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 It’s
astonishing how bad a lot of theatre marketing is. We’ve had
years to get it right and there is no lack of knowledge available
on how to market the arts well. Yet, from an industry whose
lifeblood is attracting audiences, we get print, websites,
advertisements and direct mail that seem to go out of their way to
avoid selling tickets.
Some examples. Let’s click on to the website of one of
our top producers. It begins with an all-music all-moving-images
intro that, even with broadband, takes a quarter of a minute to
load before you can move on. When research shows that most website
visitors won’t wait two seconds on a site, why frustrate them?
Then, to add to the visitor’s annoyance and confusion, each show
opens up on a separate screen. The rules of good websites are very
well known (see ten of them at www.thelewisexperience.co.uk)
and the number one rule is ‘Keep It Simple’.
Furthermore, there’s no invitation for feedback from the
audience. In these days of social networks and
consumer-generated-content, websites offer a perfect opportunity
to build loyalty and find out about your audience at the same
time.
Let’s turn to the latest season brochure from a leading
regional theatre. Would you pick it up? The cover does a good job
at promoting their Christmas show, which is fine unless you’re
not interested in seasonal fun. The problem is that there is no
mention in the top half of the cover of other attractions. It’s
sad but true that sometimes one’s pride and joy is behind
something else in the display rack, in which case anything lower
down is hidden. The back cover commits the cardinal sin of not
having the venue name at the top. Do they think print never gets
displayed
back
to front?
Open it up and the brochure’s print is too wordy and too
small for the older readers that comprise a significant proportion
of the theatre audience. The ‘hot spot’ of the inside back
cover is wasted on customer information rather than selling a
show.
Here are some questions about advertising copy.
Is every show really a ‘smash hit’? Perhaps lazy
writers could stop reaching for the nearest cliché and actually
come up with a description that makes an emotional connection with
the reader. Why does every noun have to be preceded by an
adjective? The law of diminishing returns doesn’t make
exceptions for copy.
And what’s with all those quotes? The potential audience
isn’t stupid- they know the lavish praise could have been taken
out of context- even if it wasn’t! In any case the review was by
someone they’ve never heard of in a paper they’ve no respect
for, or else they would probably have seen it already. Don’t
waste the space. Speaking of which, who cares who designed the
lighting, apart from the lighting designer’s mother?
I’m not talking about some eighth level of marketing
enlightenment. Most of what I’ve highlighted
fails at the first step in good marketing, namely: ‘Look at it
from the customer’s point of view’. So, what is the reason for
neglecting basic rules, Ignorance, arrogance, lack of money? I
suspect all three. Many theatres and producers are typical small
businesses whose most successful
product is the false economy. Consequently they get people who
don’t know how to market effectively but, worse, think they do.
I say, invest in better marketing and you’ll have a
‘smash hit’ on your hands.
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