As competition within the entertainment industry continues to rise, movie theaters face greater challenges in capturing and keeping the interest of their audiences. Email marketing is a simple, cost-effective solution for theaters to boost sales, foster customer relationships, and ensure audience retention over time. This article provides a series of methods that movie theaters can employ to email the market and reach out to customers, engage them more effectively, and keep them coming back for more. Below in this article, you will find that How Cinemas Can Use Email Marketing to Boost Ticket Sales.
Build Your Email Subscriber List By Offering Incentives
An email subscriber list is one of the best ways to guarantee a captive audience for your future efforts. However, before launching extensive email campaigns, it’s crucial to perform proper email warmup procedures to ensure messages reach subscribers effectively and maintain high deliverability rates. New subscribers can be enticed by the promise of certain “perks;” for example, exclusive discounts, free candy at their next show, or early access to ticket purchases for that blockbuster film they’ve been dying to see. If these incentives can be featured via an opt-in form on a theater website or social media platform, customers are more willing to publicly acknowledge their desire to receive theater marketing emails in exchange for exciting perks and maybe even purchasing tickets sooner rather than later.
Offer Customization
Highly personalized experiences can make content more engaging with better conversion and click-through rates. Consider the value of emailing someone with their viewing history to suggest additional films. “Because you liked this romantic comedy, you may also enjoy this heart-wrenching drama!” can go a long way. Subscribers appreciate this level of attention and creativity regarding what other films they may enjoy or the expected sequels. These types of emails foster meaningful experiences beyond the walls of the theater and transform casual movie watchers into loyal fans.
Use Dynamic Content to Foster Excitement About Arrivals and Future Offerings
Dynamic content fosters excitement about arrivals and future offerings. The more visual aspects included in an email from images and trailers to videos the more likely subscribers will be engaged as soon as they open it. Movies, special screenings, and director Q&As can be shared as images or dynamic content that renders in an email upon opening. The goal is to engage someone the second they open the email so that whether it’s the day of or a week in advance, they will purchase their ticket to avoid FOMO.
Running Special Promotions and Offers Only Available Via Email
Subscribers crave a bargain, and limited-time offers through email promote them to act. A cinema can have offers available only through emails. An email-sent special for discounted tickets on Tuesday, an email-sent offering bundle deals for snacks for specific show times, and earning loyalty points only through sign-up via email for those who come often. By promoting such opportunities, subscribers are encouraged to use a deal sooner rather than later, adding to same-day ticket sales while paving the way for subscribers to feel as if anything sent through email is time-sensitive and worthy of attention.
Increased Engagement Through Asking for Action Feedback
Cinemas looking to promote community integration and deeper audience connections can ask for feedback via email. After viewing a film, patrons can receive an email thanking them for coming and asking what their cinematic experience was like at the cinema or what films they would like to see in the future. Those who respond are likely to feel heard and appreciated; when changes occur due to feedback, even more so does the audience feel their opinion mattered. Cinemas compelled to seek feedback from their audiences can promote increases in customer satisfaction levels which expand the emotional connection to the cinema, making them want to come back time and time again.
Email Marketing Opportunities for Loyalty Programs
The best way to keep customers is to ensure they always want to come back. Loyalty programs work wonders for retention. Cinemas can rely upon email marketing to connect with loyalty subscribers regularly to inform them about their point totals, what rewards are available and any potential rewards just around the corner that come through milestones. Whether cinemas want to offer exclusive first looks, early ticket sales or waived ticket fees/discounted snacks and drinks, regular email communication does not only remind everyone of their options but ultimately keeps the perceived value so high that repeat visits and repeat purchases are practically assured.
Assessing Optimal Email Frequency and Timing for Engagement
The capability of reaching optimal email frequency and timing can allow cinemas to engage with subscribers more than expected. Being aware of customer tendencies assists in determining the ideal time to send email correspondence while also helping cinemas avoid an excessive rate of correspondence. For example, weekend reminders or last-minute flash offers sent at the proper time could allow these emails to be part of the expected communication flow of ticket purchasing and allow for increased interest in future emails.
Connecting Email Efforts with Additional Social/Digital Platforms
The more in-tune a campaign is with other efforts on other platforms, the more successful it will be overall. Cinemas should treat their email blasts as part of a bigger puzzle, connecting with social efforts online, on the web, and via mobile applications when necessary. A fluidity of messaging increases awareness of special releases and events, and corresponding opportunities which provide audiences with multiple chances to engage in various settings, increase ticket sales and overall engagement.
Emailing for Other Reasons Beyond Cinema Business
Subscribers might appreciate that the cinema acknowledges their birthday or the anniversary of when they first subscribed to the cinema. Offering an email correspondence to celebrate accomplishments such as a subscription ticket discount or free movie on their birthday or anniversary goes a long way to show appreciation for their patronage and builds emotional pride in cementing ongoing subscriber-cinema relations. This can substantially enhance the likelihood of continued movie-going and response efforts to email communications.
Urgency and Scarcity in Email Marketing Campaigns
Urgency or scarcity makes customers want to buy now and not later. For example, cinemas can champion an urgent or scarce call through a limited time offer, one night only, or only a few seats left, all communicated right in the body of the email. This creates such urgency that subscribers will want to buy immediately to ensure that they aren’t missing out. Such motivation spikes ticket sales rapidly and effectively for the cinema’s gain but also for audience excitement at what they could experience.
Continual Adjustment Based on Performance Metrics
Consistent analysis of how well an email marketing campaign performs empowers cinemas to continually adjust. While this may be more tedious than other techniques, analyzing open rates, engagement, conversions, and audience feedback can help cinemas understand what their subscribers are looking for and how best to accommodate them in the future. By relying on what works and what fails, cinemas lend legitimacy and victory to future email marketing campaigns as cinema email marketing becomes more meaningful and productive to actual sales and audience loyalty.
Mobile Optimization Ensures Reliable Access for All Subscribers
Many subscribers look at their emails on the go, so ensuring that what a cinema is trying to communicate is transferable to that access is critical. This means that cinemas should ensure that emails load properly, the subject lines are enticing (not cut off in smaller formats), and that buttons are easy to press for quick ticket purchases. When mobile optimization happens successfully, click-through rates increase, and patrons are more likely to buy tickets from their mobile devices when the option is easily available, which significantly increases ticket sales and positive patron experience.
By implementing all of these email marketing ventures, cinemas can significantly enhance regular ticket sales, audience engagement, and customer satisfaction in a saturated market.
Targeted Campaigns to Bring Back Inactive Members
Campaigns that target re-engagement give cinemas the opportunity to bring back those who have fallen off the email subscriber list. By sending out reminders to once-active patrons about upcoming films, special events, or personalized offers to get them back in the door, these patrons are welcomed back with open arms. This is an ultimate way to retain ticket-buying patrons that would otherwise fall by the wayside, ensuring that every subscriber roster is made the most of with strong, deeper, and longer-term relationships that translate to ticket sales and retention at the box office much easier.
Emailing Opportunities for Community Screenings and Events
Community screenings and film festivals are far more successful with a larger, loyal audience as dedicated outreach occurs via an email marketing campaign. The cinema can take the lead and use email to notify regular and new patrons alike of the unique and one-of-a-kind film-going opportunity they could experience. Charitable community screenings allow patrons to give back, feel like they’ve become involved with a cause, and embrace the spirit of community and integration. Such screenings are more likely to draw attendance upon receiving an emailed invitation with a personalized message about how this endeavor can greatly assist outreach efforts. This is similarly true for a film festival local, national, or international where extensive resources can be articulated to establish rapport and excitement with those film lovers chomping at the bit for such an opportunity.
Additionally, themed nights be it cult classics, holiday films, or events where people are invited to dress up lend themselves to the possibility of an email marketing campaign. The ability to visualize what could be, via astounding graphics and branding in the email, helps patrons better foresee what the potential experience could be. Insights, trivia, and behind-the-scenes information about these special screenings will be welcomed by patrons, adding to the enhancement of the potential film experience. Those who signed up for the newsletter will feel particularly special as though they are receiving inside information unavailable to general audiences.
Finally, nothing is more important than attendance by special guests, the director, a cast member, or a special lecturer related to the theme of the screening where live interaction and Q&A are possible post-screening. Marketing such events via email only makes them that much more valuable in perceived content and again, urges ticket ordering from patrons who do not want to miss these additional opportunities.
These are the specific cinema happenings that would benefit from a dedicated email marketing campaign through which an increased audience will not only come but help solidify brand awareness and cinema identity as a staple active community hub. The more these types of opportunities occur regularly, the more easily the patrons become emotionally connected to the cinema brand. Over time, monthly emails will create a loyal audience who feels sentimental beyond their appreciation for cinematic arts and the film and cinema community. With guaranteed events planned for the future in a guaranteed setting, people will want to come back and bring others.
Utilizing Storytelling to Enhance Emotional Connections
The capacity to weave narrative through an email campaign exponentially enhances the emotional connection between cinemas and their audiences. Where an email campaign could lack the appeal of merely attempting to bring an audience to see a film or participate in a cinema event, the allure of a narrative experience makes those subscribed want more. Storytelling via email and narrative or storytelling in the long form can create buzz for films that have yet to come to fruition.
Moreover, plot teasers about upcoming films, character introductions, and discourse driven by directors can create buzz. In addition, teaser information about the film, such as behind-the-scenes director commentary or information from filmmakers or actors that give personal anecdotes, allows subscribers to be a part of the experience, making them emotionally connected to the cinema brand. For instance, filmmakers discussing their time at great films or famous cinemas reminds viewers of the emotional connection to cinema itself and its audiences. This story honors the nostalgia of appreciating cinema, and shared experiences are great things to celebrate.
Furthermore, the subject lines and content of these emails create excitement and intrigue. If we can emotionally engage our audiences with these stories, we can engage their imagination and desire to see these films sooner rather than later. Where others rely upon transactional jargon, those who rely upon story-driven content increase engagement and subsequent sales, for it creates a deeper level of emotional loyalty; they will remember that it’s not just a cinema, but it could become part of their life story and they will never want to lose that opportunity. Thus, storytelling via email ensures that loyalty continues for as long as possible. It creates an audience eager for more.
