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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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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            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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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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If you’ve been searching for modern ways to market your theater online, or if you read our last newsletter, you’re well aware that the new face of live theater is online. It’s all well and good for us to tell you that you can connect with patrons new and old through blogging, podcasts, and social networking, but you want to know how it’s done! Here are six theaters that are doing it right.

The Magic Theatre in San Francisco generates buzz about upcoming productions and keeps patrons involved in the theater’s day to day workings with their own blog. Plenty of photographs and upbeat writing inform readers about behind-the-scenes work. Follow this blog and learn how they create props and special effects, what different theater employees actually do all day, and everything you need to know about upcoming productions! The Magic Theater stays current with their own Facebook page (570 fans as of this writing) and other social networking pages, as well as a YouTube channel, where you can view a trailer for an upcoming performance, an interview with the playwright, and a behind-the-scenes video.

• Blog: www.magictheatre.org/about/blog
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Magic-Theatre/60729877957
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/magict

You can do more than buy tickets and check out a calendar of upcoming performances on Court Theatre at University of Chicago’s website. Their page also links to their blog, with news about their company and theater in general, and to a page of podcasts. So far, they have links to two interviews with different directors, great content for theater aficionados.

• Website: www.courttheatre.org/
• Podcast: www.courttheatre.org/podcast/
• Blog: www.courttheatre.org/blog/

The wildly irreverent Firesign Theatre has been around since the 1960s. Originally broadcasting live on the radio, the troupe has become a counter-culture classic and their work remains vital and relevant today. Not only can you download lots of old routines, saved as podcast files, from their website, the troupe is using the Internet to reach out in the other direction. In preparation for an upcoming retrospective, they are asking fans with high quality audio and video clips of their work to submit these clips back to the Firesign Theatre website!

• Website: www.firesigntheatre.com/funway.html
• Podcasts: http://www.firesigntheatre.com/podcasting/indexx.html

Orpheum Theatre in LA really has created a vibrant online community through the use of social networking. Their FaceBook page includes glowing feedback from patrons, links to reviews of their shows, information about prize draws to win tickets to upcoming performances, and even reminders that fans are invited to come take a backstage tour of the theater when there is no scheduled performance. This theater also keeps in touch through the use of a Twitter Feed.

• Website: www.laorpheum.com
• FaceBook: www.facebook.com/pages/Los-Angeles/THE-ORPHEUM-THEATER/198571464136

The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts really knows how to take advantage of online traffic. Their website links to the box office, a donations page, a calendar, their performing arts school, other programs, and even provides weather updates, so theater-goers can dress and travel accordingly! In addition, they maintain a Blogger blog with reports on great performances, news about upcoming shows, and personal musings from the theater correspondent. You can also follow this theater on FaceBook and Twitter.

• Website: www.mayoarts.org
• Blog: www.themayocenter.blogspot.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Community-Theatre/96048890918

The Irish Reparatory Theatre is dedicated to the production of plays by Irish and Irish-American playwrights.  This theatre has been very successful in their use of Facebook, with almost 1000 fans, links to news, reviews, videos, and even a call for donations to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake. Their website also offers patrons the option of signing up for email newsletters delivered right to their inbox. They just make it easy for fans to learn more.

• Website: www.irishrep.org/
• Facebook: www.www.facebook.com/pages/The-Irish-Reparatory-Theatre/41032870344

So don’t fear the Internet, social networking, podcasts, or blogs! Keep your theater up-to-date with modern marketing techniques online.

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You’re working hard to spread the word about your sound, but are you working smart? When you need to increase your fan base and amp up the loyalty of those adoring hordes, you’ve got to keep the linesof communication open. If you want your fans to be true fanatics, show them the love with email newsletters that tell them what they want to know and offer them a little extra for their loyalty. You need to stay connected with the perfect fan club newsletter.

1. Shake it up! How do you get people to pay attention to you? You need to strike just the right chord if you’re going to appeal to potential readers. Try:

• Using unusual subject lines. Uninspiring titles like “Weekly Newsletter” fail to spark anyone’s interest. Choose a subject title that arouses their interest and makes them want to read more.

• Personalizing your content. It’s easy enough to add the individual subscriber’s name, rather than beginning with a generic greeting, so your fans feel important and included. Remember, they want to hear about you, not just your merchandise. Don’t be afraid to share some personal details (as far as you are comfortable with this) and insider information about the band. Fan loyalty increases when fans feel personally connected to you.

• Providing Fitting Links. Just as your articles should be targeted toward your customers’ personalities, so should your links. You might want to link to other music related websites, or to blogs and websites you love. Again, your newsletter is a place to share what’s on your mind.

• Advertising. No one subscribes to a newsletter whose existence they haven’t noticed. Make sure to include subscription information on your blog, website, and any tickets you order from TicketPrinting.com for your upcoming show. You can even choose inexpensive posters to advertise your band and your newsletter. The more fans hear about your newsletter, the more enticing it becomes and the more your fan base will increase.

2. Smooth it out! In addition to exciting content, your newsletter should have an attractive and easy-to-browse layout. Generate the perfect layout by:

• Finding the perfect design. Your newsletter layout should reflect you. Find colors that summon your style, or mimic the band’s logo. Make sure the text is still readable, and doesn’t get lost in your scheme. It may take several revisions, but finding the right formatting is essential. Don’t overdo it. Too many images, videos, and bright colors can overwhelm rather than attract the reader.

• Choosing a consistent publication time. Get your fans used to a newsletter delivered at the same day and time every week or month, so they start anticipating its arrival. EmailLabs reports the best days to send emails are Tuesday and Wednesday in the morning, when people regularly check their email. After you pick a time, stick with it. When they’re looking forward to hearing from you, you won’t want to let them down.

• Proofreading. Check for misspellings and layout errors. Be certain that your newsletter says exactly what you want it to say. Remember that your layout may change depending on your customers’ servers. Enlist some friends to receive early versions, or set up multiple accounts at popular servers such as AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, and Google, and double-check that your layout is delivered as expected.

• Telling a friend. Word of mouth marketing is the most effective way to promote yourself and your music. Add a “Tell a Friend” button to allow fans to easily send the newsletter to their friends. Need more buzz? Add a promotion that people can’t help but talk about, such as a drawing for special VIP passes to your next event. Fans will start spreading the word about your inviting content, along with the advantages of receiving your newsletter.

3. Break it down! Tracking your statistics can help ensure your music newsletter efforts pay off. If any of the statistics aren’t what you expected, ask yourself these questions:

• Does your newsletter stand out from the crowd?
• Do your fans know how to access your newsletter?
• Why is your newsletter not valuable to your fans?
• Do you need more specific or personal content?

If you don’t know the answer, ask the people who do know: your target audience. Make changes accordingly, and give your fans what they want. Address your deficits so your newsletter is attractive and tempting to readers. Marketing your band is not a one-step process. Email newsletters d o require a fair amount of attention to detail on a regular basis, but they are crucial to maintaining a growing, loyal, and excited fan base. Once your newsletter finds its audience, increase its appeal with exclusive offers available only to fans with subscriptions. You can pre-sell tickets, offer merchandise discounts, or give away passes to your next event. And don’t forget that TicketPrinting.com is an easy way to order your tickets, coupons, gift certificates, VIP passes, and more!

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This two part series shows schools how to gain the advantage of a technique used by many online marketers called Search Engine Optimization.  SEO is the practice of designing a website to include popular keywords and strategic linking structure in order to achieve a high ranking in search engine results, and drive traffic to a site.  Part one of the series will cover the importance of good SEO, as well as some search friendly website design tips.  Part two will include some tips, tools, and techniques for better keyword choice and placement, as well as link building strategies.

5 Reasons Schools Should Invest in SEO

1. The internet is now the leading form of communication.
2. Parents and youth trust the web as an immediate and relevant resource.  Most people look to the web when seeking out any form of information.
3. The internet opens parents up to many more options when considering schools, they expect more, and are harder to convince.
4. With more options available to them, parents are also more selective of where their limited funds go; they want to know how you can maximize their child’s potential.
5. Investing in search engine optimization is the most efficient and effective way to drive parents and potential students to your site and boost enrollment.

You may have a great web page but it doesn’t serve a point if no one is able to find it. Even if your school already has considerable traffic there may be a way to gain even higher online visibility. The following techniques are an inexpensive way to gain a significant advantage over larger, well-funded schools.  In general SEO has three main components: search friendly web site design, keyword selection and placement, and link building.

Website Design

One of the most challenging aspects of SEO is finding a balance between including valuable and visually appealing content that keeps visitors engaged, and successful search engine optimization.

3 Quick SEO Friendly Web Site Design Tips

1. Limit Rich Media Content – While rich media content may be visually attractive to visitors it should be used with caution. Search engines work best with text and it is often difficult for them to effectively crawl frames and java content.  This makes it much more difficult to achieve a high ranking among search engines.  If it does not directly promote the benefits of your school it is a good idea to leave it out.  You must also consider that many visitors have a slow internet connection and will become frustrated while waiting for pages to load.  The tradeoff is ultimately up to you. The good news is that this technology is constantly improving as search engines become better at identifying information embedded in flash and java content.  There are ways flash content can be optimized for search, and a larger percentage of the population continues to obtain high speed internet connections. As a general rule it is best to stay knowledgeable of advancements and to balance new advances with traditional, proven, techniques.  It won’t be long before your school’s website can have the best of both worlds.
2. Use Sitemaps – Each page you build should link back to the site map, in addition to the homepage.  This makes it much easier for search engines to find all pages on your site and index them regularly.  If your site includes more than 100 pages than you should create additional site maps that all link to a master site map.  A link to the master site map should be located on each page of your website.
3. Use Silos – School websites tend to host pages with many different themes, such as, sports, student activities, teacher pages, etc; this has the potential to confuse search engines. A silo creates a directory that is connected to your general site concept (your school) but is also isolated around a theme (sports, drama).

Example:
Yourschool.com/sports/football.html
Yourschool.com/sports /volleyball.html
Yourschool.com/sports /soccer.html
Yourschool.com/sports /wrestling.html

Doing this will increase the chances that your site will be ranked for general keywords (schools) but it will also be ranked for more specific keywords (high school football teams). A good place for more information on creating silos would be Bruceclay.com. Ready for more? Check out Part II of this article!

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The internet is a very effective marketing tool, but you have to make sure to utilize it properly to get the best response. By creating an appealing website that attracts both fans and possible attendees you will see a large increase in the viewers at your productions. With these 4 basic steps to promoting your theater online you will be on your way to a much bigger audience and satisfied cast.

I. Promotion

• Find theater bloggers and other promoters in your area. Offer them free tickets to productions to get them in the theater and reviewing the performances online. When they write reviews, create a link to their blogs so other people can see from an outside source how great your theater is.

• As soon as you get a list of bloggers in your area, start commenting on their blogs. Even if they are not writing about your theater, this will help you get your name out there. Always provide a link with each comment that leads readers back to your website. But remember, no one likes to hear unproductive information, so make sure your comments are useful.

• Sell merchandise on your website! This is a great way to let the fans of performances promote the theater for you. Creating t-shirts and other merchandise is one of the most profitable ways to market your theater.

• Link your theater’s home page to its MySpace page (or other networking page) and vice versa. This cross promotion will allow an easy flow of traffic between all sites and allows viewers to quickly find more information. Mention your website in your blogs and press releases.

• Market your website off-line too! Have your website listed on programs at performances, playbills, and announce it at shows during the curtain speech. Tell the audience what you have to offer (discounts, merchandise, behind the scenes action) and they will want to check it out.

II. Show Character!

• Literally, make a section for the characters in upcoming events! This allows fans a smidgen of information leading up to the show, sort of like a preview to a movie.

• Also, have a segment explicitly for the performers. This should be a biography including age, where they’re from, and their ideal roll. Even ask some bizarre questions, like “If you had to be any flavor of ice cream, what one would it be”. This allows them to show their personality and can make for some good laughs.

• The best way to provide an inside look on current and upcoming performers is to take pictures and videos of everything! Post all intriguing material on the website. Include rehearsals and cast parties along with the actual performances. This lets fans get the inside scoop of what theater is really like. Creating this bond between the performer and the viewer will make the audience feel more connected to the show, and will keep them coming back for future performances.

• Be creative! Make the website entertaining and interactive. The Altar Boyz have a website which includes a specialized video game along with an “Audience Confessions” section where fans can post any statement onto the site. Some other ideas may be individualized quizzes, blogs, and audio clips (especially if you are promoting a musical).

III. Create a Community

• To make it easy for fans to know about the updates on your website, have them sign up for email newsletters or an RSS feed. These will inform the subscriber of any new content that was added to the site, so they don’t have to manually check back for updates. The subscription or sign-up process should be as easy as possible, making it only one or two clicks away!

• Creating a chat room or forum page on your site is a must. Forums allow fans to have a common place to discuss various theater productions. Be sure to have these pages focused around the audience rather than the theater itself. This will make the fans come back regularly. To get some conversations going, add an “After Performance Thoughts” forum. This way, audience members who have just seen the show can tell others their thoughts and recommend it to others. A good forum will promote itself and in turn, promote the theater.

• Let fans become part of the theater community. Make it a club, where they can receive emails, newsletters, discounts on tickets, and special deals just for being members. Allow people to enter to win prizes (maybe an autograph from their favorite performer, or free tickets). Remember to make the sign-up process as simple as possible.

• Allow people to buy tickets from your site, or at least reserve tickets. This makes the buying processes easier for the viewers, and increases the traffic to your site. It also can allow you to get email addresses that you can utilize for your email newsletters.

• Let people contact you! Set up an email address solely for the theater in highly visible areas on your website. List the address in so that people can read but it spamming software cannot, such as theater(at)website(dot)com. Make sure to respond to any inquiries in a timely manner.

IV. Track

• Record traffic, discussions, and sales on your site. This will help gauge what performances were most appealing to customers and can give you ideas for future shows, blog discussions and promotions.

With these four tips and tricks for online promotion, your theater should be showing at full capacity in no time. For more ideas and expanding thoughts of these basic steps, visit other theater sites to see how they put them into action.

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Social networking is a fun and exciting way to gain contacts and increase recognition for your theater. There are many networking sites to work with, each of which should be used for different purposes. Before we begin discussing the top networking sites, there are some basic techniques you should apply when socializing on the internet.

• Be yourself: Show your (or the characters’) personality. Make your page unique to your persona.  The more someone can relate to you the more likely they will be interested in the theater.

• Cross link: Create a link from your website to your social networking sites and vise versa.  If you have more than one networking site, link those together too.

• Join Groups: Join as many relevant groups as you can. This will help get your name out there.

• Find Friends: But, don’t add everybody!  Only keep the ones that are related.  Other theaters, fans, and connected characters are great.

• TALK! Get your name out there by leaving purposeful and genuine comments on other profiles and blogs whenever possible. Aways respond back in a timely manner.

Now that you have the basics in socializing skills, let’s take a look at these sites to determine how to use them to their fullest abilities.

theatre-communications-group1

This not-for-profit group “Increases the organizational efficiency of member theatres”.  The site is dedicated to the more professional side of theater.  They offer many benefits including:

• Grants for theaters, directors, writers, and actors every year.

• Professional development programs for management, as well as career workshops for artists.

• Advocacy guides to allow the most recent information of “federal legislation regulations and other significant government opportunities and issues” that deal with the theater industry.

• Job postings where theaters can advertise openings for various positions.

• Publications in the American Theatre magazine where many articles and advertisements for individual theaters can be promoted.

linkedin1

This professional networking site facilitates interaction within industries.  Here, your theater can search for cast members, stay in touch with other industry professionals, and:

• Research job applicants and get “recommendations” from past employers, colleges, and interviewers.

• Cross reference your web site onto LinkedIn so other members can view important information like performance and casting call dates.

ning2

Ning has custom social networks for nearly any topic, and almost 100 networks for theater related groups.  Here you can create your own network and join many others.

• When you have a custom network you can add videos, pictures, blogs, and forums for members of your network to comment on.

• Place your own advertisements on your page. This is a cheep ($20/month) way to promote upcoming events that many members will see.

youtube-and-flickr2

These sites are ideal to promote your theaters performances through videos and pictures.  If you have an extremely good video, it will gain quick popularity or become viral.  This in turn will promote your theater.

• Also consider submitting material to other social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, and Del.ico.us to get your name out in the digital world.  Consider a video blog or podcast at these sites. Include behind the scenes material. Give viewers a taste of what it is like to be a part of the theater production.

• At the end of your videos/albums make sure to give them information on how to get tickets and more information (most likely linking them back to your website).

facebook-myspace1

These networking sites are less formal and are open to everyone. A great way to promote your theater and its well-known productions is to make a networking profile for the characters as well as the theater itself. These two sites are great for promotion because they can really let your personality shine Consider using these sites for your popular characters too. Here are some techniques for individualizing your pages:

• Add a backgroundthat relates to the profile you are promoting. Have a picture of the character for their profile picture if you are on the character’s page, and of the theater, or its logo, on your theater’s page.
• Remember to cross reference! Link your website to your MySpace and vise versa. Some other add-ins can be photo albums, blogs, notes, quizzes (for the character’s page) and personalized layouts. Definitely write a blog for your theater’s page. A good blog will create interesting conversation and do it’s own advertising for the theater. The more interactive the better!

• Add music and videos. These clips will serve as a preview for performances, intriguing the listener to come to your theater to see the rest of the show. They can be easily embedded into your page through MySpace with MySpace TV or YouTube. There are many applications for Facebook, like YouTube Video Box, AdGabber, and iLike.

• Use a calendar. This updates everyone on performance dates and other fundraisers or parties. MySpace comes with a calendar application and Facebook has many you can use, such as Jotlet or My Google Calendar

• Join groups, or create your own. This will allow people in your local area to join and discuss various theater topics.

This is an ideal social network for any character or cast member who has a blog to join because it allows a person to share what they are doing and see what other people are doing at any moment through cell phones, blogs, and instant messaging.

• Update your account through your cell phone. Here you can tell your friends what you are doing through your phone and receive updates about your friends instantly.
• Provide a link of your Twitter blog to you other networking sites. Because Twitter uses widgets , it will allow all your other pages that allow widgets to be updated simultaneously.
• This is an ideal social network for any character or cast member who has a blog to join because it allows a person to share what they are doing and see what other people are doing at any moment through cell phones, blogs, and instant messaging.
• Update your account through your cell phone. Here you can tell your friends what you are doing through your phone and receive updates about your friends instantly.
• Provide a link of your Twitter blog to you other networking sites. Because Twitter uses widgets, it will allow all your other pages that allow widgets to be updated simultaneously.

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