Win a Free Ticketing Site for the New Year
Written by Monika on 6 Jan 2012 in Company News - No Comments
The holidays may be over, but SimpleTix is gearing up to give a fantastic gift that will last all year. We’re offering a grant to provide one lucky customer with our Premium Plan – for free for one year. Valued at $900, our Premium Plan includes the following features:
- Best available seat search
- Multi-day seat search
- Interactive seating charts
- Email newsletters
- Unlimited CMS and blog pages
- Plus all the features in our Basic and Standard Plans
The winner of our grant competition will enjoy our professional e-ticketing application customized to fit their brand and venue–all for free for an entire year!
Here’s what you need to do to enter the competition:
Tell us about your experience using SimpleTix. Please include:
- How SimpleTix helped you solve your ticketing needs
- A detailed description of your organization
Please email entries to: aron (at) SimpleTix.com with “Grant application” in the subject line. If selected as the winner, we ask that you provide an organization-related photo.
We can’t wait to read your entries. Thank you for supporting SimpleTix in 2011, and we look forward to serving you in 2012!
On The Day of the Event, All You Really Want Are Directions
Written by Monika on 9 Dec 2011 in Event Marketing - No Comments
There’s a good chance your customers will need to access your site for directions the day of the event. But when they access a site en route, the mobile version can look awful. Here’s an example of how BikeReg.com’s (the #1 bike race registration site) event detail page appears on a mobile device:
Not too pretty, is it? But when accessed on a SimpleTix-powered site, a similar page would look like this:
Now, that’s much better—and much more useful!
Are you surprised by how many sites are not optimized for mobile devices? We certainly are, because not only is SimpleTix optimized for mobile, but it also provides a completely different layout specifically tailored to what customers need on-the-go. That’s right–when your customers access your mobile site, they will enjoy a map layout created just for their mobile device.
Think about the possibilities. On the day of your event, if your customers happen to be running late, they can access your site for directions to your venue. Thanks to your SimpleTix custom site, their smartphones will guide them directly to your venue just in time for the event.
Using BikeReg.com as an example, let’s look at the choices for finding directions on-the-go.
The hard way:
1. Go to the site.
2. Locate the search field and use it to find the event.
3. Click the search result.
4. Read through the entire event description to find the venue address.
5. Touch the text of the address to highlight part of it.
6. Using two fingers, stretch the highlighted area to copy the entire address.
7. Tap once, then choose copy.
8. Paste it into the map app on your phone.
9. Finally, you’re able to search for directions.
Hopefully by now, you haven’t crashed the car or tripped on the side walk!
Or…
The SimpleTix way:
1. Go to the site, which will automatically recognize that you are on a mobile site and display the mobile version.
2. Click venues.
3. Click “Get Directions,” and you’re DONE!
With SimpleTix, it’s as simple as that. Trust us, your customers will thank you!
Let Our White Label e-Ticketing App Enhance Your Brand
Written by Monika on 23 Nov 2011 in Product News - No Comments
Personalization is key to building a consistent brand. Our customers want products they can use to create a seamless, integrated image for their business.
SimpleTix is proud to say that we’re the only e-ticketing app that offers a white label solution for ticketing. Our customers can customize our app with their own unique branding elements, and it will look as if they’ve produced the app themselves!
Our app integrates into your own website because you can white label your site 100%, making it 100% branded by your company. This customization will give you the complete professional edge as you present a seamless, branded e-ticketing experience to your customers.
Best of all, you can have this custom look without having to deal with the painstaking process of building your own ticketing solution from scratch. All of SimpleTix’s customers get the “white label treatment!”
Check out the example below. Guess which app is used here? It’s clear–SimpleTix helps you keep your customers happy with professional and effective ticketing solutions.
Thumbnail ticket image courtesy of Dawghouse Design Studios.
The Alexandria Film Festival: A Case Study in Box Office Optimization
Written by Monika on 12 Nov 2011 in Clients - No Comments
The SimpleTix team is constantly improving our product and adding value to the service we provide our customers. Sometimes the best way to discover the needs of our customers is to spend time with them as they engage with our e-Ticketing platform.
Recently we spend three days at the Alexandria Film Festival, which brings short and feature-length films, documentaries, filmmaker panels, and arts presentations to unique and historic venues throughout Alexandria, Virginia. We approached this opportunity as a case study of sorts, and we gleaned some insights that will help us serve our customers even better.
During our three days at the festival, we taught five different staff members how to use our ticketing app. To really get an idea of how customers use our product, we studied the staff’s interactions with the app. We put our research caps on and made pages upon pages of notes on what can be improved about the SimpleTix app, based on actual use in the real-life setting of the film festival. All of our research resulted in the launch of a beta version of the new box office on the last day of the festival.
We found that the new box office resulted in an improved ticket sale time from 1:45 minutes to 50 seconds! Here are some of the improvements we made:
- Difficult-to-see links have become larger buttons so you can find what you need quickly.
- Important buttons have been moved up the screen to minimize scrolling.
- Now you can skip over the select profile page and go straight to the checkout page.
- You can also skip over the participant’s entry page and go straight to the order complete page.
- You will immediately see the e-Tickets in the order complete page–no need to download e-Tickets!
- All of these settings are saved per computer so the same user can run two computers with two different sets of preferences.
We hope these new features will improve ticket sale times for you, too. Check out the improvements we’ve made and see how we’re constantly improving and evolving our application to offer you the best e-Ticketing app on the market.
Image courtesy of My Last Summer.
Affordable E-Commerce, E-Ticketing, and Online Marketing Come Together for Vino2VanGogh
Written by Monika on 4 Nov 2011 in Clients - No Comments
Vino2VanGogh is a cool new art space in Corpus Christi, TX that merges a wine bar and trendy art gallery – only it is full of blank canvases! That’s because they offer interactive paint classes that are led by local artists LaLisa Hernandez and Michael Diamante.
Meant to foster friendships and provide a fun evening out for those interested in art, you can go alone or with a group of friends, toting along a bottle of wine, your creativity, and a desire to paint. If you aren’t super artistic, no worries. Their 3 hour classes use “follow the leader” instructions to ensure your painting looks fabulous.
Like any new business, especially one with a retail component, Vino2VanGogh needed a lot of equipment and services to get going. When we first spoke to them, their laundry list of needs included:
- A visually pleasing and easy to navigate website
- Cash registers and software
- The ability to accept credit cards and swipe them on site
- E-commerce capabilities so they could sell products and memberships
- A customizable e-newsletter platform that would allow them to create and distribute email marketing messages and newsletters
Because they host classes and special events, Vino2VanGogh also needed:
- An online list of workshops, classes, and special events that they could easily add and update themselves
- Online registration and payment capabilities
- A Facebook app that lists events and builds a community of fans
And, just like any new business, Vino2VanGogh was getting up and running with a limited budget.
SimpleTix was the perfect solution. We were able to address all of their needs for only $50/month – yes $50 – that is not a typo! And the best part –it only took 2 days to set up everything. If you are looking for a comprehensive solution to your online e-commerce, ticketing, and marketing needs at a very friendly price, contact us today!