GöteborgsOperan

GöteborgsOperan – a house for everyone, with the customer in focus

GöteborgsOperan AB is a house for everyone. An institution in Gothenburg where everyone who wants to take part in culture is welcome. The company – which is owned by the Västra Götaland region – has around 500 permanent employees in 90 different professions. The vision is to become one of Northern Europe's leading opera houses, but inside the house's walls there is more than opera. There are also musicals, dance and concerts here – around 350 performances that annually attract a quarter of a million visitors from Gothenburg and the region as well as all of Sweden.

At GöteborgsOperan, the customer is in focus. In 2017, the project "Customer in focus" was started – a project with the aim of taking the customer journey to the next level – which due to external circumstances had to be paused for a period, but which was instead started in the spring of 2022. With an ambition to achieve goals, processes, employees and working methods and let all communicative decisions be made based on the customer's perspective, the project could then get off to a good start. In connection with this, GöteborgsOperan began to look for new systems that would make the customer-based project possible.

– Previously, we had complex systems that were cumbersome to use, and we experienced challenges with having an overall overview of our customers and their behaviour. The idea with "Customer in focus" was to start working more customer-driven, so we needed a new all-in-one tool for analysis, customer insights and segmentation. The choice landed on MarketHype, which felt positive because the system was designed specifically for the event industry, explains Toby Morey, Webmaster at GöteborgsOperan.

– It was also important for us to hire a supplier who maintained our requirements for data security and gave us the opportunity to limit data flows where we wanted, in order to protect our customers' privacy, adds Toby.

In addition to MarketHype's customer database and marketing tools being created by and for the experience industry, there were more aspects that were taken into account when choosing the system. Charlotte "Charlie" Ljungman, Marketing Coordinator at GöteborgsOperan, says:

– That we would get to participate and influence the future development of functions was another aspect. It was a great advantage for us to have that opportunity, and we have it at MarketHype. It feels like we have a lot to add to each other – we have a meaningful exchange where we work towards the same thing within the same industry.

Ready, set, go!

So, it was in connection with the "Customer in focus" project gaining momentum that GöteborgsOperan decided to review its systems. MarketHype was one of the systems added, where Toby Morey, among others, was technically responsible for the launch. And it would go fast!

– It was a very fast start-up. When the connection to the ticket system Tixly had been made, the email domain had been activated and we had received training from MarketHype's support, we were ready to go. We had MarketHype and the previous platform in parallel for only two weeks before we were able to completely shut the previous solution down, says Toby.

Charlie fills in:

– Despite a relatively tight time frame, we were able to set up templates early on and do our first mailings with MarketHype. The tool is user-friendly and easy to get into, something that I see as one of the biggest advantages of the system.

At GöteborgsOperan, five people use MarketHype, where everyone can be found within the Marketing Unit: three in the Communications Department and two in the Sales Department. The focus is mainly on analysis, segmentation and newsletters. Toby was most involved in the start-up and onboarding, but is still involved and gives advice on and answers questions about the tool. Charlie, like Toby, has an educational function regarding various systems, such as MarketHype, and is also responsible for various newsletters. Christine "Titte" Carlsson is another person using the customer data platform. She works as a Marketing Analyst at GöteborgsOperan and, among other things, is responsible for environmental monitoring, campaign measurements, sales statistics, customer evaluations and segment descriptions.

– I get to examine the outcome of various campaigns and offers. What is an increase due to? Was our hypothesis correct and why? What can we learn? These are examples of questions I get to ask myself, says Titte.

With goals related to customer satisfaction and loyal customers, through smart decisions

GöteborgsOperan has several goals and KPIs. The three overarching goals, which are also recurring in the "Customer in focus" project, relate to an increased influx of customers, more satisfied customers and more loyal customers who buy more. In order to reach the objectives and understand the customers better, analysis and segmentation are central. One is strategically oriented but at the same time works tactically. The project is largely about working more data-driven – because that is where the real result is – and thus using the budget and making decisions in a smarter way.

– Our goal is to make the overall experience of the visit as good as possible. For that, we have to collect relevant customer data and use it in the best way, while at the same time we need to protect our customers' privacy, says Titte.

Another part that the "Customer in focus" project has contributed to, is how planning of activities around performances takes place. Now GöteborgsOperan's Marketing Unit places greater focus on the segments, in addition to adaptation based on performance and genre. Charlie explains:

– Now we set a plan based on the customer segments we were able to identify. Regardless of whether the planning concerns food options, communication efforts or stage selection, the customer's perspective is what is important.

In MarketHype, GöteborgsOperan sets up different segments. The segments can be based on characteristics such as age, number of ticket purchases, event tags and season ticket holders, and are used to communicate through, for example, newsletters and automations. The important thing is not to send everything to everyone, but to communicate relevant content to different target groups – something that is made possible via MarketHype's system.

MarketHype – an important part of GöteborgsOperan's new way of working

With "Customer in focus", GöteborgsOperan has not only replaced some systems and chosen to be customer-centric. One has gained additional customer understanding, set new goals for customer experiences and started planning marketing activities based on customer segments. In short, one has adopted a new way of working.

– MarketHype is an important part of our new way of working. The system is easy to use, contributes to reduced manual labor and provides customer insights. The plan now is for us to develop "Customer in focus" further, get more people in the project group and send more segmented mailings through the platform, says Charlie.

Titte believes that it is a strength to have analyses, segments and automations in the same tool:

– We get a good overview and can work smartly with our entire customer database – all in the same tool. We look forward to contributing input and thoughts to MarketHype's future product development as we continue to develop our own way of working. It will really be exciting to see how everything progresses, concludes Titte.

More information about GöteborgsOperan

Wanna check out GöteborgsOperan's homepage? You find it here.

To read the customer story in Norwegian, go here.
To read the customer story in Swedish, go here.