And so you’ve established yourself in charge of marketing in your theatre. Should you be very fortunate it may be a full-time gig in which you get paid enough to pay your bills; however it’s probably one of many jobs that fill your day. No matter what it’s up to you to get tickets sold and improve the visibility of the theatre.
Advertising and marketing your theater begins with uncovering your voice. Are you a family-friendly venue? Do you do cutting edge works? Dinner theater? It really is fine to provide different styles, but you need some catchy element that sets you apart from the competition. You download as much by learning your identity, and looking for individuals to work www.haytheatre.com together with that support that vision.
In the end you should be seen as a theater that continually puts out outstanding fare. Let’s assume that you’re already generating excellent content and our emphasis is simply generating buzz over it. You create your reputation just one show at a time. So it is your responsibility to market each individual show, and the cumulative effect of each show is what creates your popularity as a theatre.
Your most important marketing device is an internet site. It doesn’t automatically make any difference whether you have a website for each individual show or only one for your entire theatre. It’s most likely quicker to have just one, well executed internet site that you can use for all your performances. The most essential factor is that it is simple for you to incorporate the latest material – in particular photographs and video clips – to the site. If you have somebody available familiar with web pages back to front, that’s great. If not you need to have your site created such that a non-technical person can make updates. (Web programmers call this CMS – content management system.)
You will also have to get on good terms with your local press. Bear in mind they are searching for newsworthy items. If you want them to cover your story, you need to provide them with an appealing direction. The fact that you are putting on a performance could get mentioned in the local arts calendar, but whenever you can let them have a story with meat you could be able to land an actual story. Is your show about a local historic figure? Are all the props contributed by nearby organizations? Was it authored by a local? You might not possess a ton of content to use, but it is worthwhile to wrack your brain. Any angle is better than no angle. (Do this for enough consecutive performances, and your local media outlets will begin coming to you to ask what performances you have in the works.)
Social media is an especially economical strategy to promote your production. You could be thinking that your audience isn’t really active on social media, but you would be surprised. If Facebook was a country it would have more persons than the U.S., and participants cross all sorts of age and income levels. Plus lots of the folks cast in your productions could be active on Facebook. If they are showing photos from the show with their network of friends on the site, they are actually promoting the production (and the theater) for you. Ensure it is straightforward for them to share. Be active on Facebook.
Your intention with each and every production should be to add to the number of individuals subscribing to your newsletter. Have sign up forms in the lobby and mention it in the program. It’s a good idea to do a paper newsletter because this is the delivery quite a few people will prefer, but you might also contemplate an email variation of your newsletter. Several of your followers may choose that format, and you can save a bundle on postage costs for that piece of your market that’s perfectly happy reading the latest news from you on their screen.
Since you have completed an introduction to theater marketing, read in more detail about these and other ideas.