Who doesn’t love the marvel of the movies? After you’ve purchased your favorite concessions and taken your seats, the lights dim, the movie starts, and pure magic unfolds. But behind the scenes, there are a host of cinema analytics—and collecting the relevant data is just the first challenge. These days, theatres have to analyze several key performance indicators (KPIs) to stay ahead, and cinema POS software can help.
In this blog, we pull back the curtain to explore how theatres use data-driven insights and reporting. We explore metrics like revenue, attendance, rental costs, and reporting to enhance your marketing and operations.
Screening for Success: How to Analyze Your Revenue
To succeed in the modern cinema environment, you’ve got to take a hard look at the numbers. Here are the key revenue metrics for financial cinema analytics:
Gross Revenue
Gross revenue is probably the most straightforward metric—it’s simply the total of ticket and concessions sales. Factors like variable ticket prices, concessions costs, and the number/volume of customers in a set period can all affect gross revenue.
Net Revenue
Net revenue is your gross revenue minus all your expenses. These include labor, food costs, equipment repair, marketing materials, and seating. Your net revenue presents a more accurate representation of your theatre’s financial performance.
Cost Per Patron (CPP)
The cost per patron is the total operating cost divided by the total number of patrons. This metric is vital because it tells you whether your cinema is running efficiently based on your customers.
Ways to improve CPP include optimizing the customer experience, improving inventory management processes, and leaning into your marketing efforts.
Revenue Per Patron (RPP)
The revenue per patron is the total revenue divided by the total number of patrons. Strategies to increase RPP can include upselling concessions and creating premium loyalty experiences.
Attendance Cinema Analytics
It’s not just about the dollars and cents—looking at just your revenue won’t get you the complete picture. Keeping track of total attendance and other attendance trends is crucial for cinema owners seeking to optimize their business operations. Also, paying attention to how customers are buying is particularly important.
In a recent study by the Cinema Foundation, more than 60% of attendees bought their movie tickets online on National Cinema Day. Offering online purchase options opens theatres up to a much larger audience. Cinema analytics software features like Omniterm’s Cloud Sales Monitor can help owners track sales activity by day, week, and month.
Understanding your cinema’s attendance trends can help you predict slower periods for your business and plan promotions accordingly. For example, consider a seasonal marketing campaign by offering a gift card promotion in October and November before the winter holidays.
Analyze Your Rental Costs
Film rental costs are undoubtedly one of the most significant expenses for cinema owners. However, tracking film rentals can be a complicated process. You likely pay different fees for each film, and these fees can change during a film’s run time.
Because your theatre’s film revenue is an essential source of income, managing studio payments/rental fees is paramount for effective cinema analytics. Cinema owners must invest in specialized software or systems for film settlement and revenue tracking. Theatre management software automatically calculates film rental fees and can automate aspects of payment calculations while reducing errors.
Track Labor Costs
Running a movie theatre involves a range of staff, from ticket sellers and ushers to concession employees. Your employees’ schedules, time, and wages are another major factor that you need to track to stay successful.
Reliably tracking your labor costs can help you optimize schedules and forecast hiring needs to align with busy seasons. For example, by examining historical attendance patterns, you can adjust staffing levels to match busy and slow periods.
Optimize Your Operations With Help From an Industry Leader
When it comes to efficiency and profitability, you won’t get ahead without the right cinema analytics. Revenue, attendance, loyalty data, film settlement, and labor are vital KPIs to monitor across your business, regardless of the number of locations. Regularly assessing these metrics gives owners and managers a holistic view of sales and marketing data critical for success.Analytics can empower cinema owners and managers to harness the power of data to make informed decisions. Omniterm offers a customized software suite created specifically for cinemas with industry-leading support. If you’re interested in upgrading your current cinema management tools, get in touch today to schedule a free demo.