How I Discovered That Ballet Lovers Can Also Enjoy Opera

In 2021, like everyone else, we were hit by the shockwave of COVID. The challenge of filling venues again came on top of pre-existing issues around the appeal of opera productions and a gradual decline in public subsidies. This context led the Paris Opera to renew its audience strategy:

• How can we better fill our venues and increase our ticket revenue?
  
• How can we improve the customer journey and create bridges between the Opera's various activities (opera and ballet performances, visits to the Palais Garnier, etc.)?
  
• How can we reach the half of our audience that comes to the Opera for the first time each year (51% of our audience are first-timers)?
  
• How can we meet our cultural mission (as outlined in our objectives agreement with the State: young audiences, people with disabilities, residents of priority urban neighborhoods, etc.)?

We were facing both a volume issue (250,000 seats to sell annually) and a targeting challenge: new buyers, age, geography, preferences, etc. We therefore commissioned a consulting assignment, which led us to implement a CDP (Customer Data Platform). We chose Imagino, paired with Imagino Campaign, a marketing automation tool that replaced our previous solution (Selligent). Imagino is connected to our ticketing system (Secutix).

Before confirming this choice, we conducted a POC (Proof of Concept) from April to May 2023 to test Imagino on our use cases. We tested three scenarios: a direct marketing/retargeting campaign, a Meta audience targeting campaign, and a dynamic dashboard project. Only the first scenario proved successful during the POC. We haven't abandoned the other two, but will explore them later.

We then deployed the tool with the Imagino team and our integrator, KPC Consulting, who was familiar with our existing tools and data structure. The CDP has been fully operational since December 2024. The main benefit of the CDP is connecting ticketing data with website browsing data. This unified view allows us to refine our targeting and marketing campaigns. For example, we can target visitors to the Il Trittico by Puccini webpage, excluding subscribers, people who've already purchased tickets, or those affected by a recent strike, and send them a tailored offer based on their purchase history. If only expensive seats remain, we exclude low-budget segments or offer them specific promotions.

Imagino allows us to build data aggregates using various formulas to send information only to those truly likely to buy. The results are clear: our conversion rate is six times higher than with our old campaigns when using the "email + SMS + offer" combination. However, the high rate of audience turnover limits Imagino's predictive capabilities - it's not very relevant to predict behavior from a single purchase. To overcome this lack of purchasing history and enrich data collection more generally, we send a survey to audience members the day after a performance to get immediate feedback and better understand their preferences.

For example, we discovered that most attendees of John Cranko's Onegin ballet were interested in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin opera, which was scheduled a few months later. This additional data enabled us to create an interest scoring system for ballet and opera, with five audience profiles: only opera lover, only ballet lover, ballet and opera lover, etc.

Previously, we wouldn't have targeted a "classical ballet" audience to promote opera tickets. But now, we've managed to convince some open-minded balletomanes to discover Manon by Jules Massenet - an opera that includes some ballet - by offering them a special promotion tailored to them.

This combined data (ticketing / sales / satisfaction and interest) helps us gather converging clues (dramaturgical angles, choreography, staging, performers...) to match profiles with our programming.

This data-oriented approach has helped us improve the overall customer journey:
integration of sales channels (phone, email, website, social media), automated information sent a few days before the show (right day, right ticket, right seat), satisfaction and preference tracking.
Data-driven management has had a positive impact on ticket sales but also on front-of-house operations (fewer late arrivals, fewer prohibited items at venue entry, etc.).
A data culture already existed at the Paris Opera, but we've now taken it to a new level, and the tool is sparking interest across multiple departments.

For example, data is now used at executive committee meetings to determine the ideal programming calendar, to forecast audience potential for each production, and to better schedule more challenging or niche shows. The CDP's acceptance by Opera teams was greatly facilitated by the support of Alexandre Neef, General Director of the Paris Opera and an active supporter of this new audience strategy, as well as by the POC, which convinced the team of the tool's usefulness in reaching our goals.

Imagino also has the advantage of being more intuitive than our previous tools, removing a key barrier. Another success factor was the role of our integrator, KPC Consulting, who acted as a bridge with the Imagino team. Their ability to quickly create interface mockups helped make the project tangible for Opera staff.

My role was also central to this rollout, acting as a go-between for the tool and the Opera's internal teams (explaining how the tool works, helping with its use, etc.).
Lastly, the CDP rollout was supported not only by the marketing team (my department), but also by key people from IT, sales technical support, and legal (for GDPR compliance). Today, the CDP is a no-brainer for us, but it does come at a cost (annual license, implementation, maintenance/development, dedicated HR), which we expect to offset in three years. The Paris Opera can afford this investment thanks to its financial capacity (250 million euro budget). Imagino met our needs in terms of volume and automation, but it may not be the right tool for every cultural organization.