Austin Opera

Increased online single ticket sales from 28% to 55% of total single ticket sales while delivering a greater ability to analyze patron behaviors, track conversions and account for advertising spending.

As marketing director for the Austin Opera, managed a data-driven integrated marketing campaign for $1 million in sales annually: increased the return of marketing dollars spent by 68%; grew subscription seats by 22%; and increased number of single tickets sold by 21%.

Website Development

Work completed in a 3 month time frame and coming in 35% under an already cut budget.

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In-House Resources (Austin Opera)

  • Planning: entirely redesigned site architecture and navigation
  • Content: content migration, creation and population; and integration with third party box office
  • Design: oversaw custom graphic design template along with home page and interior page layouts
  • Development: custom CSS work

Custom Work (Venture Industries Online)

  • Adapt client’s graphic design into custom PHP templates.
  • Designed custom admin interface.
  • Custom functionality including search bar and home page slider

Complete Digital Marketing Strategy

The opera was in a precarious financial position and the marketing budget was cut with 35%. This called for more efficiency and increased scrutiny.

Because many parts of the digital strategy were outsourced, the opera had spent tens of thousands of dollars all things online in previous seasons. With the implementation of a new digital strategy, this was decreased by nearly 60%, yet the effectiveness significantly increased.

With the right the human resources–and with free or low-cost tools like WordPress, Google Analytics, and Google Grants–you can bring much of your digital strategy in-house. Outsourcing can get you all the fish you want, at a cost. It’s much better, however, to teach yourself, or even have someone teach you, how to fish.

Testimonial

Marc is everything a service provider hopes for in a client; he knows what his group needs, knows how to communicate project parameters, and knows how to manage time and resource to produce a bang that is much bigger than the allocated bucks would normally allow.

It’s sincerely satisfying to see clients get everything they can from a system you’ve designed and Marc’s work with the Austin Lyric Opera website is a benchmark example. This was codified in the fact that the organization managed to double online ticket sales while spending less than half of what they expected. What more could a performing arts organization wish for in this environment?

Drew McManus, Principal, Venture Industries Online