Performing arts centre

The client can now prioritise and segment targets, including those under-represented in their customer database, to help them reach and engage with a more diverse audience.

Our client, a house-hold name within the arts and events space, is a centre for performing arts situated in the heart of London and one of the largest of its kind in Europe.

The brand needed to understand its existing audiences, but also identify potential audiences, and the best ways to communicate with them.

The Challenge

For over 30 years, our client has inspired people to discover and love the arts. However, expectations for consuming the arts are rapidly evolving. Whilst the venue has a dedicated customer base, current customers are only a small fraction of their potential audience. Tapping into this potential was key to achieving their vision.

To realise their vision, the venue needed to understand potential audiences, particularly those who are more reflective of London’s diverse communities. The challenge was to understand the entire visitor experience, identify which audiences to prioritise, how to engage with them through tailored marketing activity and how to provide timely, relevant and memorable experiences to keep audiences coming back.

Our approach

Our approach was based on state-of-the-art data mining, machine learning and predictive models as well as the latest technologies such as R and Python.

We recognised that the transactional data our client held could be integrated with a new CRM system that was being procured – but, critically, this could be made all the more powerful by blending existing behavioural data with new primary research to build a more comprehensive model of consumers of the arts. In short, our approach would open up the fantastic analytical potential that was latent in over 600,000 customer records.

The outcome

By identifying their interests, motivations and behaviours to understand the significant differences between audiences, we identified six key segments. Once combined with their favoured means of communication, our client could then prioritise and segment targets that are under-represented in their current customer database, thereby helping them reach and engage with a more diverse audience.

We are now integrating the ticketing platform with their CRM/marketing database to segment specific KPI’s to be monitored each month. This will then enable our client to monitor the effectiveness of engagement activity in near real-time and deliver insights leading to increased sales, loyalty and higher marketing ROI.