Theater Promotions and Theatrical Marketing: Online and in the Real World

Like many theater people, Alexandra Kesman discovered the stage in high school. She dabbled in acting, but spent more time backstage: stage managing, designing lights, running sound, and crewing a variety of shows. She attended Antioch College, where, thanks to an extensive co-op program, she graduated with an impressive résumé: The Magic Theatre in San Francisco, The Cincinnati Fringe Festival, Know Theatre of Cincinnati, Live Bait Theatre in Chicago, The Yellow Springs Kids Playhouse, and The American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. In 2008, she took a full time position at the Know Theatre of Cincinnati, and today serves as Manager of PR and Marketing.

Kesman is in the vanguard of theatrical marketing professionals, comfortable with virtual promotions and prepared to do whatever it takes to start selling seats. Viral, stealth, and underground marketing? As “a mid-sized theatre with little to no budget for promotions,” she explains, “we are forced to rely on such types of marketing to get the word out.”

The Know Theatre’s mainstage season, from October to May, produces shows in their versatile black box, where seating is deliberately limited to ninety-nine or fewer, to keep shows intimate. Every June, they produce the Cincinnati Fringe Festival: thirty-five shows, twelve days, one hundred fifty performances, sixty-five hundred spectators. This season, they launched The Jackson Street Market, a series “dedicated to fostering and growing our local artist community” including “space for several groups to host salons and performances and the launch of a resource sharing website where Know Theatre’s resources can be utilized in exchange for volunteer hours.” On New Year’s Eve, they host their popular Speakeasy Party Fundraiser.

So, how does one go about promoting theater on a shoestring budget?

Kesman can rattle off myriad low-cost options, which have varying effects on ticket sales. In regard to free video content, she says that the theater was “one of the first in the area to really jump on the Youtube bandwagon,” offering, “video trailers, snippets, and ‘funny things that have nothing to do with our show’ videos,” which don’t necessarily sell tickets, but have a positive impact nonetheless. Due to the nature of the Internet, such clips, “create a conversation, show an insight into our company, and engage audiences.” Kesman suggests that, by opening a dialog, free content allows theaters to talk with potential patrons, rather than at them. She says that, once such a conversation has been started, “maybe they’ll buy tickets farther down the road. A good deal of our social media, blogging, and video efforts revolve around that.”

What of social media and blogging? The Know Theater maintains a Twitter feed and a Facebook fan page, each of which has over fifteen hundred followers. Facebook’s new tagging feature means that posts, “are mentioned periodically through other patron’s pages…helping drive traffic to our fan page and Twitter.” Even Kesman was surprised by the Facebook effect. She noticed that after inviting a few hundred Facebook friends to an event, a certain percentage would click “like” and soon enough, “I was surprised…to find out that Facebook was the number two referrer of traffic to our website, right under direct links and entries..”

Social media helps the theater share updates about shows and tickets, but Kesman sees the main purpose of such pages as, “being silly, fun, and engaging with our fans, rather than just posting ‘Get your tickets!’” A popular example? One snowy day, they created some cool buzz using “a photo of our building with the K in our logo replaced with an S, making it ‘Snow Theatre’.”

The Know Theater’s blog also serves to “engage our patrons.” Content is created by staff, actors, directors, and designers, and while Kesman sometimes has trouble motivating them to sit down and blog, she’s managed to get some exciting content for fans: tutorials on making fake blood, photographs taken by the touring cast in different parts of the country. For the basics, the Know Theater relies on their homepage, where readers can find “info about all of our productions, special events…staff, mission, history, production history, your average fundraising pages…and headshots and bios for our company and guest artists.” This site gets about three thousand hits a month, and, with an “in-house ticketing system that allows online purchases as well as over the phone and in person” is responsible for about thirty-five percent of the theater’s ticket sales!

And everything that Kesman does, she has to do twice. The Know Theater and the Fringe Festival maintain separate, but connected, Facebook, Twitter, and home pages!

In the real world, Kesman knows that “reviews in the paper can really get the word out about a show like nothing else.” She also makes certain to hang Posters and Flyers in the city and the suburbs. Another tactic is to target specific groups in advance, such as “major distributions with the city’s library systems and sneak-peek performances at bookstores,” for family-friendly shows based on books.

The possibilities seem endless. Kesman can drive even more traffic to the website by sending announcement to local community calendar sites. She counts about thirty such pages for her area and says, “You’d be surprised how this can actually sell tickets. People always say, ‘Oh I saw it online somewhere’.” The next big thing looks like their upcoming Google Grants account for Google Adwords donations. She advises, “For anyone that isn’t aware, Google provides a budget per day for some non-profits in Google Adwords. It’s a process to set-up if you are approved, but could really help traffic and searches in the future.” She expects to have it up and running by the spring.

Her advice to newcomers to social network marketing? “Reading books on social media isn’t going to get you anywhere. You really just have to dive in and figure it out…. Ask your friends. Everybody uses Facebook these days.” With a little experimentation, you can learn what Kesman already knows: how easy and navigable social media and blog sites really are, how well they allow you to communicate with patrons and draw traffic. Still intimidated? She suggests you research best practices online. Find a marketing blog that emphasizes the arts and the nonprofit sector. “Find some you like and read them regularly,” she advises. “You’ll learn a lot.”

 

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How do you sell event tickets? Most theaters have their own box office, with set hours when patrons can come and purchase seats to upcoming performances. But what if you’re not a theater? What if you only hold one or two events a year? Sometimes, companies will let your organization sell its own tickets out of their box office, even if you’re not affiliated with the theater or selling tickets for a show. Or, you might have a team of dedicated sales professionals, or dedicated sales volunteers, or an office manager who can deal with the numbers. But there are other options.

Increasingly, we live in a twenty-four hour society, and increasingly, our patrons find that they’d rather deal with a computer on their own terms than have to go out and wait in line, or even on the telephone, to speak to a real human being. If I can spend two minutes on the Internet and save twenty minutes of my life, I’ll chose ecommerce every time.

There are a few options for those who want to help their guests and supporters purchase tickets on their own schedules, at their own convenience, online.

• Hire a web designer to build the perfect checkout for your website, allowing customers to purchase tickets to your event right from your homepage. You’ll get exactly what you want, and make it easy for your guests to check out, but this is an expensive option, and may take some time to develop.
• Build a virtual store using a site such as Shopify.com, Flyingcart.com, or Highwire.com. These sites allow you to add events, collect payment, and track sales. However, you will have to spend some time setting them up, and maintaining them can be costly. There may be monthly fees, or a cost for adding new items for purchase.
• Use an online ticket sales site, such as Ticket River, where you can create a page for your event in a minute or two and start selling event tickets immediately. You’ll be able to accept all major credit cards, plus PayPal payments, and it won’t cost you anything!

The online ticket sales site is really your best value. You don’t have to host anything, or pay for anything. You’ll never lose money if sales are down. At Ticket River, the only cost is a 3% service charge added to each transaction, pretty much the lowest surcharge in the industry. Compare that to a markup that could exceed 58% from a company like TicketMaster! Most customers don’t mind paying a tiny fee for the convenience of doing business on their own terms (e.g. at 3 a.m. in pajamas and bunny slippers).

Creating a page for your event helps you sell more tickets, since it’s easy to paste the URL wherever you think people might be interested to know about your event. Customize your event page with a photograph and all the details about your event and your organization and put that page to work for you.

Once you start selling event tickets, a good online ticket sales site, such as Ticket River, will collect names and addresses for your mailing list and even help you track sales by generating charts and graphs! You’ll be able to sell e-tickets, which can be printed out at home, or you can send paper tickets out through the mail, or hold tickets at will call. Whatever makes sense to you: selling tickets through an online ticket sales website is a flexible way to create the sales you want.

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Senator Baucus Touts TicketPrinting.com as Example of Bringing Montana Solutions to Global Markets.

Butte, Mont., (September 13th, 2010) — At the Montana Economic Summit today, Senator Max Baucus and TicketPrinting.com, the leader in ticket printing and event design and marketing, announced the opening of a new customer support center in Lewistown, Montana.  With global growth in North America, Europe, and Australia, TicketPrinting.com is creating new jobs in rural Montana to meet its rapidly growing base of global customers for event marketing services, ticket printing, and its new online event promotion and online ticket sales service, Ticket River™.

For over twelve years, TicketPrinting.com has been the leader in ticket printing and event design and marketing, helping event promoters, entertainment venues, sports leagues, concert promoters, music bands, schools, non-profit organizations, state fairs, and festivals market and ticket their events.  With over 600 ticket templates, design-your-own functionality, several event products, and most importantly, superior customer service, the Montana-based online event and ticketing company has perfected the customer experience, making ticket design, event printing, and online ticket sales as easy as ordering a book online.

“This just goes to show that we can truly build Montana’s economy one business and one employee at a time through our efforts at the Montana Economic Development Summit,” said Baucus, “Folks in Lewistown really know the value of a hard day’s work. The leadership at TicketPrinting.com has the vision to see that the people of Montana are genuine, friendly and hard working, which gives them an edge in the customer service world. TicketPrinting.com and its Ticket River division are paving the way for a successful e-commerce business model that gives the rural Montana workforce a chance to shine.”

“TicketPrinting.com CEO Lance Trebesch said, “We are very proud of the fact that we have more than doubled in size since the last economic summit and were able to grow over 25% last year in the face of the recession while opening up new markets abroad and adding full time employees here at home.  We expanded our operations to include the United Kingdom and Australia in 2009 and are now market leaders. Our teams in Harlowton, Bozeman, and soon to be Lewistown have been a huge competitive advantage, helping us expand to these new markets.  Our success is driven by our commitment to superior customer service and our 100% customer satisfaction guarantee.  You can’t do that without great people.  Great people are all over Montana and we intend to keep expanding in Montana.”

TicketPrinting.com’s customer support center in Lewistown will serve customers throughout North America, and also provide critical global support to TicketPrinting.com’s subsidiaries, UK Ticket Printing and TicketRiver Australia, and to its new online event promotion and tickets sales site, Ticket River™.

TicketPrinting.com has a primary base of operations in Harlowton, employing more than 30 people, full-time and part time in production and customer support positions. The e-commerce business also currently has remote customer support employees working from Livingston, Billings and Lewistown.

“The Montana Economic Development Summit is a fantastic platform and event for our teams to come up with new ways to grow,” said Trebesch. “The breadth and depth of the conference speakers, attendees, and topics provide real opportunities for TicketPrinting.com to explore more ways to expand and close new business, and by doing so, generate new jobs in our Montana operations.  I attend several conferences and the Montana Economic Summit beats all of them hands down in terms of directly helping our company grow and in expanding our network. We thank Senator Baucus and his superb staff for hosting and organizing the Summit.”

About TicketPrinting.com

TicketPrinting.com has been the leader in ticket printing and event design and marketing for over twelve years.  Founded by Mike Yinger, Chairman and CTO, TicketPrinting.com serves over 80,000 customers in entertainment, sports, nonprofit, education, performing arts, and music across North America, Australia, and the U.K.  Lance Trebesch is the CEO of TicketPrinting.com and also serves on the Board of the Better Business Bureau.

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The year is 2010 and the face of live theater has changed. Around the globe, money is tight, attention spans are short, and approaching-infinite hours of free entertainment are available 24 hours a day in the privacy of the viewer’s home. The new millennium, it might seem, has not been friendly to a venerable tradition that asks patrons to pay for the privilege of turning off their cell phones, sitting in one place for three hours, and listening quietly without offering any opinions beyond appropriately placed applause, laughter, and perhaps an occasional and well-deserved hiss.

Not a friendly environment in which to create a successful new company.

But live theater isn’t dead: far from it. Your company offers an experience that cannot be replicated in front of a computer monitor. It’s hard, sweaty, uphill work, but hot new companies are making their mark, inspired by the bonds of friendship and their passion for acting.

The Players

Who are these starry-eyed optimists, and how are they faring?

Trial by Fire, based in Eugene, Oregon, is founder Benjamin Newman’s lifeline in a hostile world. Reborn over and over again from the ashes of projects going back as far as 1999, the group achieved what seems to be a sustainable critical success this year.

Aerial Angels and Stand Up 8, the brainchildren of writer-director-actor Allison Williams, are based out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, but have developed as traveling troupes, presenting their unique brand of circus arts all around the world since 2003.

And making their mark in film-saturated Los Angeles, California, title3, founded by reunited classmates Lane Allison, Molly Leland, Jane Montosi, and Jiehae Park, has waded into the water with their first production and found it inviting.

The Backstory

So, how does one create a theater company with no money, no space, and no history? Is love of the stage enough to succeed?

Benjamin Newman would say that, for some, it isn’t even a choice. He recalls the mantra, offered by countless professionals across the country: If you can imagine yourself doing something else, then this is not where you belong. “I have tried,” he says, “but I cannot. Where I have veered from my path, life became confusing and disorienting, a series of challenges which I was unable to face, because I had no support, no grounding, no definition.” If the creative path is an actor’s North Star, dedicated performers, must, like Newman, return again and again, to trod the boards, regardless of the outcome. Or, as Allison Williams says, “truly motivated people don’t fail—they have learning experiences in which money is lost or creative dreams go unrealized, but it’s not failure unless they walk away without being educated by it.”

So the short answer is yes, if your love is strong enough, passion can carry the day. But the long answer, of course, is that love is merely the propeller that moves you forward through each new script, new rehearsal, new production, new season. Love lets you persevere. Today’s artists must also carry with them a new toolbox: the gear if the information age.

The Setting

The old ways are disappearing, according to Williams. Traditional theater is “extremely boring and pointlessly irrelevant and ridiculously overpriced. Its audience is literally…greying out and dying. Subscription theatre is fading away—nobody under 40 ever wants to see another kitchen sink drama ever again—watching Death of a Salesman once in high school was enough.” The future, it seems, is in finding new ways of telling stories. We may be telling the same stories as those who came before, Newman argues, but we tell them through the lens of our own perceptions, so that each new telling provides a new understanding. Though all the stories may have been told, we still must “let each man and woman have their turn” in telling so that we do “not simply honor one voice, but all voices.”

This philosophy was the nucleus of title3’s origin. The group evolved organically out of a weekly writer’s group, where participants began to focus on women’s experience and the place of the female voice in the arts. While simply complaining got them nowhere, they realized, “we could generate the kind of change we hoped for. Thus, our company mission: dedication to the creation of innovative work with an emphasis on providing opportunities for women in the arts.” And so, another company was born, one working within the parameters of the modern world.

With its focus established, title3 reports that, “doors opened and people aligned in ways we never would have thought possible.” LA, perhaps, needed title3’s perspective as much as title3 needed a forum in which to present it.

It’s not surprising, then, that for their first production, they chose a new play by Constance Congdon, called Paradise Street, one that required an all-female cast. Trial by Fire, in earlier incarnations, performed works written by Newman himself. Although less concerned with modernity, they have created a focus on outsider voices, first making a success of Kiss of the Spider Woman and now opening Alfred Jarry’s surrealist work Ubu Roi.

The Properties

In the 21st century, the default setting for multiple voices is, of course, the Internet, and those with stories to tell cannot ignore the power of the web for communicating their message. Successful modern theaters understand the need to harness those channels. Newman exults in the possibilities of a world where “artists who have just begun their career can simply be stumbled upon, and more forms of expression, such as film, music, writing, photography, and painting, are just a click away.”

By this point, even most traditional old theaters have at least begun to make a place for themselves in cyberspace, but the vanguard is completely comfortable there: the Internet is their living room, their office, and their playground. They no longer conduct letter-writing campaigns; they send mass emails. They don’t rely on print media to spread the word; they create their own websites from which to launch publicity drives, drum up support, issue press releases, and spread the word.

For title3, there was no question that web presence went hand-in-hand with a new venture. They began not only with a website, but also with a strong presence on social media channels such as Facebook. To date, they have successfully shared photos on their website and Facebook pages, and they are in the process of developing video content that illustrates their process: recordings of rehearsals and “other interactive offerings.”

In fact, title3 considers itself  “a multimedia production company.” They began with theater, because that was what they knew, but ultimately they “also have a goal to use multimedia in our theater work and hopefully expand to other media in future.”

Allison Williams also understands the driving force of Web 2.0 for creating a vibrant community of fans and attracting new patrons. Explaining the power of social networking, she says, “being ‘friends’ rather than an advertiser is powerful and important.” She’s also comfortable posting not only teasers, but also entire acts, on YouTube. The way she sees it, “our enemy is not piracy but obscurity.”

For modern theaters, there can be no conflict between these two modes, and offering up some content in public forums can only lead to positive publicity. Williams explains, “The experience of seeing it live is fundamentally different than a YouTube experience,” and, she even goes so far as to say, “live theatre has an edge over movies.” In the twenty-first century, offering a few tantalizing tastes—or even an entire serving—only whets the viewers’ appetites for the real experience: live theater, performed by real human beings in front of real human beings. On demand content is wonderful, but it is no substitute for an event that cannot be paused, that has a life independent of the viewer’s decision to hit the play button.

While title3 calls the Internet “a primary driver of both publicity and ticket sales,” and, through tracking, learned “that Facebook and email were effective in mobilizing people to attend our performances,” Williams’ traveling show reports that only a small percentage of their ticket sales take place online, with the majority purchased at the door. However, they’ve used other modern tactics to boost sales, such as Street Crew. According to Williams, “it’s personal contact that sells a lot of tickets.” Sending supporters out to stump for the show, offering deals such as free admission if you bring 3 friends or hang 10 posters, helped them boost attendance and create new fans. Newman agrees: in his mind, the Internet is a great boon for communication, up to a point, but, he says, “there is simply no substitute for human contact.”

The lesson here is that you can’t ignore either end: you’ve got to utilize all the technological tools in your arsenal, and you must continue making direct contact with patrons. You may simply need to get creative on both sides.

The Backers

Trial by Fire has recently filed for nonprofit status and begun to apply for grants and search out new sponsors in anticipation of running a full season in 2010/2011. Newman himself has sunk a great deal of his own capital into getting shows produced in the past, and, like many producers, watched the dual evolution of a critical success alongside a fiscal failure. Now, it looks as if Trial by Fire is finally poised to achieve solid financial ground.

While Trial by Fire’s evolution was long and convoluted, inextricably tied to Newman’s emotional state and his own determination to try again, title3’s first production came together in a more surprising way. Just as the group had begun discussing a production, they were offered a space “on very appealing terms.” The only catch was that the slot was only 2 months in the future, “an insanely short period of time to rehearse and put up a show, much less choose the show, do preproduction, and set up a company.”

But, the group was dedicated to following through. How did they get funding in such a short period of time? They made direct appeals, sending letters to everyone they knew: family, friends, former professors. Rather than simply asking for money, they explained their mission statement and helped donors understand how their contributions would further that cause. They also filed for fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas so they could receive tax-deductible donations. The next step for title3 will be to increase their fundraising efforts, and to begin applying for government grants.

Stand Up 8 took a different, and very modern approach, to finding funding. Conceived as a for-profit venture, the group originally hoped to find 80 donors willing to contribute $1000 apiece. Williams says, “I thought we’d start with our parents and move outward from there, but then a friend told me about the Canadian reality TV show Dragons’ Den.” They auditioned, got on, and hit big, attracting investor W. Brett Wilson, now a half-owner of Stand Up 8.

For the Aerial Angels group, Williams keeps the overhead low. The Angels usually perform at street festivals and similar outdoor events. They often book gigs that are paid in advance,

but just as often they conclude their shows with a hat pass. Williams explains, “We get paid by doing an amazing show that connects with people on a personal level, by touching their hearts and their funny bones to get to their wallets.” She can easily see that the more joy she brings to her audience, the more money she makes. “We offer a 30 minute escape with awe and wonder and comedy, and we ask for the price of a cup of fancy coffee, and the people who can afford to pay subsidize the people who can’t.”

For Williams, nonprofit status wasn’t worth the effort. She found “the level of hassle and paperwork is so tedious it wasn’t worth the piddling grants,” and feels that receiving adequate grants requires employing full-time grant writers. “Frankly,” she says, “I’d rather just go out and make the money without the strings.” Williams, who has written, directed, and starred in dozens of stage productions, makes good use of her experience and consummate can-do attitude to really make live theater pay off. Her belief is that, if you are selling a desirable product, people will buy it, and you can feel good about encouraging them to do so. If it’s not good enough to sell, she says, “start over with a better product.”

She attributes some of her ease at selling performance as a product to “being a non-fourth-wall performer,” who constantly connects with the audience. Selling herself onstage is the same as selling herself before the show. At the same time, she acknowledges, “I’ve done my fair share of Shakespeare, and marketing that is the same process, so maybe more serious theatre people should be thinking like circus artists.”

 

Curtain Calls

Live theater, Williams believes, is ready for a revival. Audiences “do still want to see stories and connect with humans and be a part of an experience they can’t have with their TV, they just don’t always know they want it and they’re unwilling to pay more than their phone bill to find out.” The women of title3 agree that one of the greatest challenges to modern theater is that younger generations have less exposure to theatre and arts in general. For one thing, “school arts programs are disappearing,” so “children won’t have theater as a frame of reference.” As technology captures a greater share of entertainment, young adults “may choose to spend their entertainment dollars on other mediums simply due to the fact that they don’t really know what theater is or means.”

But companies like Stand Up 8, title3, and Trial by Fire are committed to combating those attitudes. The world needs live theater, and the modern world needs a modern theater. Modern theaters must make their own way and recreate the ancient art. Newman reminds us that our dearest dreams are not presented to us “in a nice little package all wrapped up with a bow on top. You have to fight for them, you have to travel long distances to find them, and most importantly, you have to make them for yourself.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Buying event tickets has never been easier. From the Internet to overnight delivery, you can offer your audience multiple possibilities for purchasing tickets. Selling event tickets? Provide as many options to your potential audience as possible. The more user friendly you are, the more tickets you’ll sell.

Consider these three aspects when figuring out how you’re going to sell your tickets:

·      Where – Physical sales may have decreased with the rise of the internet, but it’s still important to have a real world presence

·      How – Can your audience buy online? Over the phone? In local businesses? At the box office the day of the show?

·      Why – Determine the reasons your audience are buying these tickets so you can cater to them more efficiently

Location, Location, Location

No matter how great your event, people won’t always come to you. You have to go to the people. When dealing with the virtual world, it’s important to advertise on web sites that target your audience demographic. The Internet is a great way to attract attention, but you want to make sure it’s the kind of attention that’s going to help you sell more event tickets. You don’t want to waste time or money spreading the word to those who won’t listen, or risk losing patrons by advertising on the wrong sites.

The same can be said for real world locations as well. Your marketing plan should be backed by research that tells you exactly where your audience spends their time. If your event features a local attraction, consider making your tickets available for purchase at locally owned businesses instead of the chain stores. If it’s a concert, make sure you have a presence at music stores.

Make sure you cover all the bases, no matter how obvious. Say you’re putting on a performance by an Indian musician. Consider some way of making your event tickets available through Indian restaurants or markets that cater to ethnic food. Even if you can’t sell the tickets themselves, you can at least provide the information necessary for your audience to purchase them, like a phone number to call or a web site address. 

Options

The “how” aspect of selling event tickets would seem pretty simple, particularly these days.  Armed with a credit or debit card, your audience goes online, picks up the phone, or stands in line to get their tickets. But there are other options out there, and all of them will make it that easier for your customer.

Systems such as Paypal allow users to use their own online transaction service for their purchases. People often prefer to use such a service, as opposed to having to send their credit card information out over the Internet.

E-checks are also becoming more and more popular. Customers simply provide their routing and account numbers and the transactions works just like a check.

Consider the Reasons

It’s important to consider why someone is buying your event tickets and use that information to make their experience easier.

If your event is family oriented or your demographic includes people who buy multiple tickets at one time, consider offering group rates. Not only will this appeal to your audience, but it might encourage those single ticket buyers to invite their friends! Another good tactic for family events is reduced rates for children, with free admission for babies.

Group rates can be used for more than just multiple ticket orders; they’re also great for frequent events. If you plan on having a series of events on a regular basis, then selling event tickets for multiple dates at a discounted price can be a great incentive for your audience, and helps with advanced ticket sales.

Finally, nothing helps you stay connected with your potential audience like starting a mailing list. Both email lists and physical mailing lists let you stay in contact with those who are interested in your event, allowing you to let them know when the event tickets are going to be on sale well in advance.

Making the purchasing experience as user friendly as possible can be the key in making your event a success.

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Creating custom wristbands for your event turns a simple security feature into a great marketing tool both during and after your event. A wristband may appear a small space to work with, but it can be very effective in its inclusion of pertinent marketing information, as well as its inherent visibility.  

You can use wristbands in lieu of event tickets, or in addition to tickets, in which case your guests receive a customized paper bracelet at the door. The design and purposes of your event wristbands are dependent upon the event you are hosting. Different colors can denote different functions: VIP, over 21, plus simple general admission, allowing mobility for your participants as well as added exposure for your brand. Since it is the season of outdoor festival events around the country, let’s use this as our example as to how to best maximize your wristbands’ effectiveness.

*  Your Customizable Wristbands: Custom Wristbands offer effective marketing, advertising your event while also allowing for exceptional organization, so start designing them before you begin selling tickets. If you will serve alcohol or offer VIP admission, color-coding is a quick and simple way to make the event an organized success. Decide on the color coding and choose the text and image that will appear on the wristband. Include the logo for your event, your sponsor’s logo, or an image that can help you brand the celebration. The wristband can also include times, dates, and venue of your event. The inclusion of these pieces of information will instantly act as an advertising tool. People leaving your event will be walking advertisements, evoking curiosity.

*  Waterproof Wristbands: For music festivals or food festivals that continue all day, or over multiple days, you may want to use waterproof wristbands to keep them from discoloring and deteriorating from sweat, weather, and hand-washing. Waterproof materials will also encourage the wearer to continue to wear the wristband after they leave the venue, maximizing your event’s exposure.

*  Custom Printed Wristbands: Perhaps you can use an online template to create your customized wristband and print them as needed. Designing and printing them yourself cuts out the middleman and saves you money. Custom printing also provides event promoter control over the color of the wristbands, the quality (waterproof), and the overall design that will maximize marketing.

*  Research Quality Discount Wristbands: Especially if your event is going to be very large, research where you can design and print quality discount wristbands. Many online vendors can help you to create customized, quality wristbands for a reasonable price, especially if you will be creating these in great volume.

The use of event wristbands can give your event an added marketing edge in its constant visual exposure. They will also keep your event organized through the inclusion of important information and a color-coding system that tells your door staff necessary information about your visitors: whether they are 21 and over, a VIP, or general admission. And don't forget: a well-designed wristband becomes a fun souvenir for your participants.

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            From print to radio, from television to the internet, the medium for selling event tickets seems to be ever evolving. While the internet appears to be the frontier of the future, the focus has shifted from traditional web advertising. Promoting your event tickets through a web site is still essential, yes, but now it’s a part of a larger movement, that of social media marketing.

            Aside from being fairly easy to implement, social media marketing is also extremely inexpensive.  No matter the cost, though, you want to get a return on your investment, be it money or time. Here are a few aspects to focus on when using social media marketing to sell your event tickets:

·      Frequency

·      Interaction

·      Quantity vs. Quality

·      Integration

These four items are key to being successful as you jump into the world of social media.

Like Clockwork

            Part of the appeal of using social media platforms for marketing is the frequency with which you can send out your message. Web users are constantly looking for new information, and sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter allow you to give them that information. You need to mention your event tickets as frequently as possible, so your promotion doesn’t get lost in the constant information stream.

            Remember, all news is important in the social media world.  If you’ve just designed your event tickets, mention it online. Even if you’ve just started considering what your event tickets should look like, bring that up. Frequent updates engage your audience and make the process more personal, no matter how tiny the detail might be.           

A Part of the Team

            The internet allows you to interact with your audience like no other medium and social media sites take this to the next level.  That germ of an idea for the design of your event tickets? See what your audience thinks. Invite them into the process. You don’t have to listen to their suggestions; you just have to ask for them. The simple act of listening to your audience will draw them in.

            Get them talking. Allow comments on your posts on sites like Blogger and WordPress. Create a posting board. Encourage discussion on every aspect of your event, from the aforementioned event tickets to reviews afterwards. Getting them to come back for updates is great, but getting them to come back because they want to interact is even better.

Playing the Odds

            When promoting your event tickets online, try to cast as wide of a net as possible. Networking can spread like wildfire, as one connections links you to another who links you to another and so on. Your target demographic for event tickets is simply your first audience, but they are certainly not your last. Once you connect with them, you can expect your message to spread.

            If you’re creating compelling content about your event tickets, your updates will get passed along from person to person, and suddenly a link to your site is popping up everywhere. This makes up your expanded audience, those who end up visiting your site and investigating your event tickets because they saw a link somewhere.

            It’s the grapevine of the 21^st century!

Headquarters

            It is absolutely essential that, while promoting your event tickets, you have all of your online interactions point back to your web site. Your latest status update may be interesting enough to gain you new fans, but unless they are following you back to your web site, it won’t translate into event ticket sales.

            The process works both ways. It easier than ever to imbed your social media updates into your web site. You want to make sure that anyone who comes to your site directly can also follow you through other sites. Once they add you as a friend or a follower, they indirectly become a part of your marketing team!

            Social media marketing is a cost effective, high traffic way of selling more of your event tickets. With just a little bit of time and effort, you can receive a big return on your small investment!

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            They’re trophies.

 

            I don’t know who it was that originally taught me to do it.  I’m not even sure I was aware of the tradition until I’d already been to a few shows and disregarded what was left of my concert tickets.  But at some point, I realized those stubs had value, and that they were part of a long standing concert going tradition, a tradition that’s important to keep in mind when printing event tickets of your own.

CD Display Case

            The stub from a concert ticket is a piece of personal history and, as such, needs a place to be put on display, a way of cherishing and remembering that concert for years to come.  The advent of CDs, or more specifically CD cases, gave people the perfect place to put those event tickets.

            The idea is a simple one: take a CD by the musical act you just saw, and place the ticket from that show in front of the CD insert.  If you see a musical act multiple times, then follow the same routine with multiple albums.  In some ways it becomes motivation to go to more shows in an effort to get a ticket stub for every album.  The ticket stubs serve to promote the next show without even trying!

The Digital Revolution

            A few years ago, I decided to make the big switch from CDs to a digital only music library.  I spent hours a day ripping my CDs into media files and then getting those CDs ready to sell.  But I had forgotten about one thing: my concert tickets!

            Without my convenient display cases, what was I supposed to do with all the concert tickets I’d accumulated over the years?  I couldn’t just get rid of them, not have all this time!

            It was then that I realized just how important custom concert tickets were.

The New Frontier of Stub Collecting

            Concert tickets are like snapshots of moments in life, so I figured I should treat them just like I would pictures and give them their own album or, better yet, incorporate them into my pre-existing photo albums.

            Putting them on display by themselves, though, really underscored how important the look of a concert ticket is.  A generic event ticket is fine for conveying information and still manages to induce nostalgia for shows gone by, but a custom printed ticket really stands out and makes those memories flood back even more vividly.

Make Your Tickets Memorable

This is essential when considering custom printed event tickets: make them memorable! With a wide variety of event ticket templates to choose from and the ability to personalize your event tickets, you can make sure that even the left over stubs are able to keep the memory of your event fresh in your audience’s memory.

            In the end, memorable event tickets can mean repeat business, and repeat business is good news!

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Frank Zappa once said, " Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." When you're selling event tickets for a fundraising event, you're also making a type of sculpture, bringing folks together into one place to work together for a common creative goal. Why not put  music at its center? You could plan a small choral performance, a full-on music festival or perhaps the ultimate in participatory events: A battle of the bands!

 

Unite your community, listen to great local musicians, sell more tickets, raise funds for a cause, and share prizes. From beginning to end, picking a venue, guests judges, and prizes and even choosing and printing event tickets, a battle of the bands can take a lot of preparation. Many elements must be considered when planning this type of event, but the final product is well worth the effort.

 

Plan a safe and fun event for everyone—If you want to have a good time and raise funds for your cause, make sure you appeal to a broad audience. Plan a family friendly, safe event that everyone can enjoy. You'll want to print event tickets that reflect this and help to manage the flow of people into and out of your venue.

 

Create a clear set of rules for participants—Make sure the rules of the battle are clear beforehand. Let acts know what kind of music you would like to showcase. Will the winners be picked by judges or the audience? Will bands play one song or a short set? What prizes are winners eligible for?

 

Choose judges from the community—If you plan on having judges choose the winners, consider recruiting popular figures from the local music scene. When printing event tickets and other promotional materials, make sure to include this information, so you can further peak  attendee interest.

 

What kinds of prizes will you offer?—Will you simply offer winners bragging rights or something more tangible like cash or other coveted rewards?

 

Will you rely on sponsors to help?—Sponsors can be a great resource when organizing your battle of the bands. They can help provide funding for equipment or the venue, advertise for your event or defray the cost of event ticket printing. If you're fundraising for a special cause like providing money for local school music programs, you may find sponsors lining up to help. You can add their logos to your event tickets for greater publicity.

 

Pick an appropriate venue—Once you're ready to host a battle of the bands, you'll want to choose a venue for your event. Make sure the space is the right size and will accommodate your equipment. Check to make sure that you have the right permits to host the event, if you need them.

 

Plan your promotion—Promote, promote, promote! With your initial planning done, it's time to get the word out, so that you can get your attendees together to rock out! The internet is a great resource for free promotion. Social networking and event planning sites help you to advertise and sell more tickets. Contact local radio stations about your cause and get your sponsors involved.

 

Pick promotional collateral and print event tickets that are well designed and reflect the nature of your event. Using an online event ticket printing site can make this easy. You can choose the type of collateral you would like to use, choose your designs and customize them using an event ticket template. Professional y printed event tickets can really raise the profile of your battle of the bands.

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This two part series gives your school an advantage through the power of Search Engine Optimization, resulting in more relevant traffic to your web site. Part one of the series covered the importance of good SEO, along with some ideas regarding search friendly website design. Part two includes tips, tools, and techniques for better keyword choice and placement, as well as link building strategies.

Keywords

Keywords provide search engines with an idea of what your site is about, and search engines search for the most relevant sites under any given keyword. You can optimize your site by choosing the most appropriate keywords and providing meaningful content regarding those keywords. This is where your school can gain an advantage over competing schools. The keywords you choose to optimize should be those that parents use most often when searching for a school for their children.

3 Tips for Choosing the Right Keywords

• Find keywords that are used frequently by people searching for information on schools but are not included in competing school’s websites, and optimize your site for some of those keywords. Many school websites are optimized for very general terms such as “Athletics.” While this may describe navigation within that certain site very well, parents are more likely to type in a keyword such as “youth basketball.”

• Find the most popular common keywords that most schools use and optimize your site for those keywords better then they can. This is equally as important as the above technique, but will prove to be more of a challenge.

• Incorporate some variations of a few of your common keywords. These might include misspellings, plurals, synonyms, and local place names or idioms.

Deciding on the right keywords to optimize is probably the most challenging, but also highly rewarding (traffic wise) SEO activity a school can engage in. Luckily there are some tools and techniques that can help you accomplish this.

5 Keyword Tools and Techniques

• Word Tracker is an online tool that tells exactly how many people are searching for any given keyword each month.

• Nichebot.com offers a number of keyword tools including a keyword list cleaner.

• Yahoo and Google both offer keyword tools.

• Determine what sites use your selected keywords in their title by searching intitle:keyword. Then find what sites use your keyword within their body text by searching intext:keyword. (Of course, you’ll want to replace “keyword” in this example with your keyword. Don’t add any extra spaces, or the search won’t work.)

• Review your website referral logs for commonly used keywords. After building a decent list, incorporate some of the keywords into your website using the tips outlined below, and then monitor results. Keyword selection is an ongoing process and requires significant trial and error. There is always something you can change to yield a better ranking.

5 Tips for Better Keyword Placement

Choosing the right keywords is only the first step to keyword optimization. Strategic placement of keywords within a website is equally important.

• The title tag of a website is the best place to put top keywords. Make sure that the title for each page in the site does a good job of targeting the keywords you chose in the above steps, while still effectively describing the actual content on each page.

• Incorporate the rest of your important keywords into the headline.

• Keywords in the body text should focus on 2-3 specific keywords per page.

• Meta tags are bits of data embedded in HTML code that provide information on any given web page. Meta tags should target prospective students, be individualized, and be placed on each page of the site. Doing this will increase the chance that a random web surfer will stumble upon your site while searching for information topically related to the content on any given page within the site.

• Place keywords toward the top of the page rather than further down.

Finally, don’t overdo it! If you use any given keyword too often in your text or your meta tags, Google may get suspicious. Your keywords should appear organic to the writing.

Links, Links, and More Links

Persuading other highly ranked, relevant, and related sites to link to your site is critical to making your page rank highly among search engines. There is no shortcut to achieving this type of linking structure. It simply takes a significant amount of effort. The good news is

you probably have a lot of entities willing to link to your site already. The following are the different type of links and linking strategies.

• Inbound Links – Start by contacting web-savvy groups or individuals affiliated with your school and ask if they want to place a link on their site that directs web surfers back to yours. This type of link is called an inbound link. For more inbound link ideas, check out other school’s websites and see who is linked to them. Achieving a linking structure that appears natural to search engines will help achieve greater results. Getting highly ranked, topically relevant pages to link to your site is ideal. But, if links are obtained from sites not boasting these characteristics, it is likely to only help and not hurt your rankings. In general, the more inbound links you can obtain the better.

• Reciprocal Linking – Some entities may only want to trade links. This is called reciprocal linking. Establishing a reciprocal link entails placing a link on your site directing visitors to another site in exchange for that site providing a link on their site back to yours. Search engines do not value reciprocal links very highly, but a few reciprocal links are not bad; they will help achieve a more natural looking link structure. This idea also holds true with lower ranking sites. While you don’t want to have a lot of low ranking site links, a few will usually provide a slight boost in your website’s rankings, and also help achieve a more natural appearing link structure.

• Anchor Text – Another factor that is pivotal to achieving a natural linking structure is establishing varied, keyword rich anchor text for each link obtained. Anchor text is the text displayed in the link on another page linking back to yours. If websites linking to your site are willing to accept suggestions for the anchor text, make sure each one is varied and include common keywords.

• Website Content - One of the best ways to generate inbound links is to incorporate valuable content into your webpage. Other websites will be more likely to link to your site if you provide content useful to them or their visitors. Hosting a blog or forum is a great way to do this. It should not be hard to find parents or faculty members to contribute valuable information to your blog. For information on how to optimize your blog for search engines look at ProBlogger.net. For more information on creating valuable blog content, visit buildabetterblog.com.

Similarly, hosting a forum is useful for site visitors, students, and faculty alike. It encourages personal communication and an exchange of ideas. Monitor your forums to stay in touch with your audience, and to understand what topics appeal to them. Craft new content accordingly.

Another great option is to post Podcasts or Video Feeds on your site. If faculty member or credible guest speaker hosts an interesting lecture, post it as a video or Podcast. Any of the above options present good alternatives for creating valuable content on your web page, a characteristic that attracts inbound links.

SEO is one of the easiest ways for a school to establish a sustainable competitive advantage online. The payoff from focusing funds toward SEO is greater than traditional marketing efforts. Effectively planning and implementation of the above components will certainly end in pleasing results.

For information on the importance of good SEO, as well as search friendly website design read, “Guide to Improved Search Engine Optimization for School Websites: Part 1.”
 

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