Birds of a Feather

While we are still relishing the joys of summer and before the birds depart for warmer climes (if you live in the north, as I do), this is a good time to prepare strategies for attracting new audience members to your performances.
We all know that word of mouth is, and always has been, the greatest resource for attracting people to attend shows, so it is in our best interest to capitalize on the “birds of a feather” principle: that people who attend your shows are highly likely to know others who would enjoy them also.
Asking patrons to encourage others to attend your shows is a long-standing common practice. However, many of the efforts I have seen are lacking in two main regards.
1. Marketers send emails to people who have seen a show asking the patron to tell their family and friends about it. The problem here is that most people have difficulty putting into words what made the show special and worth seeing for them. Yet, marketers and artistic personnel are experts at crafting copy about their shows. So send patrons messages that will bring alive the experience in exciting and meaningful ways. Include brief but intriguing stories about the performers, the playwright or composer or choreographer, about the set design, and so on. In other words, help people to tell the story of what they loved about the show and enhance that with enriching details.
2. All too often, I have seen organizations offer $5 off the price of a ticket to anyone who is recommended by a friend who has seen the show. I see this as a negative tactic, for multiple reasons. A savings of $5 is not enough to stimulate someone to buy a ticket they would not have bought otherwise. Even though this is a small amount of money, it sounds like an act of desperation: “We’ll do anything, almost anything, to get more people in the door.” The real problem here is in focusing the conversation on price. Offering discounts has become an all too common and actually a very lazy way for marketers to alert people to the value of the live performing arts experience.

What people really care about is value, not price. If people are motivated to buy tickets, they will certainly take advantage of a $5 discount, but the value of the experience will be reduced in their minds. We need to do a better job of communicating the true value of the art, the experience, the uniqueness, the live event. We need to stop talking in jargon that means nothing to most patrons. I have seen an organization promote an upcoming show as “Midwest Premiere!”  (Who, outside the industry, cares about this?) “Rising star” is overused and basically meaningless. Explain what makes this performer special. And so on.

Spend some of the remaining quiet summer hours creating engaging messages that will bring alive the attendance experience for your potential attenders. Then watch this strategy help populate your nest.