HOW CAN WE INCREASE AWARENESS AND ATTENDANCE?

[Wesley]

Notice how the caps in the title indicate the importance of the question.

How can we increase awareness and attendance?

Here are some things we've tried and the results:
--Flyering: We have been flyering to some degree for at least 6 months and while we may have seen a small bump, it has not produced dramatic or consistent results.
--Free Tickets: The free tickets have not really started coming back that I'm aware of, and if they have, I do not believe the box office has been asking where the person got them which weakens the initiative greatly. This is a little perplexing as we've given out several hundred by this point.
--Tee Shirts: Great for improvisers, but we haven't tried to sell any to the public. The difference between us and bands is that bands try to get their fans to wear the t-shirts.
--Chronicle Listings: This has been a big help and when we get photos it is doubly helpful. I'd wager most people that haven't been before hear about the shows via the Chronicle, however, it still doesn't fill the house. How can we consistently get more prominent listings?
--Other listings and ads: The travesty ad we aren't really thinking will pay off until the fall anyway, but previous initiatives have advertsied in various ways, including the Travesty and online blogs like the Austinist. Still, these shows don't often fill.


Even successful shows, like Maestro, have seen dips lately. Some of that is probably due to summer and the lack of students. But still, there are 656,000 people in the city limits and as many more besides in the outlying suburbs ("greater Austin" is at about 1.5 mil). With that many people we shouldn't have to depend on students to fill 50 little seats and we shouldn't use their absence as an excuse for our half-filled venues.

So, what do we do about it?

How do we:
--make people aware that Austin improv exists?
--make them aware of how many shows we have?
--make them desire to come see a show?
--make them desire to come back and see more shows?
--get them to tell their friends about it?
--get them to come to shows beyond the show they are comfortable with (a lot of people come to see and enjoy Maestro, but do they come back for Cage Matches and 3fers)?
--get more people to sign up for classes and join our community?

I'm of the opinion that we have a lot of talented, dedicated, hard-working people in our community, that we have a prime location and generally decent venue, and that we have a product people want (they just don't know they want it yet). But we are missing something. Some magical elixer that sets us apart, builds us a strong fanbase, and gets people coming back time and time again.

I believe that we are primed to grow, to explode, but that we can't keep relying on other improvisers and friends as our audience. Nor do I want to rely on that. Begging friends to come fill up an audience week after week is pathetic and I don't want to feel as an improviser that if I don't go watch a show it won't have audience. Again, with 1.5 million people out there, being watched by my friends week after week is not success, it is a false security and pale imitation of what we should be doing.

I want us to bring in people, fresh people, strange people, new people. But how do we do this?

[vine311]

Marketing is a tricky business and it usually costs a lot of money to get your name in front of enough people.

One thing we could try is the motorblade service. http://www.motorblade.com/postering.htm This dude will travel all over town for us posting 8 1/2 x 11 posters for us.

We might also look into actually hiring a marketing firm to get us on the radio or TV. We may not have the budget for this but we might have people in the community that have connections. I've done some web work for these guys in the past but I have no idea what their pricing is like http://www.dn3austin.com/

The chronicle listings are great but I think we need more photos to go along with our listings. Maybe we could even spring for some ad space there as well.

I like the flyering idea but I think it only serves to remind people a bit that there are improvisers in this town. South Congress is flooded with people handing out flyers for all kinds of crap and I fear that our flyers are getting tossed in the garbage or on the street with the rest of the junk people get handed on any given First Thursday.

I too feel weird begging friends to come and see my show but they are actually a great marketing resource. Get your friends to tell their other friends about the shows.

T-shirts and schwag in general are a great idea but they require a bit of an investment to get enough stock to sell at shows. IFE uses http://www.spreadshirt.com to sell our stuff online. It's free and easy to set up. You can also place bulk orders online if you want to have shirts to sell at your shows. You can also print up your own designs at home with T-shirt iron-on-transfers. Hobby Lobby has great blank T-shirts very cheap most of the time.

Buttons are also pretty cool. I haven't used this site yet, but I'm going to very soon. I've heard good things... http://www.busybeaver.net

Maybe we should talk to the folks at Esther's/Velveeta and Cap City and see what they do for marketing. They might have some insight as to what works and what doesn't when it comes to marketing live comedy in Austin.

That's all I got for now, I'll edit this post later if I think of anything else.

[Evilpandabear]

crouch & i calculated that there's enough people involved in improv, that if everyone got 2 people to come to the hideout per week, we'd sell out every show.

the best form of advertising is word of mouth, and we do that by having kick ass shows time and time again.

perhaps we could have some heavily rehearsed shows planned for a weekend a month ahead, and heavily advertise it as a $1 show with free beer and the farewell show for some amazing troupe. tons of people will come and we'll have a great show for them, a party to follow it up, and bombard them with advertising. perhaps a once a month deal with the hideout? it creates a good atmosphere, and people talk about what an awesome time they had over the weekend.

[Evilpandabear]

and if someone asks you about your shirt for the love of god stop, give them your full attention and SELL them on how great austin improv is

[Wesley]

Motorblade is a good idea and has been brought up before, though we have yet to follow through on it. I'm still not sure how the price/result works out. You get 100 pieces place for $50 the first week, but then you keep paying $50 for fewer and fewer items each subsequent week?
Has anyone used them and was it worth it?

Hiring a marketer may be overkill right now, but yeah, I think we need something. And you're right, surely we know someone who could help us on the cheap. Whatever happened to John Moore (Brand Autopsy marketing)? Does he still come to the jams? Don't we have some GSD&M employees in our web? Do they want to (or have marketing friends that might want to) help?

As they say, you gotta spend money to make money. I'm definitely thinking ad space in the Chronicle in addition to listings. I'll try to inquire about rates for print and online. Where else should we advertise (wasn't some of the new budget going to go to advertising?) and what would be good online advertising spots? Austin360 for sure, I know back when we did the surveys there were a decent number of people who heard about us on there.

I think online shirts and stuff is fine and we should definitely keep that avenue, but I think most buys, especially at our stage of popularity mandate an on-hand stock. I'd wager twenty times as many people will see a good show, being on a laughing high and make an impluse buy right there at the box at $12 than will remember two days later to go online and order a shirt at $16 +shipping.

And I don't mean to diss friends as a resource, but having played a score of troupe shows (and many times more Maestros) in several different venues, I stopped wanting to ask friends to come after show 3. I think friends are a great starting point for first shows, special shows, new venues, etc, but I for one don't want to be asking the same people to come out to see their 8th 3fer starring my troupe in as many months. I'll mention it to them, I always love for them to come out, but I don't want to rely on them for an audience. Anyone can bring an audience of people that know them. How cool to show up to a full house that loved you and didn't know you (and will come back to see you again)?

We should definitely talk to other venues and shows and see how they do it. (I don't know that I've ever consciously seen an Esther's ad, but that large open window on 6th probably goes a LONG way toward their being full every show.)

I also want to break the traditional advertising with flyers and ads and find other outlets. Radio or television interviews. Shows at the Drafthouse. Maybe as Jay suggested, try a $1 show on Wednesday or at midnight. Do a show at Zilker and cook out for the people. Something beyond the traditional that people will remember. As Andy is always saying, it's about making that connection. How do we make a seemingly intimate connection with 500 or 1000 people at a time?

I'll say it again. 1.5 million possible patrons out there.

[beardedlamb]

i think one thing that will really help is accountability.
we need to hire someone for a very meager salary whose job is to make sure everyone else (who are essentially volunteers) is doing their jobs. i understand that we have some people in place to crack the whip but they've tried to keep on people with little result.
this person doesn't necessarily have to be an improviser. they just need to be someone who gets on people, isn't afraid to be the bad guy every once in a while and gets the job done him/herself if it isn't getting done.
ruling as a collective democracy, or whatever you would term it, and only meeting once a month is a risky way to run a business that has so many responsibilities.
as a collective, a lot of people say they will do something and then don't do it because the [urlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility]diffusion of responsibility[/url] is spread out among the other members. people say, "we should do _______" and then assume someone else is going to take it on. some of the people who don't do much even complain about how nothing gets done.
i say we give a managing director some control and a little money and make them accountable.

alright, encino man just came on and rudy is trying to convince the wee-eez to dig up the monkeybone. i have to go RIGHT NOW.

[shando]

some of the people who don't do much even complain about how nothing gets done.

Hey beard, stop slandering me!

[kbadr]

We have this conversation every month or two.

The end result is always the same. No one does shit. Apparently playing to empty houses isn't enough of a motivator. So we'll continue playing to the walls until the walls get tired of hearing our funny and decide to fuck off.

None of us are marketing people, and none of us know how to fix what's broken. This is obvious. Talking about "gee wouldn't it be nice if we all marched up and down the streets of Austin telling everyone about improv like the cult it is" isn't going to work. We need outside help. We need money. We need to stop spinning our wheels.

[nadine]

I agree with Kareem and Shannon.

Does anyone in AIC have marketing degrees/experience? Maybe this was first brought up as a joke.. but maybe we should have a marketing plan. And someone paid to program manage it. It's not unusual for non-profits to have a few paid positions.

[shando]

I agree with Kareem and Shannon.

I was actually outing myself as someone who has ideas/theories on how things might be different/improved but is not able to be particularly hands on as I have so many other things on my plate--which is probably true for a lot of folks.

I think the biggest hurdle with the collective model is that given a choice between laboring on one's own project or the collective, people are going to chose their own projects no matter how saintly their intentions.

Hierarchy gets a bad rap, but sometimes it's nice to know where the buck stops.

[arclight]

Let me condense a bit of Kareem:

We have this conversation every month or two.

...

None of us are marketing people, and none of us know how to fix what's broken. This is obvious. Talking about "gee wouldn't it be nice if we all marched up and down the streets of Austin telling everyone about improv like the cult it is" isn't going to work. We need outside help. We need money. We need to stop spinning our wheels.

We need someone who has marketing training and insight, period. If they have any snap they'll ask us questions and learn what we sell (whether we know what that is or not), figure out who's likely to buy, how to reach them, and how to measure progress.

The question is where to find such a person. There are a couple of ways that pop immediately to mind:

• Most of the local colleges have a marketing program as part of their business school. In addition, a few (St. Ed's, possibly UT) have a theatre arts management specialty. Regardless - draft a short list of goals, approach the schools and offer the project as an internship and see if they are willing to put a team of students on it as part of an internship or class. The win-win is that the students learn in a real environment and we get expert advice for cheap.
• Ask ACoT and the other local indie theaters to recommend someone. Incidentally, you try to find a marketing person to sit on your nonprofit's board of directors for precisely this purpose.
• Craigslist

I don't want to talk down any of the work we've done - we're far more visible and successful than we've been in the past few years. We need to seriously search for some expert assistance if we want to get to the point of having consistently sold-out shows.

[Wesley]

I strongly agree with Bob's 1st bullet point.

I also believe that we as a community, if we wish to be taken seriously, need MORE bullet points. Also, pie charts.




Seriously, though, I would love to brainstorm on that first bullet and find a way to work with the universities and community and get them thinking of us as a business with internships and hands-on real-world experiences for their students.

[deroosisonfire]

in january i did some research on what we have to do to allow college students to get credit for working for us. it's supersimple. anyways, i posted it on the forum here. so all we really need to focus on is making those bullet points.

also, another idea i had to increase marketing is to start sending a troupe from heroes of comedy to all the local festivals. parallelogramophonograph are doing sunfest which is great self-promotion. why not send a heroes troupe with the sole purpose of promoting austin improv as a whole?

[Wesley]

Put it in a pie chart and then we'll consider it.


It sounds to me like its getting to be time for another advertising meeting. With some heavy-hitting topics on the agenda.

Who can meet next Saturday (the 10th) at noon for appetizers and discussion? I'll pick a place and make another post announcing the meeting.

[kbadr]

I've got Mac's workshop next Saturday.