Posted on 23 October 2008 by Hurol No Comments

The Song Company website resonates with users

Overview

For small arts organisations, every penny in the piggybank counts. They are always on the lookout for ways to extract more value from minimal budgets – while still conveying a professional and appealing image to customers.

The Song Company, a Sydney-based vocal ensemble that has set the world alight with its distinctive and dynamic sound, is now achieving significant cost and time savings with the launch of a new website and online ticketing system.

The new-look website, designed and built by Bienalto Consulting, has online ticketing, album purchasing and subscriptions functionality. It all ties into a Salesforce.com database, which stores crucial ticketing and marketing information.

“We are a small arts organisation that is low on resources, but recognised as one of the best in the world. It is important for us to be able to pull above our weight in commercial dealings – and this requires a professional online projection of our image,” said Antony Jeffrey, General Manager, The Song Company.

Challenge

Until now, The Song Company managed all ticket orders by telephone and mail. With approximately 10,000 tickets sold each year, and ticket sales taking up to five minutes over the phone, valuable administrative time was taken up with processing sales.

In addition, the team had little way of tracking where the sales were coming from, or which marketing brochures or campaigns the customer was responding to.

The Song Company sought a website redesign that would enable them to manage ticket purchases, album sales and subscriptions; while also tying in with their marketing efforts to save both time and money.

Solution

Upon the recommendation of branding and design company, Principals, The Song Company engaged Bienalto Consulting to design and develop the new website (Bienalto also recently developed the Principals website).

The first thing that Bienalto did was to implement a Salesforce.com database to house ticketing and marketing information. Using this database, an email marketing program was soon up and running.

Emails are sent to the subscribers of The Song Company, with special promotions, upcoming performances and other information about the ensemble.

The website integrates with the Salesforce.com system, as well. With its online subscriptions and ticketing capabilities, The Song Company is on its way to realising the goal of shifting ticket purchases from telephone and mail to online.

“We expect to transform our customer marketing processes, moving everything online over the next couple of years. We will build in more sophistication, such as segmentation, until we reach our goal of 100 per cent of ticket purchases and subscriptions online,” said Jeffrey.

Using the Salesforce.com system, The Song Company has the ability to send out emails with dynamic content – which means they can personalise content according to subscribers’ preferences and behaviours. For example, if a subscriber purchases tickets to a particular concert, a follow-up email with details of the accompanying CD could be sent one week after the concert.

Results

“Our new site is an enormous improvement on the old one. It is easy to update, logical and a delight to our customers – I’m convinced that this time, we’ve got it right,” Jeffrey said.

The Song Company now has a clear picture of where customers are coming from, and what campaigns they are responding to. The tracking capabilities within Salesforce.com provide a clear snapshot of marketing successes.

“From our first meeting with Hurol Inan, we were deeply impressed with how switched on he was. Bienalto is a truly professional outfit – with incredible knowledge in both technology and online marketing. This combination has delivered a winning result for The Song Company,” said Jeffrey.