{"id":809,"date":"2021-02-12T00:29:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T00:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spektrix.com\/blog\/using-spektrix-to-increase-your-secondary-spend\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T20:35:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T20:35:56","slug":"increase-secondary-spend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spektrix.com\/en-ca\/blog\/increase-secondary-spend\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Your Event CRM to Increase Secondary Spend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s more to sell than tickets. Your event CRM can highlight the right secondary spend add-ons to enhance your customers\u2019 experience.

The main source of earned income for most arts organisations is from ticket sales made at the box office or on their website. However, we know that the potential for generating revenue stretches far beyond tickets. 
Many organisations have more to offer their customers. These items tend to have a good profit margin and can be sold to a captive audience. 
Upselling secondary spend items works well because customers have already made the decision to spend with you, and they’ll also have trust and a degree of loyalty with your brand. At Spektrix, we often discuss theatre marketing strategies<\/a> to build revenue through secondary spend but now we\u2019re going to show you practical ways to implement these through your event CRM system. 
When visiting venues we often overhear customers expressing surprise that there is a food offering, parking, or a shop on-site. So, it\u2019s important to get the word out about what else your venue has to offer and to do this at the right time, which is usually before they actually arrive at your venue. 
In this tough financial climate, it\u2019s important that you maximise your opportunities to help support your core activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set Up Related Events and Items<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a customer, it’s often easy to miss all that a venue has to offer, especially if you\u2019re visiting for the first time. So, it\u2019s really important to make sure you display all options clearly, ensuring to emphasise the most relevant things. 
A great example of this is making sure things such as meal deals and parking are clearly available to customers, as well as pre-show talks, tours, and other show-related activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to do it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Spektrix, we have a user-friendly Supplementary Events<\/a> function that allows you to set up relevant events that will be suggested from within the basket as the customer progresses through the online booking journey.
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Choose which events will be suggested by defining their relationship with the items already in the customer basket. For example, you could link a post-show talk to a Thursday evening performance. You might set the parameters to events that fall on the same day, or even be more specific, such as within hours or minutes of the item already in the basket.
As well as being relevant, the process of purchasing additional items needs to be simple, capitalising on the moment the customer decides to make a purchase. Customers who are prompted to purchase supplementary items when booking online should easily be able to add these additional items to their basket in a single click. 
The easier this process is, the more likely customers are to increase their overall basket value without having to search around to find what you have to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchandise on your website<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The point of booking is also a good opportunity to sell merchandise items, such as programmes or t-shirts, specific to the event the customer is booking for. Selling these items online in advance entices the customer to become more engaged with the event they will attend. Plus, it improves the customer experience as you reduce the pre-show and intermission lines. 
Your event CRM can make it easy to make these relevant suggestions to your customers at the point of booking by allowing you to attach merchandise items to a related event or a number of events. Again, this means a relevant suggestion appears in the customer’s basket and can be converted to a purchase with one click.
These merchandise items should be readily available whenever customers visit your website. This might not always be at the same time as they book tickets, so it should be easy to find these items when landing on the homepage. Your website should be designed with the customer in mind so that they can quickly navigate to where they want to be. If your customers have to root around to find what they are looking for, then you run the risk of losing their interest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to do it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Spektrix, you can add a simple shop page to your website using our merchandise iframe. You have the option to set up merchandise items to cross-sell to one or more events<\/a>. This is a really simple setup and takes just a few clicks. 
Plus, think about filtering your shop page so that customers can find the product they are looking for more easily. 
For some inspiration, Tron Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland, has a prominent ‘Gifts & Memberships’<\/a> page, that is eye-catching and easily sortable. 
 
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And remember, you can sell parking and food from your site as well. Take a look at how Mercury Theatre<\/a> in Colchester, England, presents a wide array of secondary spend options right there in the Mercury Shop<\/a>, from plushies to parking. 
 
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We also love how Fox Theatre<\/a> in Tucson, Arizona, opens their gorgeous shop page<\/a> by helping customers understand why <\/strong>they should buy their merch and how it supports the theatre.
 
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Send automatic pre-show emails<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The above ideas catch those customers who are planning ahead and are able to make decisions about their visit at the time of booking tickets. This will be effective for many, but not all audiences behave in this way. 
 
To catch those customers who make secondary spend purchasing decisions a little closer to the time of their visit, you’ll have more success by mirroring their purchasing behaviours in your approach. 
 
An effective way to do this is with pre-show emails<\/a>.  Pre-show emails can be used to let customers know all the pertinent information before they visit, but can also be used to promote merchandise and everything else you might be offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to do it <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Set up different emails for different events, dates, days, and times. This allows you to ensure that your offer is relevant to the event that has been booked. 
You can use the in-house knowledge of your audience spend here too. Perhaps the Monday email should include a promotion for the bar to increase sales on what is one of your quieter days, whereas the Friday night crowd probably need less persuasion. 
You probably want to alter the tone for different customer groups too, so think about sending a different email to your first-time bookers, perhaps with information about venue access or your organisation’s charitable aims. 
With your event CRM\u2019s reporting and segmentation tools you can easily monitor the success of these campaigns. Test, measure, refine and repeat until you reach an optimal stage. 
Making your pre-show emails timely will improve their effectiveness, so why not try experimenting as you send these emails to different types of customers? 
In Spektrix, you can create automatic tags to build these segments dynamically, based on real-time audience behaviour to tailor your pre-show email based on audience behaviour. Try creating an auto tag for patrons who tend to book late (fewer than 2 weeks in advance) and then schedule an automated email that goes to this group one day before they are due to attend, using what you already know about their behaviour to improve the success of your communication. For those who booked further in advance, it’s more appropriate, and more likely to be read, if sent out around one week before they visit. 
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Including links and tracking these to your website will help you gauge how engaged your customers are with different campaigns and messaging. Again, you can use the knowledge from your reports here to see if you are getting things right. 
Don\u2019t be afraid of switching things up. Just remember to keep monitoring how successful changes are with your segments and audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Pro-Tip: Spektrix Partners Can Take You Even Further<\/h4>\n\n\n\n


Combining Spektrix CRM functionality with partner solutions<\/a> like Crowd Engage and VisitOne enables our clients to power pre-visit communications and drive revenue generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n