Ways of improving movie ticket sales:

It’s sad to see how often movie theatres run half empty, or show a movie with just four or five people in the audience. There are many innovative ways of enhancing business and seeing to it that movies get watched.  It’s not enough to have a “build it and they will come” attitude to selling movie tickets. A movie like any product can be driven by aggressive sales. Like any other product it also has a shelf life and needs to be sold in certain space of time. Movies tend to have a shorter shelf life than other products due to the fact that there is only a limited time for which a movie can run in any one theatre. However, this does not mean a generic ticket cannot be sold in advance of any movie a client may want to watch in the future. Its smarter to treat a movie ticket as a unit of pleasure that can be bought now and cashed in by watching any movie later. There are innovative ways of boosting ticket sales.

1.     Lower ticket prices from Monday to Thursday.

2.    Most people will only watch a movie once, but you can keep bringing them back by allowing people to watch a movie more than once. If a person understands that if he or she returns to the theatre to watch the same movie a second time the charge will be 50% of the original ticket price. And that if they come to watch it a third time the price will be 50% of the last price. For instance, a movie ticket that costs US$8 on the first watch will cost US$4 the next time the same person goes to see it, US$2 the third time a person goes to see it and US$1 the fourth time and just US$0.50c if they want to see it a 5^th time. Non-transferable , i.e.,  It must, however, be the same person. The advantage? Marketing shows that people are naturally drawn to obtaining products at a lower price. It will not matter that they have seen the movie before, they will want to watch it again because it’s now cheaper. Whereas before you only sold one ticket for US$8 and gained no further income, if a person keeps coming back to watch a movie again because its substantively cheaper each time to the full extent, the theatre would make US$15.50c from one customer for the same movie instead of just US$8. Understanding how human psychology works is good for business.

3.   Offer wholesale tickets to corporate entities. It is a common practice in many businesses to offer staff and clients special perks such as tickets to football, rugby and baseball matches and to basketball games. There is no reason why movie tickets cannot be used for the same purposes. A movie theatre operator, such as Fresh View, Ster Kinekor, IMAX or Nu Metro should ideally have a small team of sales staff who build corporate accounts. Some business have entertainment and marketing budgets in place. The sales team are relationship managers: they don’t just sell tickets but build relationships with large and small business for a ticket use strategy for each business they sign up. They also strive to maintain each account they secure. Each business is different so the sales exec has to tailor a strategy for each client they sign up. For example:

a.       Perks to senior executives in a company as form of entertainment for their families allowing them to go to the movies at least once a month;

b.      Tickets given weekly to top performing junior staff;

c.       Corporates giving tickets to loyal or special clients to maintain relationships;

 d.       Tickets for clients who make purchases above a certain quantity or value;

e.      Tickets for clients who make no claim on their insurance policy for a prescribed period of time;

f.        In banks, tickets for clients who maintain a certain level of money in their accounts for a month or so;

g.       Company movie day; sell the idea that at least once or twice a year staff can all go and watch a movie together as a fun activity for motivating, building and improving staff relations

There are innumerable strategies account execs can design to boost ticket sales. Technology such as email allows account execs to keep large volumes of clients interested in what’s on the big screen at low cost. Each account manager or executive’s role is to approach the marketing department of large and small corporates to offer bulk purchases and a commitment to buy a set number of tickets per month or per year;  the greater the quantity bought in advance the better the discount offered. For example, an account manager could secure a large corporate account that could commit to buying 200 tickets every month at an agreed discount. These are then applied in the business to the strategy designed by the account executive for his or her client. Smaller business can have different strategies that secure consistent ticket purchases.  As long as people are kept arriving at the theatre this also improves the sale of other products such as popcorn, frozen yoghurt, slushies, beverages and so on.