Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board: How do you advertise your shows?

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imamember
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Topic: How do you advertise your shows?
Posted: 12/04/08 at 3:24pm

Currently we advertise very poorly in my opinion.

We have nice posters made. They get put up in libraries, schools and the link. Some fliers are passed around.

We let people know of shows via our website as well as facebook and myspace accounts and groups.

We generally have a radio ad, although I don't know how much air time it gets.

We put a small ad in the local paper but it costs a lot and isn't very large. The paper generally does a basic write up of the show the week before and a review (if we're lucky) the week between.

The show is also listed on a community calendar on a public access channel.

I think there has to be more effective ways to get butts in seats though. I'm currently looking into local cable advertising and making simple advertisement commercials.

What does your group do?

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KEB54
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Posted: 12/04/08 at 5:19pm

IMHO your advertising sounds about right, however, remember the personal touch of word-of-mouth, family & friends, etc.Also, do you have any local TV or radio interview/news shows. We have one station that has a small segment of guest interview/promotion in the morning news and a different station that does it during the noon news.

That brings me to perhaps a more important aspect of "butts to seats" and other types of involvement for that matter, and that is marketing. Advertise your production, but market your theatre company.

Adverising and marketing are often confused. It's like saying Disney World is Florida. However, one is a subset of the other -- an important part, but not all of it. Work on marketing during non-production times and then when you advertise it will be much more effective.

Marketing takes a lot of time but it also pays big dividends. It will not only help to fill seats, but also get you more volunteers, sponsors, and other types of supporters, too.

KEB

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imamember
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Posted: 12/04/08 at 8:55pm

Actually I want to start a campaign of community theatre awareness ads to promote the group when shows aren't being plugged. Sort of like PSAs I guess to promote membership and benefits of theatre to children, families etc.

We have a local show here, but it's not network or anything. It's not an affiliate. It's a leased station from Comcast I think and a guy in town has the whole channel and does a live 2 hour community talk show every day and has other shows on, all local programming, but like...no one watches that. We were spending $250 for him to show a poster and verbally plug a show the week before and week after but I swear no one saw it.

We can spend about $350 and have commercials run a few times a day on about 8 or 10 different cable channels for three weeks. At least I hope I can pull that off. If I can I'll be sure to let everyone here know of our success or failure.

Word of moth is okay, it's just such a small group of "in-people" there's the family and friends and the old school theatre goers...but we have zero strategy to get new butts. I'm working on it though.

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Nanette
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Posted: 12/04/08 at 11:28pm

We write our own articles for the newspaper for free publicity (AND pay to put in an ad the 2 weeks before our performance), use a lot word of mouth, and have cast members selling tickets.

We've pounded the pavement putting up posters in local businesses, but find that there are already so many things in their windows that not many people see ours in the sea of posters already there (no matter how good it looks).

I'll also hand out comp tickets, one at a time ... that way if they bring a friend, we're getting at least one paying customer. You can also give a write up and comp tickets to local radio stations for on-air giveaways. We often get repeat patrons because they've won tickets in the past.

In a world of margarine, be butter!

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Kathy S
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Posted: 12/05/08 at 4:07am

Once you have an audience, start collecting addresses and get a data base together. Mail a post card to everyone on your list some weeks before the show. We put an order form on the postcard and people order and pay ahead -- we offer a discount on tickets paid for in advance and we hold them at the door. Our mailing list has grown to over 500 names, and it is fairly costly to do a mailing, but worth it because we have a pretty good return on the investment.

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GElliott
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Posted: 12/05/08 at 10:21am

We do all of the above; posters, discount flyers, radio interviews, face book, myspace, word of mouth, comp tickets, announcements in the papers and mailers to our database (around 200 at this point). We are part of a co-op of 6 theatre companies that share one theatre. It makes for a hectic show schedule. We have collected data from each company on who is coming to see the shows, mainly zip codes. We hope by collecting this information we can better target our publicity. I am trying to get these other companies to work together more to cross promote with each other. We do a little, like making announcments on the next show coming up in the pre-show speech. The worst is that we don't share address databases for mailers.

What is the average house for everyone's shows? Our's is pretty pathetic, averaging around 25 in a theatre that seats 90.

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imamember
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Posted: 12/05/08 at 11:25am

I think one of our problems is that we don't have a database anymore. It was always handled by someone and then they'd leave the board and no proper hand off was ever made. I'm working with getting a new one started but showing everyone on the board how to edit and update it.

Our average house for the last musical we did was 85 and it was totally not enough which is why I'm trying to think outside the box a little.

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75director
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Posted: 12/05/08 at 12:11pm

All the previously mentioned show publicity are good things and we do all of them ourselves.

Something else that we do is give cast members postcards that say "I'm in this show come see me" or something to that effect. We ask them to put the addresses of anyone they want to tell about the show, who they don't see on a daily basis. Then the theatre mails the postcards for them.

One thing to consider with cable advertising that we have discussed at length is how many people it reaches. The point made by many on my board was that they have dish TV or some other satellite service and don't get the local cable company, or they have TeVo and skip the commercials completely. I personally think that cable spots are worth it and most of the time the price is pretty reasonable. But that is something to consider when doing local cable advertising.

Database of patrons is very important. We try and get the address of everyone who purchases tickets, of course sometimes it's not practical, like when there's a line of walk ins and the show starts in five minutes. But it's definately an easier sell to someone who has already been to your theatre than to a person who's never heard of you before.

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imamember
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Posted: 12/05/08 at 12:40pm

Yeah, I considered that not everyone uses cable....but I do think between comcast, directtv and dish network....comcast has the higher number. I'm also going to look into local NBC affiliate though it's more expensive than cable. Might be worth a couple spots though for network exposure.

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RoseColored Gla
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Posted: 12/14/08 at 4:25am

One thing that we realized in our community choir was that the database is your best friend. Posters actually brought in the least number of people. I think the most effective marketing tool though, is a little questionnaire in your program that asks basic demographic info: age, salary range, ethnicity, etc. as well as:

How did you hear about this show?
How far did you travel tonight?
What was your main reason for attending tonight: Show name recognition, actor, friend recommendation, needed something to do

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to the answers.... they will pay off in ways you can not imagine.... they are also great for when you apply for grants too!

Dennis Dippary
Artistic Director
Songs for a New WorldRoseColored Glasses
May Dionysus smile upon your every performance!

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Running Your Theater
Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board :Theater Administration :Running Your Theater

Author	Message
imamember Celebrity Joined: 8/18/08 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 121	Topic: How do you advertise your shows? Posted: 12/04/08 at 3:24pm
	Currently we advertise very poorly in my opinion. We have nice posters made. They get put up in libraries, schools and the link. Some fliers are passed around. We let people know of shows via our website as well as facebook and myspace accounts and groups. We generally have a radio ad, although I don't know how much air time it gets. We put a small ad in the local paper but it costs a lot and isn't very large. The paper generally does a basic write up of the show the week before and a review (if we're lucky) the week between. The show is also listed on a community calendar on a public access channel. I think there has to be more effective ways to get butts in seats though. I'm currently looking into local cable advertising and making simple advertisement commercials. What does your group do?

	IP Logged

KEB54 Celebrity Joined: 7/24/08 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 227	Posted: 12/04/08 at 5:19pm
	IMHO your advertising sounds about right, however, remember the personal touch of word-of-mouth, family & friends, etc.Also, do you have any local TV or radio interview/news shows. We have one station that has a small segment of guest interview/promotion in the morning news and a different station that does it during the noon news. That brings me to perhaps a more important aspect of "butts to seats" and other types of involvement for that matter, and that is marketing. Advertise your production, but market your theatre company. Adverising and marketing are often confused. It's like saying Disney World is Florida. However, one is a subset of the other -- an important part, but not all of it. Work on marketing during non-production times and then when you advertise it will be much more effective. Marketing takes a lot of time but it also pays big dividends. It will not only help to fill seats, but also get you more volunteers, sponsors, and other types of supporters, too.
	KEB
	IP Logged

imamember Celebrity Joined: 8/18/08 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 121	Posted: 12/04/08 at 8:55pm
	Actually I want to start a campaign of community theatre awareness ads to promote the group when shows aren't being plugged. Sort of like PSAs I guess to promote membership and benefits of theatre to children, families etc. We have a local show here, but it's not network or anything. It's not an affiliate. It's a leased station from Comcast I think and a guy in town has the whole channel and does a live 2 hour community talk show every day and has other shows on, all local programming, but like...no one watches that. We were spending $250 for him to show a poster and verbally plug a show the week before and week after but I swear no one saw it. We can spend about $350 and have commercials run a few times a day on about 8 or 10 different cable channels for three weeks. At least I hope I can pull that off. If I can I'll be sure to let everyone here know of our success or failure. Word of moth is okay, it's just such a small group of "in-people" there's the family and friends and the old school theatre goers...but we have zero strategy to get new butts. I'm working on it though.
	IP Logged

Nanette Celebrity Joined: 8/01/06 Online Status: Offline Posts: 399	Posted: 12/04/08 at 11:28pm
	We write our own articles for the newspaper for free publicity (AND pay to put in an ad the 2 weeks before our performance), use a lot word of mouth, and have cast members selling tickets. We've pounded the pavement putting up posters in local businesses, but find that there are already so many things in their windows that not many people see ours in the sea of posters already there (no matter how good it looks). I'll also hand out comp tickets, one at a time ... that way if they bring a friend, we're getting at least one paying customer. You can also give a write up and comp tickets to local radio stations for on-air giveaways. We often get repeat patrons because they've won tickets in the past.
	In a world of margarine, be butter!
	IP Logged

Kathy S Celebrity Joined: 8/21/04 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 303	Posted: 12/05/08 at 4:07am
	Once you have an audience, start collecting addresses and get a data base together. Mail a post card to everyone on your list some weeks before the show. We put an order form on the postcard and people order and pay ahead -- we offer a discount on tickets paid for in advance and we hold them at the door. Our mailing list has grown to over 500 names, and it is fairly costly to do a mailing, but worth it because we have a pretty good return on the investment.
	IP Logged

GElliott Lead Joined: 3/05/07 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 33	Posted: 12/05/08 at 10:21am
	We do all of the above; posters, discount flyers, radio interviews, face book, myspace, word of mouth, comp tickets, announcements in the papers and mailers to our database (around 200 at this point). We are part of a co-op of 6 theatre companies that share one theatre. It makes for a hectic show schedule. We have collected data from each company on who is coming to see the shows, mainly zip codes. We hope by collecting this information we can better target our publicity. I am trying to get these other companies to work together more to cross promote with each other. We do a little, like making announcments on the next show coming up in the pre-show speech. The worst is that we don't share address databases for mailers. What is the average house for everyone's shows? Our's is pretty pathetic, averaging around 25 in a theatre that seats 90.
	IP Logged

imamember Celebrity Joined: 8/18/08 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 121	Posted: 12/05/08 at 11:25am
	I think one of our problems is that we don't have a database anymore. It was always handled by someone and then they'd leave the board and no proper hand off was ever made. I'm working with getting a new one started but showing everyone on the board how to edit and update it. Our average house for the last musical we did was 85 and it was totally not enough which is why I'm trying to think outside the box a little.
	IP Logged

75director Celebrity Joined: 8/19/05 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 122	Posted: 12/05/08 at 12:11pm
	All the previously mentioned show publicity are good things and we do all of them ourselves. Something else that we do is give cast members postcards that say "I'm in this show come see me" or something to that effect. We ask them to put the addresses of anyone they want to tell about the show, who they don't see on a daily basis. Then the theatre mails the postcards for them. One thing to consider with cable advertising that we have discussed at length is how many people it reaches. The point made by many on my board was that they have dish TV or some other satellite service and don't get the local cable company, or they have TeVo and skip the commercials completely. I personally think that cable spots are worth it and most of the time the price is pretty reasonable. But that is something to consider when doing local cable advertising. Database of patrons is very important. We try and get the address of everyone who purchases tickets, of course sometimes it's not practical, like when there's a line of walk ins and the show starts in five minutes. But it's definately an easier sell to someone who has already been to your theatre than to a person who's never heard of you before.
	IP Logged

imamember Celebrity Joined: 8/18/08 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 121	Posted: 12/05/08 at 12:40pm
	Yeah, I considered that not everyone uses cable....but I do think between comcast, directtv and dish network....comcast has the higher number. I'm also going to look into local NBC affiliate though it's more expensive than cable. Might be worth a couple spots though for network exposure.
	IP Logged

RoseColored Gla Player Joined: 8/15/08 Location: United States Online Status: Offline Posts: 27	Posted: 12/14/08 at 4:25am
	One thing that we realized in our community choir was that the database is your best friend. Posters actually brought in the least number of people. I think the most effective marketing tool though, is a little questionnaire in your program that asks basic demographic info: age, salary range, ethnicity, etc. as well as: How did you hear about this show? How far did you travel tonight? What was your main reason for attending tonight: Show name recognition, actor, friend recommendation, needed something to do PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to the answers.... they will pay off in ways you can not imagine.... they are also great for when you apply for grants too!
	Dennis Dippary Artistic Director Songs for a New WorldRoseColored Glasses May Dionysus smile upon your every performance!
	IP Logged