Emailing Patrons Based on Show Attendance

Audience1st makes it easy for you to reach out to all patrons who attended a specific performance in the past or hold tickets or reservations for a particular performance in the future. Similarly, you can reach out to patrons who did not attend a show or did attend a show but not another show. These forms of outreach can be helpful in the event of a performance cancellation, scheduling change, or the addition of a special performance, just to name a few possible situations.

Under the Reports tab, the “Customer Lists” dropdown menu includes two reports that help with these kinds of tasks. In all Customer List reports, you have four options for how to show results:

  • Display on screen, in a list format similar to that used when searching for a patron.
  • Estimate number of patrons matching your criteria, but don’t display them. This can help you refine the report criteria.
  • Download the results to Excel, where you can mine the data further or set up a mail merge.
  • Export the list to Mailchimp so you can send a targeted email to all patrons listed in the report

Here are the specific steps for using the last option mentioned above and sending a targeted email:

  1. Go to the Reports tab, and in the Customer Lists section, select either “Attendance by show” (you’ll filter based by who has seen or not seen a particular production, regardless of which performance date) or “Attendance at specific performances” (you’ll select the show and date).
  2. Under “Report Filtering Options”, check “Require valid email address”.
  3. If you want to send separate email notifications to subscribers and non-subscribers with different verbiage, under “Report Filtering Options” use the dropdown menu to select subscribers or non-subscribers as appropriate, and repeat the process again later for the other group.
  4. Under “What To Do With the Results”, select “Create new mailing list” or “Add to existing mailing list” and enter the name for the new mailing list or select the existing mailing list as appropriate. These mailing lists are maintained in your Mailchimp account, and you can manage them by logging into Mailchimp.
  5. Click the Run Report button.
  6. Log in to your venue’s Mailchimp account and you will see a new Static List Segment with the name you chose, or you will find that the existing list has had the patrons from the report added into it. You can now compose a message and send it just to that group.