Audiences

Navigate to: Menu > Contacts & Relationships > Audiences

Overview

Audiences let you build targeted lists of contacts to send campaigns to. You choose filters, such as who booked a particular performance, who sat in the Circle, who bought Child tickets or who has a Friends Member tag, and Backstage Manager finds the matching contacts. You can save the list to use in a campaign, or download it for a postal mailing.

Examples of audiences a theatre might build:

●      Everyone who booked last year’s pantomime, to promote this year’s show

●      Families who bought Child tickets for any show, for a half term family show mailing

●      Friends Members who haven’t booked yet for the new season

●      Bookers who didn’t attend, based on tickets that weren’t scanned, for a follow up

●      Group organisers and schools, using the Company Name field

●      Your casual front of house team, using staff tags, for a rota update

Filters

Use as many filters as you need to make your list as precise as possible. Contacts must match every filter you set.

●      Start Date and End Date: Only include contacts who made a purchase between these dates, for example everyone who booked during your season launch week

●      Booking: Choose a specific performance, for example the Saturday 19:30 performance of your autumn drama, to include everyone who booked it

●      Product: Include contacts who bought a particular product, for example a programme, interval drinks or a gift voucher

●      Show Inactive: Beside both Booking and Product. Click it to also list past or inactive performances and products, so you can build lists from shows that have finished

●      Area: Include contacts who booked a particular part of the auditorium, for example Stalls, Circle or Balcony

●      Tickets: Include contacts who bought a particular ticket type, for example Adult, Concession or Child

●      Contact Tags: Include contacts with a particular tag, for example Friends Member, Patron, Schools or Front of House Staff

●      Ticket Tags: Include contacts who bought tickets with a particular ticket tag

●      Booking Tags: Include contacts who booked events with a particular tag, for example all your comedy or family shows

●      Marketing: Choose Opt In to include only contacts who have agreed to receive marketing, or Opt Out to find those who haven’t

●      Exclude Audience: Leave out everyone in an audience you have already saved, for example excluding people who have already booked the new show from a promotional mailing

●      No. of Orders: Include contacts by how many orders they have placed, for example to find regular bookers or first time bookers

●      Scanned: Include contacts whose tickets were scanned or not scanned, so you can tell who attended and who didn’t

●      Order Value From and To: Include contacts whose orders fall within a spend range, for example high value bookers for a patron campaign

●      Campaign: Include contacts linked to a particular campaign you have already sent

●      Custom fields: Any contact custom fields you have switched on appear at the bottom of the filters, for example Company Name (see Filter by custom fields below)

Build and save an audience

●      Go to Contacts & Relationships > Audiences

●      Click Filters if the filters aren’t showing, and set your criteria

●      Click Generate Audience

●      Check the totals on the right. Contacts Found shows how many contacts match your filters. Unique Emails shows how many different email addresses that is, since some contacts may share an email address, for example a family who book together

●      Enter a name in Audience Name, for example Panto 2025 Bookers, Opted In

●      Click Save Audience

Your saved audience can now be chosen when you create a campaign in Email & Promotions, and used in Exclude Audience when building other lists. Audiences built on tags stay up to date, because each time the audience is generated it picks up everyone who has the tag at that moment.

Filter by custom fields

You can also build lists using your own contact custom fields, for example Company Name for group organisers, a school name for education bookings, or a membership number.

●      Custom fields are set up in settings

●      For a custom field to appear as a filter in Audiences, its Available Contact Info? switch must be turned on

●      Once it is on, the field appears in the Audiences filters, for example Company Name

●      Enter the value you are looking for, for example the name of a school or a coach tour operator, to find only the contacts that have that entry

●      Make sure your box office team fills in the field on the contact record, or through a form linked to the contact field, so your lists are complete

Create a mailing and postal address list

●      Build your audience as normal and click Generate Audience

●      Click Download as CSV Contacts

●      The file includes each contact’s address details, so you can use it for postal mailings such as season brochures or a Friends newsletter

Tips

●      Always add the Marketing filter set to Opt In for promotional campaigns

●      Use Exclude Audience to avoid sending an offer to people who have already booked

●      Name audiences clearly with the show, year and any key filters so they are easy to find later

●      Build your key lists, such as Friends Members or Schools, on contact tags so they update automatically

●      Check Unique Emails rather than Contacts Found to see how many emails a campaign will actually send