SOR 018: Stages of the Entertainment Marketing Mindset

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When you are producing a show, it can feel like there’s an enormous about of work to do. There’s just so much to try to get your arms around. Marketing might be the last thing you want to worry about, but I contend that a huge key to the success of your promotions is how you approach marketing in general. How do you feel about marketing your shows?

In this episode I talk about 5 stages of the marketing mindset and how to move through them. You can move from hoping that if you build it they will come to creating promotions that are enjoyable and effective. I know. Crazy, right? Listen on.

We’ve all heard of the acts that seem to experience overnight successes. It happens in every industry, and those stories often gloss over the fact that those acts spent years (if not decades) laying the groundwork to get where they are today. The theatre companies that seem to effortlessly sell out every show, appear that way because they’ve invested their resources in moving through these stages to reach a point where their marketing is part of the entertainment experience.

In this episode:

• 5 stages of the marketing mindset – ignorance, denial, resentment, resignation, integration
• tips for moving through each stage – some key tactics to help you climb through the stages
• standardizing your marketing process – the initial babysteps that will help you create a repeatable process that gives you a foundation for your marketing activities on each show
• where the director fits in to your marketing – the director plays an incredibly key role in your marketing, but if you plan it right it will take up almost none of his or her time
• why entertainers make the best marketers – spoiler: marketing is entertainment

Items mentioned:

• Liz Femi took my marketing kit out for a test drive and wrote a blog post before her show opened and another after it closed
• Your Editorial Calendar: the Linchpin of Promoting a Show – an early blog post that gives a top level view of why and how to create a calendar for your marketing activity
• SOR 016: How To Delegate Theatre Marketing Tasks  – previous episode where I talk about how to (successfully) delegate tasks to recapture your time
• Facebook question about comparing your show to other well-known productions in your marketing

Have a question?

Have a marketing question (or comment) that you’d like to hear my thoughts on? Leave me a voicemail.

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