New ways to advertise???

[obrienmagic]

Hello my fellow T11 peeps!

With a successful Holiday season coming to an end, I am sad to say that my bookings for the coming months are pretty sad so far haha Was curious to know if anyone has any cool ideas for advertising?

As of now I have 2 target demos:

1. Marketing geared towards the general public for booking entertainment at their event or venue.

2. Marketing towards magicians to purchase my downloads or products.

Right now my current marketing strategies for booking event leads or performance gigs has been through the following; GigSalad, Craigslist, GigMasters, Thumbtack, referrals from others including a referral rewards program, social media (Facebook and Instagram the most) and of course my website.

My current marketing for selling products to magicians have been; Murphys Magic Supply for physical products (Books and DVDs), Theory 11 and Penguin for downloads, social media (Mostly Facebook and Instagram, but also a bit of youtube as well) and my website.

Does anyone have any suggestions or anything I didn't think of before to help with additional marketing? I have started experimenting with cold calls and door to door marketing for restaurants and such, however when it comes to the marketing aspect I am not seeing anything else to try.

All suggestions no matter how big or small are always welcome!!!

Hopefully others can learn a thing or two form these as well!!!

 

[Tower of Lunatic Meat]

Maybe Reddit. (r/magic, specifically).

 

[Casual Distraction]

I would contact local schools and do a low cost or free performance provided they gave each kid a flyer or they promoted/mentioned me in the school newsletter with my contact info.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Paper campaigns (Anything where you're handing out, mailing, or leaving out flyers and such to the general populace) have about a 1% return rate statistically. Meaning if you mail out 100 post cards, you will probably only get one call about it, and then you still have to make the sale.

My most effective technique is direct contact. I find venues, I contact their event organizer, and I pitch the show. I do this once a week, keeping track of who I have contacted and what the result was, in a spreadsheet. Eventually they'll either say yes or no. Note - you're far more likely to get called back and/or make the sale on the 5th or 6th time talking to someone, rather than the first time.

Public shows are my best advertisement - I almost always end up booking gigs on the backs of those. People see my show, then want to hire me for a party or event.

 

[ProAma]

Direct contact is the best way of any marketing. Face to face teaser magic ending with your business card. There is not a better way. Pro Bono work at gigs and parties will make you more desirable as they will get to see you in action and you won't get paid but you will get a lot of networking. Put in the work and it pays off big time. No other advertising necessary.

 

[obrienmagic]

Yeah i have done some free gigs here and there when I knew it would allow me to network with people i wanted to hire me. I also agree that when doing cold calls (or any other type of cold advertising) that you will almost never hit it on the first try.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Direct contact is the best way of any marketing. Face to face teaser magic ending with your business card. There is not a better way. Pro Bono work at gigs and parties will make you more desirable as they will get to see you in action and you won't get paid but you will get a lot of networking. Put in the work and it pays off big time. No other advertising necessary.

Word of mouth is, statistically speaking, the most reliable form of advertising. I have never once sold a show specifically on doing magic and giving out my card afterward. I also know a not-insignificant number of people who make a good living performing magic and don't even give out business cards.

It takes longer to establish, but you will consistently get better paying gigs if you are booking them by referral.

 

[obrienmagic]

Word of mouth is, statistically speaking, the most reliable form of advertising. I have never once sold a show specifically on doing magic and giving out my card afterward. I also know a not-insignificant number of people who make a good living performing magic and don't even give out business cards.

It takes longer to establish, but you will consistently get better paying gigs if you are booking them by referral.

To add to that I have actually started a referral program where if you refer a friend and i book the gig you get 20% of the total amount of the event just for helping me out! And this could mean an easy $50-100 in your pocket just for telling someone about me!

 

[RealityOne]

The two keys to marketing are marketing to the right people and providing differentiation.

Now, it is difficult to convince someone to have an event (i.e. they see your magic and decide to have an event just so they can hire you) but much easier to convince someone who is having an event that you are the person they need to hire. Marketing is getting your pitch (flyer, website, meeting, etc.) to the person who is looking to hire someone. As Christopher said, general marketing isn't a lot of help because the majority of the people you are pitching are not looking to hire someone.

Differentiation is really the answer to "why should I hire you?" What makes you different from your competition (which could be other magicians as well as other entertainers)? That is the question you have to answer when you make your pitch.

So as you think about this, think about the answers to the following questions:

1. What do you want to be doing? Walk around, parlor, stage?
2. Who do you want to be doing it for? Birthdays, Bar Mitzvahs, Trade Shows, Corporate Events (what type of events)?
3. How do those people find someone to hire?
4. What can you do to get your name on the list of the people doing the hiring?
5. Once you are on the list, how do you get the job?

Focus your efforts on getting the attention of the people who will be hiring entertainment.

DPro Bono work at gigs and parties will make you more desirable as they will get to see you in action and you won't get paid but you will get a lot of networking.

Too often doing free shows is the best way to get other free shows and then other free shows.

 

[Maverick85]

Free is one of very few four-letter-words I don't enjoy. I have skills that I've worked a long while to hone and perfect. Giving it away isn't really what I intend to do with my life or my skills.

 

[notsoltd]

Your target audience is key and it would benefit you to pick one target market and go for just that. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't market to magicians AND people who might book you either.

So lets imagine a scenario. You're a magician and you want someone to hire you. The person you're looking to hire you is likely an event planner (whether professional, or just a mom planning an event). It would make sense to market to that person. How could you do that? That might mean writing blog posts about how to plan a successful event. How to find the right entertainment. What should your entertainment do for you? Talk about different event types, things like that. So now it's easier to find you because you talk about what they are searching for and holy shit - this guy IS an entertainer and he really knows what he's talking about. He'll surely make our event a hit!

It's hard to be that spot on when you have a magic shop and a blog geared towards magicians, but also have some sections on shows and performing. People booking you aren't interested in lectures either.

From a business standpoint, it would make sense to separate these two completely. I know it'd be a lot of work, but I think it would benefit you to have a site geared towards getting bookings at the events you want to be performing and a site geared only towards selling your material to magicians. You'd be able to more effectively market towards clients and magicians as well, and you can get that search engine optimization working for you instead of against you. It would by no means be an overnight thing, but I think it could strongly help your chances of getting more than just word of mouth gigs.

P.S. Imagine Nation Project looks awesome and I want to pick up a copy