re looking at early November off nights
and we’ve got to put this in the lens that we’re going into a political year where advertising costs
supplies going to be just very limited cost going to be very, very high. Yeah. And then I think looking at,
you know, channels where we can stand out a little bit more whether that’s channels not flooded with
political like a TikTok or a Pinterest. And then also that contextual alignment for if I’m trying
to reach someone to buy an early holiday ticket, I should probably align that with people who are
early holiday planners. So again, channels like Pinterest can really kind of come into play here to
have that alignment. And then when we’re in the thick of it, we can look at programmatic at a home to
you know, deliver that messaging kind of on the fly. Yeah, or, you know, I think that can go any
channel that has kind of that flexibility of managing those messages. But you know, be strategic about
how you’re utilizing those channels to support or kind of save up those impressions for times when
you really need it. And then we talked about influencers. Yep. Telling that message. So using a variety of
influencers from a variety of audiences for a variety of experiences. Jenny, thanks. Oh, I’m very Christmas.
Christmas in March now. Thank you for listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast.
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