Ruth Eckerd Hall Wins On-Sales with ToneDen
Clearwater, Florida is the place for beaches and rock-and-roll. Though Ruth Eckerd Hall may look thoroughly modern — its architecture is inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright — Digital Media Coordinator Erin Null confesses that the performing arts center is, at heart, a rock house.
For more than thirty years, Ruth Eckerd Hall has been fulfilling its mission to “[change] lives through performing arts.” And that mission is fulfilled by what Null term the Ruth Eckerd Hall Experience.
“It means not just what’s happening at the show. It’s everything leading up to the show, things that happen after, what we do with our education department, going to schools. It’s not just promoting a concert or an artist: it’s performing arts and arts education as well.”
Cultivating that Ruth Eckerd Hall Experience is critical, which means that Null relies on ToneDen. “It’s going to save time,” she says, “and it’s going to allow you to explore the capabilities of advertising that you may not be able to dedicate enough time to.”
The busier you are, the more precious time becomes. And Null finds herself pretty busy at Ruth Eckerd. “We could be promoting up to a dozen shows in one week … So being able to create multiple ads that — once they’re created — [ToneDen] is analyzing how well they’re doing: noticing that … was a key for me.”
One of Null’s favorite new tools within ToneDen are Playbooks, multi-tiered marketing strategies that link two campaigns to solve a key marketing objective. They’re readymade solutions that save time by uniting what would typically separate campaigns using multiple tools to execute.
Null recently used the Event Announce Playbook on an upcoming OAR show — with incredible results. “We put $50 behind the OAR playbook and we ended up seeing close to $4,000 in revenue, just from that initial announce post.”
The Event Announce Playbook that Ruth Eckerd used went like this: ToneDen helped launch a Facebook ad campaign to promote the OAR show. When tickets went on sale, everyone who commented on the post received a message from Ruth Eckerd’s Facebook page with a link to buy tickets.
What Null loved about this Playbook was the way it let her “continue that momentum through the announcement to the on-sale.” This momentum is propelled by a real, human connection — the kind so integral to the Ruth Eckerd Experience. “The Playbook is allowing us to connect with people and create that follow-through to when the show actually goes on-sale.”
While Playbooks might automate a lot for marketers, they also facilitate important conversations.
“People were asking in real time, is there a pre-sale, can I join e-clubs and get tickets in advance, is there a meet and greet vip packages, those kinds of things,” Null told me. “That automated message initiated those questions that I can then answer for someone who may not know that they can reach out to us.”
Of course, a solid ROAS is also nice. The OAR playbook yielded a 97.6x ROAS, from just a $50 investment. 37% of the pepole who replied to the post became Messenger subscribers to Ruth Eckerd Hall’s page.
For Null, this success is furthered by the support she finds from ToneDen’s team.
“ToneDen is always helping and monitoring and allowing us to get the best out of this platform, and it makes a huge difference. It’s something I can come back with my team that I work with and tell them that this is a good investment that we’ve made.”
Ready to make a good investment with ToneDen? It’s easy to get started right now.
