By Carol-Ann Rudy

For the ticket broker working to stay on the cutting edge of technology, remaining vigilant where the appearance and functionality of their website and business model is concerned is vital. Growth in spending on interactive marketing will triple over the next five years, according to the US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2007 To 2012. This has important implications for ticket brokers: overall, it is expected that spending will reach $61 billion by 2012, representing a 27 percent annual growth rate, though the increase in sports marketing is not broken out.

Looking at the needs and interests of ticket brokers, careful attention to critical information will serve to increase the successful marketing of websites. For instance, search marketing will triple in the next five years. The adoption of online video ads will result in an estimated 72 percent increase in spending to $7.1 billion. Also consider that because of the mainstream adoption of the Internet, social media sites such as MySpace, FaceBook, YouTube and others will grow to $10 billion by 2012. Lastly, the successful marketing of ticket sales to handsets, including cell phones, will see mobile marketing grow to $2.8 billion by 2012.

With this in mind, the ticket broker might choose to apply the information above in these general ways:
 Make your SEO—Search Engine Optimization—more effective. Attract more visitors to your website by winning a top ranking on search engines such as Google with effective keyword phrases. Just type “SEO Guide” into a search engine to learn how search engines operate.

TFL and ATBS for ticketing professionals

 Establish a presence with an ad and link on the new social media sites. Track to see if the increase in traffic is worth the investment in time and money, of course.

 Establish and promote purchases of event tickets via customer’s cell phone.

To the benefit of the broker, Apple, and now Google, are expected to start ramping up their cell phone business, which should help jumpstart the development of software for cell phones, something that has lagged due to the reluctance software developers to enter the wireless market because of a lack of satisfactory financial reward for their efforts.

Another possible future venue for the ticket broker: cinema advertising of ticketing websites, including commercials aired just prior to movie previews and the feature presentation. According to the latest report from the Cinema Advertising Council, there has been an increase in activity from advertisers in a number of categories including Internet and Entertainment/Media.

Gametime ad touting concert tickets for 60% off prices at competing websites