How Do You Rank?

Everyone is always so concerned how many hits their website gets. But more important than hits is where do you fall in the food chain of web exposure?  There is a TV spot running that tells the small business owner that without a website, you are invisible on the web.  This is partially true but it’s not just about the website. As a marketer you know that one marketing tool is not enough.

Everyone that uses the internet uses Google, Bing, or some other search site. Most people will stop the search as soon as they think they found what they are looking for.  But are they finding you?  What if you are half way down the search page or even worse on page 2?

There are tons of companies that claim they can get you to the top of the search page.  Most of them are full of shit! I get email from them every day making this claim.  They must not Google my site. There are two ways to get you to the top.  One costs money and the other does not.  You can buy ad space from the search sites or you can work to get yourself on top.  

Just having a website is not enough.  The more exposure you have on the web, the better your chances of coming out #1 on a search.  For example, I have a website, a blog, two Twitter pages, LinkedIn, and Facebook.  Google my name and I am the top eight of nine rankings.  The only reason I am not all nine is because my great great grandfather was a famous doctor listed on Wikipedia. 

Some people think I waste too much time on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. There is a method for my madness.  As a marketer I understand you have to work the web to get the results.  Every time you post anything you raise your overall ranking.  If you use Twitter for your business then you need to tweet every day.  This not only helps with your ranking but also gets you more Twitter followers.  

Next time your boss catches you playing on Facebook, just tell him/her you’re marketing.

I’ve Seen The Future

Last night I went to my local high school for curriculum night. This was for my daughter who will be entering high school in the fall.  What really amazed me was how the curriculum changed just since my son started there 3 years ago.  While I was sitting and listening to all the department heads, I realized that all of us in the live entertainment biz should be engaged in the schools.  All these kids in high school are our current or future customers. 

In past blog posts, I have discussed major & minor league sports teams supporting their respective youth teams.  We should be doing the same in the schools.  For example, our high school is offering a course called Live Stage Music.  In this class they are teaching kids how to take their talent live.  Teaching them stage presence and performing in front of a crowd.  As the department head said “how to be a rock star”.

The technology department and the English department discussed the use of new media.  They are teaching the kids not to just play on Facebook and Twitter but how to use it as a business communications tool.  These kids are the future of the internet.  Soon, they are going to get 99% of their info from the net.  As marketers, we should be helping them with this.  By helping them we are helping ourselves.  We need to stay current on what reaches our customers.  This will do it. 

Schools want to teach our kids the future but they don’t have all the money to do it.  This is a good investment for all of us in the live event and entertainment business. I know you would love to market into the schools.  How about helping them with our future?

Follow Me, Follow You

So the good news is that most of us in the event & entertainment business are now using social media to market.  You have joined Twitter and Facebook.  You might have thousands of friends, fans, and followers. But are you following them?

What makes social media different from the old fashion marketing & PR is two-way communication.  Not only can you get your message out but your fans can communicate back to you.  But are you listening?

Having friends, fans, and followers is not a collection.  You should not be gathering them like a kid collecting Pokémon cards.  They are more than a database.  They are real potential customers who want to be a part of your world.

I read an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about how Gatorade has a full time people searching the web for mentions of Gatorade (I bet they just found this blog).  They are looking for what people are saying about them.  They are looking for online conversations to join. They understand this is 21^st century marketing.

On my Twitter page, I have currently have over 1,100 followers and I follow most of them.  I look for people who fit my interests. I do read many of their tweets because I want to know what they are saying.  In my case I’m not looking for them to say things about me but what they are saying that influences the event & entertainment industry and the culinary world.  These are my two passions.

If you’re a venue, why not use social media to help book your events.  Ask your fans, friends, and followers what they would like to see at your venue.  If an event does not sell well, why not ask them why they didn’t buy a ticket?

Communication is a two-way street.  We finally have marketing tools that make it possible.  Make it work for you.

Fighting For Tickets

With ticket sales down again this year, all of us in the event & entertainment business are looking for what does sell.  How about Ultimate Fighting?

To my surprise, today’s Boston Globe has not one but two articles on the Ultimate Fighting Championships.  One is front page center and the other is front page top of the sports section. That is extraordinary to get that much ink in a major newspaper. The sport has gone from underground to prime time and real money. 

The UFC is coming to the TD Garden here in Boston this Saturday.  According to the article ticket prices range from $75 to $600, with an average ticket price of $244.  That is really impressive with the state of our economy when we can’t sell $100 concert tickets. Not only are they doing this big event at the Garden but they are also hosting a fan expo with prices running from $30 to $50.  All of this is really big money.

The fans and organizers of mixed martial arts are very passionate about the sport.  I have several Twitter followers that are part of that world.  I do read their tweets.  There passion also gives them the gift of being really good marketers.

The success of this sport is a perfect example of ticket buyers looking for new and exciting things.  Our job is to continue looking ahead of the curve and find these ticket selling events before they happen.  Do you want to be a trendsetter or someone that jumps on the wagon when it’s already reached its destination?

Post Conference Thoughts

It was a whirlwind trip to Chicago for the Event & Arena Marketing Conference last week.  If the conference didn’t create its own excitement, being ground zero for the Stanley Cup celebrations brought it over the top.

I really enjoyed Ross Bernstein’s keynote presentation on the late Herb Brooks.  Ross seemed to bring the full spirit of the 1980 Olympic hockey coach to the conference.  After hearing Ross’s speech, you can really understand how “Herbie” was able to take average college hockey players and turn them into Olympic champions.

I attended the session on viral marketing.  Wanted to hear how it is evolving or should I say “going viral”.  The session was very interesting.  When many people think viral, they think YouTube.  But viral marketing is way more than that.  Marketing on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and FourSquare is viral marketing too.  Have your Facebook fans create an “event” for your show.  Have each of them invite all of their friends to the event.  This will spread the word to thousands very quickly.

Since I have been in this business for 25 years, I don’t get overly impressed with the type of family shows that tour today.  However, I think Walking with Dinosaurs is pretty cool.  They had a Baby T at their sponsored luncheon.  Now that is what I call a really great advance costume.  Baby T is the size of an actual baby t-rex. I was also impressed with how Cirque du Soleil has grown over the past 20 years.  The brand is now worldwide with 20 plus shows and continues to grow every year. 

I was part of a panel discussion on marketing & advertising basics.  The panel took an interesting twist. Instead of talking about how to buy media or what are the right GRP’s, we discussed actually understanding our customers.  You can’t buy media if you truly don’t know your customer.  It is more than just reading the stats.  You need to ask the customer, listen to the customer, and follow through for the customer.

We Are All Critics – Hear Us Roar!

Today’s web 2.0 has offered up a great marketing opportunity and a possible marketing nightmare at the same time.  Our customers can give their two cents.  What are you doing with this?

Ten years ago the internet was very one sided.  Companies and brands put up a website to market their product.  Today, we can actually participate in two-way communication.  We can praise something when it’s great.  We can complain when something is not great.  We can have an actual dialogue.

As marketers we need to jump all over this.  A big reason we don’t like two-way communication is because we think we can’t control the message.  We are afraid of “negative”.  We need to get over the fear because two-way communication on the net is not going away.  If we sit back and do nothing, then the negative boo birds are going to rule the roost.

For many years we have run advertising that included customer testimonials.  We all know they work.  Today’s internet gives us the opportunity to take it to the next level.  NEWS FLASH:  Your customers are googling you!  What are they reading about you?  We should be encouraging our customers to give testimonials.  Have them offer real-time feedback on Facebook and Twitter.  Give them an opportunity to post comments on your website.  There are websites that offer customer feedback such as Yelp. Yes, you will get some negative feedback.  However, if you have a great product your loyal customers will take care of you.  Plus, I believe a little negative is good.  It gives you real customer feedback to fix any issues. It also makes your overall customer comments believable.

Today’s internet had made everyone a critic.  We don’t need to wait for the review to come out in the newspaper after the event.  Plus, we should really be listening to our customers not a newspaper reviewer.

We can’t control today’s internet but we have the marketing know-all to make it work for us!

Answer From A Reader

In the last post one my readers wrote an email asking how to deal with discounts and fire-sales.  Here is an answer from a live event promoter:

 Hello!

 I work as a promoter for shows – and I too read your blog every day.

 In regards to fire-sales and discounts, I think the issue is the fact that the venue is endorsing the last minute fire sales and discounts by displaying them on their twitter and Facebook accounts. I would be mad at them, as a patron, as well. As marketers, we need to get more creative in our discounting when a show is not selling well. We need to reach out to our media partners and venue sponsors to ask them to “take ownership” of a discount that they are bringing into the market. When the local radio station is offering their listeners 50% off tickets – the venue is not seen as the one to blame. When the local TV station, channel 10 for example, gives their viewers a $10 discount on tickets, this becomes their discount. Using the media allows for a separation between the venue and the media partners who are the ones putting out a ‘fire sale’. This eliminates (hopefully) upsetting those patrons who already paid full price for their tickets. At least it eliminates patrons getting mad at the venue directly.

Another thing I never do is discount the top ticket price. Those are your big players – the ones that get upset when their full price ticket they purchased later gets discounted. This way, those people receiving discounts are purchasing those tickets that are “less desirable.” 

To reply to the Facebook message that the venue received they could say:

We appreciate your purchase of tickets early. You will be rewarded for your early purchase by having the best seat in that price level. 

Name Withheld

From A Reader

Just as I was sitting down at my computer to write today’s blog post and thinking “what am I going to write about” I received this email from an arena marketer in the Midwest.

“Hi Joe, I subscribe to your blog, read it immediately whenever it hits my inbox and often share it with co-workers.

 I have dilemma that I thought you might be able to enlist your subscribers for their thoughts on. Here lately, it seems as though our building has had a string of events that don’t sell very well (priced too high) and we have been forced to roll out last minute, fire-sale deals to move seats. One of the ways we get the word out about the deals is our social networking…Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is great for us, but we often get complaints as comments from folks who paid full price earlier. What is the industry (good PR) thought on how to respond to the Facebook comment complaints? 

I am in a position as an arena marketer to take directions from the show’s promoter (who rents our building), but this practice of pricing things too high and then putting out last minute discounts and making our early buyers mad…just irritates me. 

Any help you can provide on the Facebook question would be appreciated. Should I respond? Should I delete the comments?” 

Name Withheld By Request 

What the author of this email stated is a topic that is an ongoing issue.  This problem is not new.  It has been happening for years.  The only difference now is that our customers have more avenues to express their comments and complaints.  

To answer his last question first; I believe you should always answer every question or comment you receive from a customer.  Part of social networking is creating the dialogue. With social networking you need to take the good with the bad. 

As for taking direction from promoters, I understand both sides because I have been on both sides.  Promoters do need to listen to the venue marketers who live in the market.  They are the first line in what is happening in that city.  They know if the economy is healthy or unhealthy. No one likes a fire-sale.  Besides upsetting customers, it also cheapens the show which makes the producers and artists mad. 

The writer of the email and I want to hear from other event & entertainment marketers.  This goes for both promoters and venue peeps.  Send me your comments!

A Marathon Of Logistics

I am always blown away by the logistics that goes into running the Boston Marathon. 

Today is Marathon Monday here in Boston.  Around 27,000 runners will make the 26.2 mile trek from Hopkinton MA to Boston.  The planning and prep actually begins the day after the race when they do the post race meetings.

Think about what you have to plan for with the 27,000 runners and the thousands of spectators lined along the race course.  They showed an aerial shot of the runners queue on television. It looked like a concert or festival view.  Then that whole group moves.  Think about how many port-a-johns you need for 26 miles?  How many bottles of water will be given out?  Think about amount of security and medical personnel you need for 26 miles?  They actually feed all the runners and their guests a pasta dinner the night before.  They also provide shuttle transportation to the start.  Think how many busses it takes to move 27,000 people?

I know of at least one member of the event & entertainment marketing world running in today’s marathon.  Our friend Gary Kane is running his first Boston race.  This is a big month for Gary.  He also just started a new job as Vice President of East Coast Marketing & Business Development at Allied Live.

I live right up the road from the marathon route and plan to watch and tweet from there.  If you want to follow on Twitter, you can find me at http://twitter.com/eventpromoter.

A Customer Always Has A Choice

The customer always has a choice.  They have the choice to spend their money with you, somewhere else, or not at all. 

When you first plan your event you should be thinking this.  The date, show time, and price will go into your customer’s decision.  What is your competition for this event?  This will also give your customer a choice.  What can you do to swing the customer your way?

When you are buying media for your event, remember you are the customer.  You always have a choice too.  In fact you have even more choices today then even before.  If you don’t like the deal the potential media partner is offering, you have the choice to walk.  One of the first things I learned when I went into this business was you can buy around anyone and anything.  Don’t ever think you have to buy certain media!

We all want repeat business from our customers.  The overall experience you give them at the event will ultimately decide if they choose to come back. We are in the discretionary dollar business.  The customer gets to choose where to spend these dollars.  If you are going to ask them to spend big dollars for a ticket, then make it worth it.  There is nothing worse then a customer leaving your event feeling like they didn’t get their money’s worth. 

The choices you make will help decide your customer’s choice to buy the ticket.

Are You Tweeting?

You know that I believe in Twitter as a marketing and business tool.  In case you don’t believe me, check out the article in today’s Boston Globe how companies are using Twitter to market and talk back to their customers.