Alrighty, after over a month it's time for a new Tuesday blog topic! Today I'll talk about advertising for A little Princess, our Christmas musical being performed at the Sottish Rite Cathedral in Allentown, PA, December 17-21. ( that was some publicity right there!) Yesterday Jorne had basketball intramurals (we ended up just feasting at Giant on 15$, but that's another story) as I walked into the team room I read a poster:
I thought to myself this....this is it. I will keep this mindset through the last 5 weeks of production as we reach deeper into the heat of the contest. I can't literally make people buy tickets to our musical, no, but why do I need to know that? I must work like I can. I will refocus from selling tickets to making sure the most consumers possible know about this event and are inclined to go through different methods of publicity and marketing.
Since I work on close to no budget this takes a little creativity, but that is the fun of it. Employing ideas of guerilla marketing is one avenue. We also believe it or not see posters and yard signs as one of our most productive facets to an events advertising. The caveat is we need total coverage. I've broken down the townships by population and will hang 1 poster per thousand residents in each township through Northampton and Lehigh counties doubling the effect in areas contiguous with the shows venue. Another key is to give EVEYONE the ability to help: radio stations, TV, magazines, and newspapers all called and given the mission statement and asked if they would help. People are generous, they like supporting charities and a patriotic one like ours, raising money for military families pulls on some heartstrings. Now with that it is still a numbers game. Find your base 1 out of 15? 1 out of 20? say yes to a proposal from hanging a poster to appearing on their radio show, alright now you know how many outlets you can plan on hitting. Hopefully 500 or more. From their I try and constantly evolve the pitch.... what are we asking for and how. My dad still leads most of the actual pitches, he has a nac for that. Remember To turn all situations into a 'sales opp'.
We get an average of 13,000$ or more in services or goods donated each show so that actually takes a lot away from our ability to directly advertise since we are constantly pitching for lumber, a venue, microphones, etc. So again it is time to be creative, hang up posters in their office, figure out their connections, and give them tickets hopefully creating audience members for life and word of mouth is the best marketing! These are the little things that make a big difference.
For "A Little Princess" some of the other ways we will 'sell t
ickets' is through: motivating our cast and using their connections, appearing on local radio and TV shows, using our concerts to sell tix, informing schools and daycares, billboards, appearing at valley churches to announce it and have them bring groups, utilize assisted living/ nursing homes, post cards, social media and more.
Hope this gave you some ideas and if you have any for us Please contact!
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