Marketing ballet

[tango49]

Hoping everyone at Ballet Alert enjoyed a wonderful Christmas! I've been enjoying the wonderful La Bayadere CD that I bought for my son, full lenghth ballet with the English Chamber Orchestra...truely a gem to have! As I was looking for inexpensive flights to N.Y. today on US Airways site I was startled to see (under specials) Pittsburg Ballet Theatre and Pennsylvania Ballet advertising their season! Is this a new venue in marketing? I've never seen this before and was quite impressed. Any thoughts?

[MJ]

Jet Blue has really cheap flights to JFK & Satelite TV in every seat. Delta Airline is the official Airline of Boston Ballet, and two dancers are on their Autumn schedule cover.

Marketing has two aspects:

[MBA Mode ON]

What is your message?

Who do you want to direct your message to?

What do you want the recipients of the message to do?

Typically, you want to get your message to people with money who will come and see your performaces and attend and participate in your fundraisers. You don't want to advertise at a tractor pull or Nascar Race.

Each community is different, and advertising mediums are as well. Ballet companies in Connecticut advertise on Billboards, whereas NYC ballets advertise on Radio and Newspapers. Cable is an excellent way to reach the demographics you want without blowing a fortune on TV ads. A good ad on Videotape is worth a thousand newspaper ads.

Advertising you pay for, publicity is free.

[MBA Mode OFF]

Typically the airlines become "official" because they donate free tickets to get dancers to perfromances on time, not a cheap proposition.

Piano companies donate their dented, but perfectly playable pianos for the same reason.

Last year we had two guests in Our Nutcracker, local radio personalities, they talked about it for weeks! We quickly ushered them offstage when the dancing began.

Make sure to keep your Web site up to date and accurate. All performace dates should be easy to find, lots of pictures too!

Opera companies are very similar to Ballet companies, and should match each other's successful advertising campaigns.

MJ

[tango49]

Thankyou MJ for your thorough description of marketing strategies in the arts. One hand washes the other and hopefully some profits are made by all. I suppose now even regional companies are getting on the bandwagon to promote profits as PA Ballet and Pittsburg are small in comparison to Boston. Again thanks for your valuable input.