{"id":946003,"date":"2026-10-06T14:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T14:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spektrix.com\/?p=946003"},"modified":"2026-10-06T19:56:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T19:56:50","slug":"retention-strategy-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spektrix.com\/en-au\/blog\/retention-strategy-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Upping Your Retention Strategy by Using Tools from Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Is your retention strategy bringing ticket buyers back season after season? Explore how cohort analysis can help you measure progress beyond the first return visit.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re reading this, chances are you don\u2019t need to be convinced that you should be putting effort into retaining your audience. We guess readers clicking on an article like this know it\u2019s much more efficient to bring someone back into your venue rather than trying to find someone totally new. Since that\u2019s you, let\u2019s jump straight into how you can improve your organisation\u2019s retention strategy by borrowing some common tools from the tech sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should know: the team at Bolero worked with tech companies before bringing these same types of analyses to the performing arts. Though the data is a bit different, the tried and tested ways of analysing this type of transaction data that\u2019s already in your Spektrix system are similar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolero is a new service for performing arts organisations that helps you understand your buyers\u2019 financial behaviour by analysing the data you already have. In this post, we\u2019ll share with you how Bolero (and those outside of the arts) thinks about cohort retention analysis using transaction data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our goal here is to learn more about how we can better measure individual retention using our ticket sales. Ultimately, we want to get as clear a picture as possible of what\u2019s happening with our retention measurements, so we can understand if we\u2019re getting better or worse at retention over time, so we can think about what the consequences of this might be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is audience retention \u2013 and why should your venue measure it?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Defining \u201cretained\u201d in the context of your Spektrix ticket data<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In its most basic form, retention is a count of how many individuals did one action at one point in time, then did that same thing again at another point in time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this post, we\u2019re talking about whether or not someone bought a ticket in one season, then bought another ticket with the same account for the subsequent season. The same type of logic could also apply to donor retention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If someone named Marty bought a ticket for the first time ever last season, then bought a ticket again this season, we think it\u2019s safe to consider them to be \u201cretained.\u201d And if someone named Maggie bought a ticket to our theatre this season after buying tickets for many seasons before that, well, they would also count as \u201cretained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notice we\u2019re being very specific about our language here. We consider someone retained based on whether they bought a ticket with the same account or not. We\u2019re not asking if they attended or not. We don\u2019t actually know that for certain unless we saw them there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if they bought the ticket for someone else? Or what if they bought the ticket and didn\u2019t attend because they felt ill, and we don\u2019t track scanned tickets? We also don\u2019t know with 100% certainty that every new ticket really represents someone totally new to our venue or organisation. Some people make several new accounts and don\u2019t always use the same login.<\/p>\n\n\n\n