Smarter Targeting To Identify Better Audiences & Increase Ticket Sales

THE CHALLENGE

Herschend Family Entertainment is a family-themed attractions corporation, with 26 locations and more than 13 million visitors per year. They wanted Claritas to help them develop an effective marketing strategy to increase attendance at their Dollywood park location by giving them a better understanding of who their best customers and prospects were, where they live and how to activate media and marketing campaigns to capture more ticket sales.

HOW WE DID IT

Claritas segmentation was appended to Herschend’s custom segment groups to enable activation in media planning and marketing strategy development. Claritas PRIZM® was appended to their current guest and prospect files to understand “who” Dollywood‘s best customers were, and where to find more like them to grow ticket sales.

The behaviors and preferences of current Dollywood visitors were examined and Claritas storyboards were created to paint a vivid picture of their best customers: who they are, what they watch, what they buy (ask for the written version of the case study for storyboard details). This information enabled them to understand behaviors, like how often they visit, how much they spend, what they watch, what they do for fun and which media channels they prefer. Herschend found their primary prospects are:

• Ethnically diverse
• Low TV viewers
• Advanced smartphone users
• Driven by children’s needs/wants

NEXT STEPS

Since their guests are heavy mobile users, their next step was to develop an in-park mobile app to include in-park promotions, discounts and on-site offers to encourage upsell. Additionally, specific messaging could be used to engage families with children and drive attendance.