Creating a Snowball Effect With Your Personal Brand
Wouldn’t it be great if every time you needed to promote a show it got easier? I’m not talking about the process seeming easier because you have a little more experience under your belt. I mean imagine what it would be like if the measurable effort that went into each show was less. The more shows you did, the faster things got easier.
This is exactly why marketing professionals (in the arts and anywhere else) talk about developing your personal brand. You may not be Neil Patrick Harris, but you certainly have a small group of fans. Maybe they aren’t fans who would fly across the country to see your show, but they would pony up the price of a ticket just because your name is attached to the project.
Your goals with personal branding should be:
- Keep these people informed about your projects
- Grow this group
1. Keep them informed
Technology is incredibly helpful here. Between Facebook, Twitter, email mailing lists, and blogs there is no excuse for not telling your fans about the shows you’re working on. None.
You don’t even need to use all of those channels. Pick one and train your audience to look there for updates. An email list is going to allow you to talk to the largest group of people (especially if your audience is not filled with technophiles), but Facebook and Twitter are the easiest to setup and use. A blog falls somewhere in the middle.
2. Grow them
Once you have picked the channels you are using, you want to connect with more people there. When someone tells you they enjoyed the production, tell them how easy it is to hear about future projects you’re working on by liking you on Facebook. When you give interviews or get any kind of press coverage, make sure there’s a link for people to follow you on Twitter or subscribe to your email list.
The snowball
As your list gets progressively bigger, you bring a larger number of “easy” ticket sales to each production. Just send out information about the show, and your fan base is happy to know how they can see more of your work.
It’s worth mentioning that you shouldn’t focus exclusively on the total number of people you connect with. Ultimately you want fans that are very into what you do. I’d rather have a small list of dedicated fans where many of the people buy tickets to my shows than an enormous list of casual fans that like to hear what I’m up to without ever coming to see it.