Digital Transformation
is the Society of London Theatre’s (SOLT) main consumer facing website. With a history stretching back to 1996 the website originated as the web version of the Official London Theatre Guide, which has been in publication since 1922!
SOLT is a small organisation of 50 staff, but its reach is diverse and its impact significant, as a result it has many brands and many initiatives. As a result of a digital transformation OfficialLondonTheatre is now the home to each of these including: Kids Week, The Olivier Awards, TKTS, West End Live having previously been just a listings website.
Defining the Objective
In order to protect the ongoing health of the theatre industry and to deliver maximum yield to customers Society of London Theatre (SOLT) needed to create a platform that:
Converted audiences gained from discount ticketing initiatives into long term regular theatre goers.
Provide the lowest possible cost to the TheatreGoer, and the maximum yield to the show's producer (SOLT's members)
Merge 8 pre-existing disparate SOLT brands into a identifiable digital first brand to maximize on brand recognition and increase the effectiveness of marketing spend & reduce infrastructure overheads
Underpin the new brand with strong not for profit messaging, combining this with highly competitive pricing to attract business from wealthier competitors
Underpin the new brand with strong not for profit messaging, combining this with highly competitive pricing to attract business from wealthier competitors
Increase organic SEO potential through strong technical website performance Ability to highlight offers and clearly specific user journeys, ensuring the customer has relevant information regarding their purchase whilst minimizing the number of clicks required to checkout
The customer UX must be able to fully synergise with our existing ticketing partner's application
To ensure strong data collection and customer record collection without the process being intrusive and without the customer only being asked for relevant information.
Discovery
We undertook analysis of the existing brands, and their roles within the organization, customer bases and any unique challenges they presented.
Brands were classified based on their function. (Evergreen, Promotion, Event). Distinct acquisition and progression paths were identified for each.
Analysis of existing customer acquisition and transaction data from both Google Analytics and Theatre Ticketing systems was undertaken across the existing brands to ensure any assumptions could be corroborated.
Identification of whether the existing core brand against competitors in the marketplace corresponding brand strength USPs and CTAs.
Analysis of the existing customer base was also conducted via web forms and email survey to capture feedback from current and prospective customers.
Branding & Graphic Design
We undertook analysis of the existing brands, and their roles within the organization, customer bases and any unique challenges they presented.
We assigned emotive words to each brand to guide purpose and design accordingly, reviewing each existing sub-brand colourway to ensure both accessibility and consistency of palette.
We then iterated a number of new logo-concepts and title treatments, presenting these both internally and to users to gauge effectiveness, consistency and impact through both quantitative and qualitative research.
From an aesthetic perspective we were keen to keep the design quite light, fun and friendly with a key objective being for elements to sympathetically compliment and leverage the Show's own brands as they provide the selling power - the brand therefore had to work in a large number of colourways, whist remaining distinct and instantly recognizable.
Website Structure
We undertook analysis of the existing brands, and their roles within the organization, customer bases and any unique challenges they presented.
We deconstructed and mapped the functions of the 8 existing websites, turning these into a single map to form the site structure. Iterating and consolidating until a single unified structure was reached forming the basis of the new information architecture.
We then mapped these pages to SEO keywords to form the basis of an organic SEO strategy, circulating our proposals to all internal stakeholders for their input
Once the sitemap was agreed, low fidelity wireframing commenced using LucidChart to quickly identify/refine and annotate key reusable functionality that could be shared with the development and marketing teams as well as stakeholders for their input and for further refinement.
Wireframes
We undertook analysis of the existing brands, and their roles within the organization, customer bases and any unique challenges they presented.
Once the core brand direction had been agreed high fidelity wireframes and low fidelity responsive prototypes & components were produced and iterated in Sketch (early examples here)
Information architecture for each core page/template was then planned in detail, defining the scope of CMS fields that would be required to facilitate the data architecture
Regular internal feedback sessions ensuring design direction remained on point
Particular attention was paid to the presentation of discounts and promotions, ensuring where they appear next to standard pricing they took focus and user journeys were easily identifiable
Where user journeys needed to be disrupted (ie: to check a customer was aware of a better price or a dedicated checkout process) care was taken to ensure relevant information was presented at the appropriate time
Build and testing
During the project I had hired a team of of both contract and inhouse developers to build out the application.
Once core pages were signed off they were then handed over to the front-end developer to build high fidelity React prototypes & components that once signed-off were passed to the backend developer to integrate with Wordpress & the Node.JS api that stores our ticketing data.
Pages being quality assured on both a page-by-page basis as well as holistically, unfortunately due to time constraints we were unable to run any product feedback workshops prior to launch
Outcomes
We successfully launched the application ahead of our annual sale promotion in order to maximise impact.
Created a recognizable B2C brand that can compete with significantly larger players on a fraction of the budget
Regular evolution of branding possible due to strong underlying Information Architecture
Improved customer experience, increased conversion rate of theatre ticket sales to customers by 109% resulting in an 225% increase in revenue over 3 years
Ensured low prices and maximum return to producers
Delivering on time to meet a major promotion
Continuous feedback mechanisms were set up to ensure continuous capture of actionable customer data and requests, this was used to feed both internal and external requirements back into the product roadmap.
