SOR 60: Curtis Shepard On His Experience Finding an Audience As a Stranger In Town

A mutual friend introduced me to Curtis Shepard, and I’m very glad she did. Fringe festivals area a hectic time, and without that introduction I might not have made it out to see Curtis’s show Unmasked. (That’s marketing lesson #1.)
Curtis is a thoughful, articulate guy who doesn’t have a big marketing machine behind him. That makes him a fantastic candidate to bring on the podcast and talk about how he approaches promoting a show in a town where no one knows his name.
In this episode:
- promoting a debut – it’s a good idea to debut a new show somewhere you do have a following so you can establish some early success to build on
- pick up the phone – if you have a list of specific people and groups you think would love this show, why wouldn’t you reach out to them directly?
- your focus when you talk to people – there’s a subtle difference between asking people to spend money on your show and asking them to come see your show; people notice what your focus is
- get by with a little help from your friends – you don’t need to be a marketing rockstar yourself if you have friends who are willing to champion your show
Items mentioned:
- Curtis on Facebook – Curtis takes the unmasked idea very seriously and invites you to interact with him on a personal level – not just as a brand entity
Sharing your opinion helps me out a lot
An important part of being discovered by new listeners on iTunes – far and away the most pervasive podcast directory – is ratings and reviews from existing listeners like you. If you have found value in this podcast, it would mean a lot to me if you could bounce over to iTunes and give this podcast a rating (1-5 stars). It’s incredibly easy:
- Go to the Sold Out Run page in iTunes.
- Click the number of stars you think this podcast deserves.
Thanks to Curtis for taking the time to share his experiences with promoting an out-of-town show, and thanks to you guys for downloading and listening.
Discussion
Great person to Spotlight… when you don’t have the machine.. you have to be like MacGyver and invent a solution. A Grass root Marketing machine at its finest.