Top Strategies for a Successful Client Ticket Experience

There have been 53 Super Bowls to date and therefore 53 years of lessons learned from entertaining clients.  What once was just the big game has grown into a week-long festival with opportunities for you to entertain clients at every moment.

With so much going on – how you plan, invite and distribute tickets & passes, contributes significantly to the “Brand Experience” your client has during your program.  With that in mind, we’ve assembled the top strategies that our ticket management clients use for their successful Super Bowl planning:

1.  Start early

Planning began in Late Summer / Early Fall to identify your Tier 1 clients to be considered. The earlier you complete this phase, the earlier you can begin make invitations, which send a winning “we’re organized” message.

• Determine business criteria and other thresholds to qualify for an invitation
• Proactively work with business units to collect nominations for event
• Route nominations for approval – ideally gain all approvals by early January
• Determine success metrics

2.  Set aside allocations

A percentage, typically 5%-10%, of ticket assets are allocated for clients whose home team has made it to the Super Bowl city.  Nominations still went through the normal process, but additional consideration was given to valued clients with:

• Existing relationships with one of the Super Bowl teams
• Extra avid fans of the NFL or one of the Super Bowl teams
• Association to the host city

3.  Make tickets part of the game day experience

The Super Bowl is a great experience and you want to guarantee your client remembers it forever. A few small things can go a long way to make the experience memorable.

• Ticket delivery – create a ticket window for your program where guests can come and pick up their tickets.
• Special souvenir – a Super Bowl ticket is a great souvenir that people keep forever. Create a special collateral for your customer that can be framed with the ticket after the game.  The personal touch cannot be beat.

4.  Post event analytics

Reports on success metrics should be developed and packaged for internal consumption.  The following are examples from aggregated data:

• 96% of guests entertained met the pre-planning business criteria/threshold for an invitation
• 68% of tickets were hand delivered to guests for a maximized touch point
• 6% of guests had an existing business relationship with one of the Super Bowl teams
• 100% of the Super Bowl ticket process was done within corporate compliance requirements

Offering a Super Bowl ticket to important business guests sounds straightforward on the surface, but a successful ticket program takes months of planning.  A well thought out strategy is the basis for a great client experience and a long-lasting client relationship.