The Marketing and Digital Festival Insights Report

We recently interviewed 146 festivals about their opinion and results across marketing and the digital experience. We got some great insight.

It’s very clear that the marketing and digital experience plays a large part in the overall success of a festival.

The research found that festivals need to be wary of an over reliance on social media and get a better handle on self controlled marketing channels, including Apps, Chatbots and Reps.

Some of the key stats to come out of the insight were:

• 63% of festival organisers only use basic data and user tracking
• 30% of festival organisers found that print and paid media don’t work
• Almost 75% of small festivals feel they are too heavily reliant on social media
• 92% of festival organisers believe a good digital experience is key to success
• Social media influencers are not a good use of festival marketing budgets

The insight report, which you can download below is the culmination of lots of hard work and the support of some great festival organisers who gave their time and effort, all with a shared view of bettering the available information and success criteria for all festivals.

This is the beginning! We collated so much information in fact, that we just couldn’t include everything on this one report. Rather, we’ll be creating a raft of smaller, more specific insight and advice pieces throughout the year to help festivals constantly benchmark against others, validate their activities and constantly better their marketing and digital function.

In the spirit of community we have also created a Facebook group, set up for those who organise, market and deal with the promotion of festivals. Why ? By creating an open community of festivals who share and help each other we go someway to safe guarding the combined success of the sector and those within it. You can join the group here: Join Festival Insight community