What Does a Local Business Partnership Look Like?

Forming a partnership with a local business can give your show a lot of exposure. There’s no exact specification for how these partnerships need to be structured. You might be trading promotional consideration, communication channels, or cold hard cash. As long as it’s a win-win for both you and the business, you’re only bound by your own creativity.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about local partnerships at Sold Out Run, but I started thinking about this topic again as a reaction to a tidy, little promotion I saw from a local Indy theatre.

I haven’t seen this show, but I know just a little about it. I suppose noodles could play a role in the story, but I’m not expecting it – and I don’t think this promotion depends on it. In fact maybe that’s what makes this particular marketing tactic worth talking about.

Here’s the gist

For one day only (in this case the Thursday before the show opens) when you mention the theatre company before completing your order at one particular location of Noodles & Company, 25% of the purchase price is donated to offset production costs for this show. The promo doesn’t stop there, though. If you bring your food receipt with you, it’s good for 10% off your ticket price at the door.

There’s no system in place to allow the 10% discount if you order your tickets online (which could be a concern as a NoExit show could easily sell out), but this is still a cool way to turn the promotion into a two-way street.

What’s most encouraging: this restaurant is part of a franchise chain, organizations that typically have a standardized and thoroughly documented process for everything. Demonstrably there is a system in place that allows them to engage with a local theatre company and make a promotion like this happen.

I think these types of partnerships have been explored a lot in recent years by schools in particular, but I have not seen it used before by performance groups (at least in Indy). What about your town?

Bonus points

I also want to mention one of the things I really liked about this promotion that I would have loved to have seen publicized more. The director of the show is going to be at the location for at least part of the day. He invited people over social media to come and ask questions about the show.

In my opinion that’s a compelling draw that might have convinced even more people to stop by Noodles & Co. for lunch.