Meet the Team: Alex Ogilvie - Head of Marketing

Have you ever wanted to get to know the team behind Ticket Arena & Event Genius a little better? Then our new ‘Meet the Team’ series should help.

Each entry will feature an interview with the frontline staff who work tirelessly to support your events.

In this, our first of such articles, we catch-up with our Head of Marketing, Alex Ogilvie:

First things first, can you give us a short description of your role and day-to-day tasks?

I’ve been at Ticket Arena and Event Genius for five and a half years now and as Head of Marketing, I oversee all elements of our marketing output; from the work we do alongside our clients to help sell tickets, to developing and managing our B2C and B2B company branding and messaging.

What has changed most about the way we work since you joined?

When I joined there were just a few of us in a small office overlooking the river towards the south of Leeds city centre. Today there are around 30 of us in total with an even wider group of website contributors, event staff and more, so things have changed a lot!

As we’ve grown, it’s been key to develop processes and procedures and build a structure from which the company can continue to develop. One of the things I’m most proud of is the hard-working marketing team that I have had the pleasure of bringing together and working alongside every day.

You studied Environmental Consultancy & Project Management at the University of Leeds, how did you end up working in the event and ticketing industry?

I’ve always been a big music head and at University gained an interest in marketing and all things digital. I met Reshad (our Managing Director) through Leeds event circles and ended up doing some freelance work for him when Ticket Arena was in its infancy. When I left University the company was at the beginning of its growth spurt and I joined full-time, with the plan of going to work for a consultancy firm the following year. Of course, I loved it so much that I am still here today and funnily enough, I use the consultancy and management skills I picked up during my MSc on a daily basis.

What is it about the industry that you love?

As I mentioned earlier, I have always been into music. I used to play in Jazz bands when I was younger, I currently host a radio show (Audio Chronicles) on Leeds based station KMAH Radio, I pick up the odd DJ gig across the city and I’m at a club or gig most weekends, so being able to work alongside some of the country’s most exciting promoters is a huge honour.

In terms of marketing for events, what do you think is the key to driving ticket sales over the next twelve months?

Mobile, data and innovation. The move to mobile is (unsurprisingly) as strong as it’s ever been and if you don’t have a smooth mobile experience (be that across a website, app or progressive web app) you will lose ticket sales. Make sure you are collecting data on your customers at every possible touch point. More and more promoters are making use of tracking pixels and other data management/collection tools to track user behaviour and market to different data sets more effectively. If you don’t do the same, you risk being left behind (it’s worth doing a little GDPR reading to make sure you’re compliant with new incoming legalisation though!). And don’t be afraid to explore totally new channels. The event market is saturated, so do what you need to stand out from the crowd. Don’t be put off if no one else is doing it, that’ll probably help in the end.

What innovations or industry trends do you think are the most important to keep an eye on over the next 5 years?

Chatbots are all the rage right now, more so outside the events industry than within it, but we’re seeing great success with them from some of the clients we work with and no doubt more will make the move over the years to come.

With data law set to change soon it will also be interesting to see how the GDPR changes affect companies’ general practises around data collection, whether there will be any hefty fines slapped around for the big guns and if consumers will take advantage of the new rights granted to them in the regulation.

Finally, AR (Augmented Reality). The possibilities here are huge, super impressive and I’m hoping to see it used a lot more in the festival market over the next five years.

Want to talk to Alex about marketing for your event? Send him an email or follow him via Twitter or on LinkedIn.