In 2021, event and venue managers have their work cut out for them–they must provide the best experience for attendees, abide by new health and safety guidelines AND ensure a successful event outcome. Even for the most experienced, that’s a tall order! The good news is, there are systems event managers can set up to help ease some of these big demands.
Cashless systems are becoming increasingly popular in the fair, festival and event space and for good reason. There are plenty of benefits that come with implementing a cashless system–touch-free payments, faster transactions and shorter lines–but one of the best assets you gain by going cashless is access to robust, comprehensive data.
Here are 6 ways you can use the data you get by going cashless to improve your event experience and increase revenue:
#1 Get to know your customers. Unlike the exchange of cash or tokens, a cashless system captures valuable customer data the second a customer purchases a RFID wristband or card online, all the way through to the end of the event. Before the event even starts, you can see which customers are adding items like drink credits and ride credits to their card or wristband. Once attendees are onsite at your event, you can see exactly where they spend and how much they spend inside your event. Event managers can leverage this data to improve customer experience and increase revenue!
#2 Segment and engage your customers. Based on purchasing behavior, you can segment your customers into different categories, and send out promotional offers that best suit their interests. For example, you can engage your customers who previously bought event merchandise with promotions announcing new swag.
#3 Surprise and delight your top spenders. You can see who your top customers are and reward them with special promotions to keep them coming back. This could look like a free parking voucher or VIP upgrade!
#4 Optimize resources and reduce overhead. Real-time reporting allows you to identify which entry locations are getting customers through gates quickly, which ones are getting overloaded, and which spots are not seeing any action. You can re-allocate or cut the number of staff members and adjust scanning locations accordingly and use the data to improve the flow for the current and future events.
#5 Evaluate your vendors. You can evaluate a vendor’s popularity based on real-time customer spend and frequency. This allows you to make data-driven decisions on which vendors you should keep or cut for future events based on performance. You can also use the data to consider increasing your vendor fee or percentage cut, if the numbers make sense.
#6 Secure bigger and better sponsors. With cashless data, you can create killer sponsorship proposals with data like customer demographics, average spend per head, what kind of products customers purchase most (alcohol sales, food sales, etc). This is the kind of data that is expected to secure big name sponsors.
The data you get from going cashless can give you valuable insight to make educated improvements to your event both while it is happening, and in the future. If you want to learn more about Saffire’s cashless system, BlastPass, please reach out to us today. We’re here to help make your job a little easier, and your event more successful!