Whether you’re a national theater organization or a local venue, one of the most difficult aspects of successfully marketing to your audience is getting them to buy tickets. Effective entertainment marketing takes advantage of a strong fanbase and catchy content to drive not only interest but action. Here are three key marketing budget tips to make the most of your dollars and start moving tickets with regularity.
Budget-Maxing Your Entertainment Marketing
No matter your theater organization’s marketing budget, you should be taking an approach that maximizes reach and leans into your strengths to make the most of your advertising dollars.
1. Use Visual Media Affordably
Theater is an inherently visual medium. The easy advantage film and TV advertising have is the fact that their material comes pre-recorded — but theaters can think proactively and make sure to capture videos and images as much as possible, both free and paid.
Videos can be leveraged on social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube where theaters can advertise with clips and short ads for their shows and events. Meanwhile, image platforms like Instagram and Facebook offer similar opportunities for sharing stunning visuals that highlight your performers, staging, and other previews of your performances.
2. Build Excitement for Events and Shows
Your performers will feed off of your audience’s energy, so it’s important that they come to the show excited. Take advantage of drip campaigns — over email, social, SMS, or other forms of direct marketing — to both spark interest in your theater and keep your potential audiences eager to buy tickets and see the show.
Drip campaigns are affordable for any marketing budget and are also fairly easy to build. Using the creative you build with your marketing partner, you can use email and SMS services to send out tailor-made messages to potential customers in a slow “drip,” leading them from prospect to audience member at one of your shows.
3. Reach Out to Key Demographics
Regular theatergoers are prone to checking out local, regional, and national shows. But there are tons of untapped potential customers that might have an interest in the art form — they just lack the information to find the venues that fit their interests.
Young audiences might be deterred by costs — but a promotional discount for students and young adults could make shows more accessible and create fans for life. Additionally, special discounts for service members, medical professionals, or other beneficiaries can bring in new potential audience members who might not have otherwise considered coming to see a show.
Make Power Marketing Your Entertainment Marketing Partner
Power Marketing has more than 20 years of experience partnering with live theater groups like Disney Theatrical Group, MagicSpace Entertainment, and numerous others. We provide intuitive and affordable marketing solutions that have helped propel these brands’ messages to a wide audience. If your theater company wants to break a leg with ticket sales, reach out to us to start planning your future marketing strategy.
