LiveNation, the biggest concert promotion company, is changing the way the music business is done.
Expanding way beyond concert tickets, LiveNation is involved in merchandising artists' products from Eminem bobbleheads to Snoop Dogg rubber wrist bands to Carole King yoga pants. This company provides the infrastructure that allows artists to leverage their brands and profit beyond their music. Lately, LiveNation was in the news with the deal they signed with Madonna, which encompasses future music and music-related businesses, including the Madonna brand, albums, touring, merchandising, fan club and Web site, DVDs, music-related television and film projects, and associated sponsorship agreements.
To be in the forefront of their business, LiveNation in an interview at Fast Company says that they know that they are "in the business of understanding the fan better than anybody and having a relationship with as many concert buyers as possible." And to understand the fans better, they need to have the right data.
Data is critical to the success of LiveNation. They undertake collection and segmentation of the data to learn more about their customers. By analyzing data, they know what types of products will appeal to certain types of audiences. They can contact the casual concert goers and inform them of upcoming concerts that will appeal to them. They know who is an "average fan" and how many concerts this person attends; and who the "avid fan" is and how many concerts this person attends. They know what the 40 year old customer wants compared to a teen.
So how exactly does LiveNation uses their customer data? According to LiveNation, segmentation is key and drives the response rates:
- Their weekly e-mail newsletter called the Live Nation Set List is customized for 40 different U.S. markets, which includes a calendar of presale and on-sale events, and features artist or album photos along with links to the LiveNation.com Web site for detailed ticket sales information.
- Sends out e-mail alerts targeted to customers’ artist preferences, which includes presale or on-sale notifications for shows in recipients’ local areas, merchandising offers for specific artists or shows, contest promotions featuring popular artists or tours, etc
- Also looks at musical preference data of users and identifies complementary artists that they user may be interested in based on their past purchases or existing preferences
In an article at Target Marketing, LiveNation discusses the secret of the how they utilize analysis of their data
“Behavioral data is sort of the holy grail of database marketing—to know what motivates somebody or what interests somebody is a real key indicator to telling how well your product is going to do,” he says. “So if you know that somebody is interested in rock music, that’s different than if they’re interested in classical music … And if you add a demographic layer on top of that, you get a pretty good indication of the life stage and lifestyle of a customer.”
By knowing what their customers want and who their customers are, LiveNation is able to understand what its market needs and cultivate relationships with their customers.
Small businesses may not have the amount of data that LiveNation manages or the number of customers. But it is important to spend time and resources collecting information about your customers, and analyzing the data in an effort to understand who your customers are.
For more information on LiveNation and how they strive to understand their customers, read the following articles:
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