Reader,

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As April winds down, we here at the Lab are gearing up for Summer Session! (Have you enrolled yet?)

In fact, this is the last expanded TML Newsletter you'll receive for a while. Beginning in May, the Theatre Marketing Lab Newsletter is available only to those enrolled inside the Lab. Summer enrollment is affordable for everyone so get registered toot sweet.

Let's Ponder

Organic Social Media (definition): refers to the free, non-paid content shared on social media platforms. This can include posts, photos, videos and stories shared by individuals or businesses without paying for advertising.

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"Organic social media is at best, a single tool in the marketing shed. You'll never build a brand off exclusively organic social media. It’s a weapon at our disposal; you have to pull a few different levers. Organic social is massively misunderstood. It was never built for scale and it was never built for assuming social was free. You are not going to get in front of the people you need to get in front of quickly by doing it organically.”

- Tom Sneddon, founder of Supernova Agency

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We are all seeing it. The reach of our social posts and engagement on them is down, down, down in 2024.

The days when we could reach massive audiences with low-effort social posts “are well and truly over,” said Gareth Harrison, a strategist at U.K. social agency SocialChain.

Those encouraging and engaging days of social media 2021/2022 as theatre slowly returned, are rare today.

The organic post engagement (likes, comments, shares, saves) well has been drunk dry.

• Organic posts are the only media many theatres are able to do. It's what they've always done.
• Theatres find it challenging to fund paid ad campaigns on social.
• Theatres find it challenging to make the content when their show lasts for two weekends or less.
• Theatres find it frustrating they don't have the team in place to make consistent content that's up-to-date and relevant to the audiences they want to get into their theatres.

Any of those describe you and your theatre?

So what's the solution?

Here are three to consider:

• Organic should be a part of your content and media mix, yes, but must be in vertical format. To grow audiences and go where engagement is most likely to occur, posting short videos on Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok (at least for now) will do more for your organic media reach than any other type of content you make. Remember: reach is what we want. We want more people to see our posts so they buy tickets to see our shows. Otherwise, why else are we marketing?

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• Use organic to test and learn on your content. If a piece of social content takes off, and gains views and/or engagement, prepare to move that creative into your paid ad content. The creative's done! Just put money against it in your Ad Platform (do.not.boost.ever!) and use audience targeting smarts.

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• Your organic content strategy needs to be centered on word-of-mouth content. What others say about you is 10x more powerful than what you say about yourself. I see word-of-mouth content either starting too late in a theatre's campaign cycle or not at all. The magic of word-of-mouth is that you can strategically build a system and platform to execute WOM content much earlier in your marketing planning process.

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Later this summer, Theatre Marketing Lab Summer Session theatres will have first-look and first access to our local theatre word-of-mouth strategy and framework. Join us!

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Let's Learn

Don't be like the slimy producers/marketing folks from Lempicka and throw your morals in the garbage and do misleading ads.

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When this hit, I paused and admired the strategy. The point is very true: art is subjective. You have to see for yourself and then judge. Only you know what you truly like. The graphic design is impeccable. (There's a consumer-behavior/recall reason why your show logo belongs in the bottom right corner. Do you do that?)

Until almost immediately, I found out Brantley's quote was from a completely different production many years ago. Green's words were not even sequenced together in his actual review. Rather, the agency cherry-picked words for this ad.

Of course, the agency eventually pulled the creative from their ad rotation. But it's still out there organically (sense the theme of this week's newsletter?) and the creative itself got HUGE REACH and significant shares and conversations about it.

The strategy did what it was supposed to do. Disrupt. Incite conversation. Cause distress.

It also puts into question the integrity of the show producers and their agency. IMO.

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This week's lesson: Don't be a Lempicka if you're desperate for attention and ticket sales.

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Let's Watch

What a crazy, exciting era of video for live theatre we're currently experiencing. The pro-shot sizzle reels happening are jaw-dropping in their concepts and execution. The promo for the revival of Tommy is currently hitting the wow factor for me.

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I can't help but flash back to when I was a wee one and saw the commercial for Cats for the first time and was dazzled.

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Ah, the days of automatic sound on and when voiceovers worked.

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Not sure where to start in leveling up your content -- video, word-of-mouth, organic, or otherwise? Join us in the Lab this summer. We'll talk about it. A lot. Click here to learn more about what's included in the Lab Summer Session. ​

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Last Chance

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Merrily We Roll Out: The Season Reveal Launch Plan is only $47 until Tuesday 4/30/24 at midnight. Then the price goes up! If you've been sitting on the fence or waiting for approval or you sent it to someone to look at and forgot, pick that conversation back up and enroll. It won't be at this price again!

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Happy theatre-making this week, Reader!

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Cheers,
Julie

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