If you read part one highlighting opportunities & threats, you’ll know that one of two themes I want to focus on is leaning into joy/fun/entertainment.
It might sound obvious, but it’s currently lacking in the onboarding & engagement comms that I’ve received. It’s also been absent in behavioral messaging when I’m actually going to an event.
Well, there are some generic attempts. But just having a headline saying WELCOME TO LIVE doesn’t get the juices flowing.
So, this is an opportunity to shout from the rafters what many of you already know to be true.
COPYWRITING IS THE LOWEST COST / HIGHEST RETURN FOR CREATING AUTHENTIC BRANDS & LONGER-TERM RELATIONSHIPS
Specifically, I recommend working with super-talented copywriters who prefer having style and brand guidelines so they can fully embrace your brand's personality.
And no, I don’t mean underpaying them. I just mean a badass copywriter is worth their weight in gold and can oftentimes be some damn efficient that they can crank out an entire onboarding series (for example) in less than 10 hours if they are in the zone.
Not to mention, great designers feed off great copywriters. This is all symbiotic; everyone can level each other up to create more effective creative works that people love to receive.
Strategic Copywriting Compounds All Experiences
My little bets for TM are all about copy & branding. While qualitative, I can obviously measure impact with holdback groups & directionally even with before and after testing of things like activation and onboarding.
But for me, this is less about short-term results and more about a true commitment to being something worth being.
So, here’s a simple gameplan for updating existing creative during my first 90 days as the hypothetical Lifecycle Marketing Lead at Ticketmaster:
Study the latest TM style guidelines & tone of voice strategy (I think I found it here and am pasting the tone page below)
Get to know the creative/copywriting resources internally and see how they feel about the current state of lifecycle messaging. Do they agree there’s a big disconnect between the aspirational guidelines above and the current level of execution?
If yes, fantastic. This is best case scenario for political reasons. Get buy-in to start working together soon. And do everything I can to make this a fun project and for them to really strut their stuff.
If not, I’ll bring in a trusted outside freelancer with whom I’ve worked many times (I know several).
Decide on a Phase I scope for auditing and updating live text copy throughout high volume/high impact portions of user journeys.
Examples include onboarding/welcome series, behavioral emails, including important transactional moments, and any recurring large programs that perhaps have redundancy of copy (headlines in hero or secondary sections)
Begin making and shipping updates to everything from Phase I. And, again, have figured out if the juice is worth the squeeze on doing holdback groups for longitudinal AB testing or anything like that for insurance purposes.
Honestly, I’m biased to just doing the updates and seeing them as offering only upside and holding on experiments for monetization, churn reduction, and LTV optimization motions.
While this may seem like a modest project, it’s crucial. You are essentially playing catch-up and prioritizing the essentials before you get into some deeper growth marketing work.
After all, growth and brand marketing go together like peanut butter & jelly. Don’t let legacy brands who have a monopoly convince you otherwise.
Seeing this in Action
Here’s the hero section from the TM welcome email I received about a month ago.
Here are just a few key rewrites with the tone of voice guidelines in mind…
From: Ticketmaster
SL: Welcome, Drew. Visceral experiences await your pulse.
PH: You're a member now, but what does that mean?
REAL. LIVE. HEROES.
[sexy stylized image, not old-chool generic]
Drew, you've taken the first step. That's cool. But the next step is the one that really mattters because we all know that nothing is better than authentic, in-your-face, live experiences.
And boy do we have you covered. From dives to domes, legendary genre-defining acts to indie, Ticketmaster wants to make sure you get to see experiences that move you.
With thousands of events per city each year, we recommend reading below to better understand your member benefits as a first step.
The above is just a rough draft. And perhaps too long. But you get the point. BE ALIVE, BE DEPENDABLE. Those are good aspirations.
So, why not start talking the talk from the get-go?
After all, a first impression only happens once, as they say.
Pep Talk
As a reminder, my philosophy is to be a change-agent. To say f*ck forgiveness & assume autonomy
We serve the customers, contextualize the product, and embrace the brand in full force.
Ticketmaster is a middleman (person). They can greatly benefit by being a more fun, highly passionate, and even empathetic version of that service.
Next week, I’ll talk about how to get after relevancy with some even bigger bets.