From the Executive Corner
by Dave Butler, Paciolan

Greetings and thank you for your support over the past year! Twelve months ago, our quarterly newsletter focused on changes we were making to improve your patrons' overall experience with your branded Paciolan ticketing services. I'm happy to report that based on feedback captured directly from you in our last Client Satisfaction Survey, your overall satisfaction with our services is strong.

• Onsales: Over 85% of you state that your onsale performance was good/excellent
• Product: Over 80% of you state that overall functionality of your core products (t.Res, t.Gen, e.Venue) is good/excellent
• Paciolan reference: Nearly 85% of you stated that you would recommend Paciolan to your peers
  

In addition to leveraging our core platform to drive ticket sales, you're using Paciolan functionality in many new ways. Across markets, new applications of item package functionality continue to rise. Similarly i-Profiles, promotional codes and designer packages are increasingly used to build the custom bundles which increase your patrons' overall spend with your venue!

The use of email marketing has dramatically increased. Over the last 12 months, the raw number of emails sent from PACMail across venues increased over 82%! In addition to these phenomenal statistics, some of you are tapping into new ways to increase online ticket sales above and beyond email. Several arenas are implementing effective uses of paid keyword search to drive ticket sales to low demand events. A few leading venues have also begun to leverage "Web 2.0" functionality to tap into new audiences to drive ticket sales. The American Music Theatre of San Jose is in the midst of building their MySpace site which is aimed at registering "friends" and ultimately sending them targeted invitations to purchase tickets to upcoming events.

This past year has also lead to a significant increase in new venues as well as venues renewing with Paciolan. Joining the Paciolan family in 2006 are Villanova, the Rose Quarter, Electric Factory, Borgata Casino, Qwest Arena, The Steelback Centre, Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Leach Amphitheatre, Le Zona Rosa, Rio Rancho, Prescott Valley, and the Sears Centre. Please join me in welcoming these new venues to the Paciolan community!

Lastly, if you have yet to register for PACnet, we urge you to register and join us next month on the ocean at the Laguna Beach Marriott. You'll hear about new functionality and your peers' usage of that functionality as well as insightful information that will help you leverage new technologies to help you build stronger relationships with your patrons - and drive ticket sales!

We look forward to seeing you next month at PACnet!

Sincerely,

Dave

College Football Renewals Quickly Approaching
by James Kim, Paciolan

As this year's college football season officially comes to a close with the completion of bowl games, many universities are preparing for one of their toughest tasks: getting their existing season ticket holders to return next season.

To help manage their renewal process, Paciolan will partner with universities to help them manage their renewal campaigns.

From offering the right incentive for early season ticket renewals to implementing effective marketing strategy and tactics to maximize renewals, Paciolan will offer individual client assistance to help ensure success.

Past Successes

Some of the successful campaigns last season included:

• Offering an Internet-based early renewal period, resulting in considerable savings in printing and mailing costs
• Sending three graphically-rich emails promoting season renewals:
  • Announcing the commencement of the football season
  • Sending an initial reminder to renew
  • Sending a final reminder to renew
• Offering incentives to drive online renewals:
  • Discounts on order processing fees
  • Chances to win prizes such as free season tickets, athletic apparel and autographed items
  • Additional priority points
  • Last minute 'renewal warning deadline' postcards
    

Getting Involved
To get a head start on your renewal campaign planning, please contact your Client Partner.

Pre-Sales, Promos, and Item Package Best Practices
by Craig Ricks, Paciolan

Venues today are constantly looking for ways to drive revenues and boost ticket sales. Commonly used tools to optimize revenues include Internet pre-sales, online promo codes and item packages. These tools can be leveraged to meet box office objectives when appropriately applied to everyday business challenges.

Some examples of common uses for pre-sales and promotions include:

• Boosting ticket sales by allowing sponsors or select groups to utilize a promo code
• Building value for email marketing affinity clubs with exclusive offers
• Selling distressed inventory with discounted tickets
• Offering Internet early pre-sales to smooth out sales for high demand events
• Offering exclusive pre-sales for fan clubs to drive ticket sales
• Providing early access / discounted tickets for promoters' events
• Offering local radio stations presale tickets to promote events

To maximize campaign effectiveness, please review the following best practices when implementing your campaigns:

• Use promo codes to manage online group sales tracking
• Combine a promo code with an Internet configuration to target specific seats (clickable seat map)
• Target specific customers with tailored offers to maximize results

If you have any questions regarding the use of a promo code to satisfy your objectives, we invite you to speak with your client partner or Internet services coordinator. You should also consider the following pointers when implementing promo codes:

• Can be payment type specific (i.e. AmEx only)
• Driven by on-sale and off-sale date and time
• Promotional codes are not unique
• Test, test, test – Always test your pre-sales and promotional codes

Another powerful tool at your disposal to sell more tickets is the item package feature. Item packages enable you to bundle single tickets and/or merchandise and miscellaneous items to drive incremental sales. These powerful revenue generators allow you to offer either loosely defined packages with many options, or very tightly constrained packages based on your box office needs. Some sample uses for item packages include:

• Bundling high demand events with lower demand events to sell distressed inventory
• Including parking, game day programs, and unique 'can not buy' items (team meet and greet, autographs) to generate sales
• Bundling event tickets and miscellaneous items (e.g. merchandise, concession items)
• Featuring a sponsorship giveaway or promotional partner offer in your item package to drive incremental results

Another Strong College Football Bowl Performance
by James Kim, Paciolan

The latest college football Bowl Season provided an excellent platform showcasing Paciolan's university clients. Out of the 64 bowl-bound universities, 46 leveraged Paciolan's ticketing system to sell bowl tickets. To facilitate the management of ticket demand, promotion and allocation, Paciolan partnered with bowl-bound universities early in their planning process.

Based on bowl demand, the universities determined the best bowl strategy and promotion tactics to optimally meet their needs. Activities to streamline their bowl processes included:

• Making bowl announcements and ticket instructions early to help drive and manage demand
• Offloading the burden of processing bowl ticket requests and reducing printing costs by posting bowl applications online
• Allowing fans to specify desired potential bowl games early using deferred applications and having payments automatically processed once the actual bowl game was determined

Road to Success
Universities typically implemented the following marketing tactics to maximize ticket sales:

• Sent graphically rich emails to promote bowl game ticket requests to season ticket holders as soon as bowl eligibility was determined
• Offered incentives to request tickets online (for example, a $10 discount on order fees, a chance to win a pair of bowl tickets, etc.)
• Targeted email club members and past single game ticket buyers geographically near bowl cities to drive additional ticket sales
• Sent reminder emails to maximize response

Keys to Success
Given the extremely short window to prepare, promote and process bowl tickets, leveraging the electronic medium was critical to their success. By using email marketing and online bowl applications as primary vehicles, many bowl-bound universities sold and fulfilled tickets quickly. In doing so, they provided convenient ordering options for their most valued fans.

What's New at PACnet 07?
by Augi Garred, Paciolan

There are plenty of exciting new things going on at PACnet 07. Powerhouse keynote speakers, market and job-function based tracks and product preview sessions designed to help you run your venue more effectively. And of course, we'll host the infamous PACfest party on Monday night - this is an event not to be missed!

Let's start with our Monday keynote speaker, Terry Jones, the founder and former CEO of Travelocity.com. Terry will show you how Travelocity built lasting online relationships with their customers. From there, he'll distill this information into readily digestible nuggets that you can take back to your venue. You can learn more about Terry here.

In addition to tracks by market and job function, we're introducing new tracks specifically for development professionals. Anyone involved with fundraising will appreciate the hands-on workshops and strategic sessions featuring Fundraiser's Advantage and t.Fund. Attendees will also hear peer-led sessions defining best practices to increase donations and meet campaign goals.

Our Museum clients will be pleased to know that we have sessions just for them, too, including training on the latest t.Gen release, best practices for reporting and memberships as well as an open forum to discuss the many challenges facing museums across North America.

We're also introducing the Paciolan Heroes Program to honor clients who have showcased exceptional performance across a variety of categories. This new initiative will kick-off at PACnet and continue throughout the year. Every client who wins will receive a special award during the PACnet closing luncheon on Wednesday, February 14. You could be a winner!

As always, PACnet offers a host of networking opportunities. In addition to the HACnet golf tournament, opening night reception and PACfest, you'll have one more chance to schmooze with your colleagues at the new Tuesday night cocktail hour.

Did we mention the location? What better respite from the wintry cold than sunny southern California. You'll love the Laguna Cliffs Marriott, too, which overlooks the Pacific, providing spectacular views of sea and sky, a fantastic spa and the ideal environment for you to both learn and relax this February at PACnet.

We hope to see you at PACnet 07! Click here to learn more.

Learning Center Series
by Ted Geiss, Paciolan

Last April Paciolan announced the creation of the Learning Center Series. Since then we hosted 31 online webinars that have been attended by over 600 Paciolan clients! The success of these webinars is a direct result of your desire for quick, topical training.

The Learning Center Series provides Paciolan clients with instant access to Paciolan staff. These staff members are the experts for many Paciolan products and services. Throughout the sessions, many tips, tricks and best practices are shared to help you manage your understanding of Paciolan's functionality and improve relationships with your customers.

Paciolan customers have said that:

"The Learning Center Series is very valuable and the knowledge is key to furthering our organization's use of Paciolan. Helpful!"

"I look forward to the Learning Center Series presentations to help gain a better understanding of processes that help enhance the PACIOLAN product."

"Paciolan is so robust, that it takes continual learning to take full advantage of its capabilities. The Learning Center Series is like having your own trainer to keep you moving ahead."

We invite you to join us for the upcoming Learning Center Series sessions designed to help you get the most out of your Paciolan system. Each month we offer several topics based on the feedback we received from you. And best of all, there is no cost to attend! To participate, simply click on the topic of interest (below) and register online.

To ensure that we deliver the most compelling, relevant content, we would like to hear your suggestions for topics via our LCS suggestion form.

We are offering many 'how to' classes, and training sessions both during and after PACnet. We invite you to preview sessions online and encourage you to register for PACnet today.

We look forward to seeing you online!