Let’s face it; all of us like to do things that are easy. But is it always the right thing to do?
One of the many amazing things I learned in culinary school is that a recipe can change big time with the slightest alteration. Or how about when a restaurant cook suggests ”Oh, I’ll just skip making fresh Hollandaise and use a mix. No one will notice”. I’m sure many of you enjoy good food. Would you want the real Hollandaise or the fake powered stuff? These same thought processes are used every day in every business. The event & entertainment marketing biz is no exception.
Today’s event marketers are multi-taskers. We juggle several projects at the same time and can’t wait to get one off our plate. Because of this, we tend to skip steps. These missing steps could mean nothing or could cost you lots of tickets. Here is an example that happened to me 25 years ago:
I was a very young, new promoter with The Greatest Show On Earth working on the circus in Hershey PA. In that market, we had a long track record of success with direct marketing. In other words, we sold a shit load of tickets in advance through direct mail. We also mailed out a group sales flier. I was given the idea of combining the two fliers to save time and money. Mistake number one was not asking someone (my boss) if this was a good idea. So the direct mail piece was produced and it was screwed up. The combined mailer gave everyone the group discount and didn’t read like an advance mailer.
The venue marketing department suggested I just use the mailer for the groups and they would feature our show in their own direct mail piece going out. We would be the lead event in a booklet of all their venue events. I went with that idea. This was mistake number two.
Mistake number three was still not mentioning this to my boss. I thought I had solved the problem. I’m sure you know where this is going. Our advance business was so bad that everyone in the company noticed. After I got my ass chewed for an entire day (not exaggerating), and put on “double secret probation” I was able to market my way out of the crisis and save the engagement.
Think about it for a second the next time you want to take the easy way out too.
Tags: advance mailer, advance ticket sales, direct mail, doing things the easy way, group sales, Hershey PA, Ringling Bros. Circus, skipping steps
