Event promoters hate unsold tickets. In Columbus,
TiXiT has stepped in to help promoters solve that problem while offering buyers discounted prices.
The startup, with investment by the
weBuild tech accelerator, "has sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of tickets " so far, says CEO Mike Figliuolo (also a principal at weBuild).
While the member base is currently small, he's encouraged by the conversion rate of those who buy tickets after opening an e-mail promoting an event.
"In traditional e-mail campaigns, for folks who sign up for membership sites and actually want to get that e-mail, you'll get a five percent open rate, you'll get a five percent click-through rate, and you'll get a five percent conversion to purchase rate," Figliuolo says. "We get a 30 percent open rate. On that 30 percent, we'll get 20 to 40 percent click-through. Of that 20 to 40 percent we'll get 20 to 30 percent to go into the shopping cart, and of that we're converting 10 to 30 percent to sales."
Members register for free to receive notifications of deals on various events. Alerts are sent by e-mail, text message, tweet -- however customers want them.
"The value for consumers is it's free, and I can now go to one place to discover new events, buy things that I want to buy and get great deals, instead of having to go out and get a coke can for this discount, a copy of the newspaper for that discount, another site for that one," Figliuolo says. "Here are all the events in your geographic area."
TiXiT takes a percentage of every ticket sold, he says, noting that the company has done work with organizations like the Columbus Blue Jackets, CAPA, BalletMet, Jazzarts, and the Columbus Crew.
Figliuolo says the company is still in the pilot phase, launching formally only last year. As TiXiT learns what works and what doesn't, it plans to expand to other geographic regions.
Source: Mike Figliuolo, TiXiT
Writer: Gene Monteith