Communications
Formerly the Marketing section, this area now covers both internal and external communications. From newsletters to publicity, find everything you need to stay informed and connected.
Artist Branding & Online Presence
Having a central online presence is not only useful for your audience, it’s an important way to legitimize your company or your work as an artist. Websites play a huge role in the visibility of you and your company within the performing arts, and also give potential audiences an insight to what you do. Websites have become more necessary than ever for every type of business, and this holds true for even the smallest of theatre companies. The good news is, it’s never been easier to get a website of your own.
Communications (internal)
Coming soon!
Communications (external)
“If you build it, they will come,” may have worked in Field of Dreams (1989) but theatre audiences generally don’t go to see shows if they don’t know they are happening. Not only do you have to build the production, but you also need to tell people about it. An effective publicity strategy or campaign is how you reach media and audiences.
Also known as a Press Release, this is a tool that you send directly to the media to inform them of all the key details of your production. There are many different styles and approaches to formatting a Media Release/Press Release, but the essential information to communicate is more or less the same.
If you do not have room in your budget to hire a publicist, there are many different ways you can build a publicity schedule for yourself.
These platforms are social, so it's helpful to design your content with engagement in mind. Rather than thinking of social media as a place to simply broadcast information, how can you invite members of your online community to like, comment, share, and interact with you and others around your online presence? Can you ask questions? Encourage discussion? Incentivize engagement? All of these are important to keep in mind while creating and planning your social media content.
A newsletter (or e-blast) is a structured form of correspondence sent to a bulk of email addresses. It can be a useful tool for you to communicate with your existing audience base. That base might be a mailing list you’ve accumulated from ticket buyers to past shows, or a core group of family/friends who support your work.
A promo kit (short for promotional kit) is essential for creating and driving buzz during the lead-up to your performance. Some people use the terms ‘press kit’ and ‘promo kit’ interchangeably; the main difference being that the former refers to content going out directly to media outlets for distribution, while the latter refers to all distribution channels (including, but not limited to media outlets). 'Media Kit' is another term often used to refer to the content going out to media outlets.
Community Engagement
What is Community Engagement? It depends on who’s asking. Community can mean different things to different people. Generally, a community is a group of people that share some kind of commonality
A talkback is an opportunity for the community to literally "talk back" in response to the art. Ideally, both the artists involved and the audience are able to engage in the conversation. This can be programmed as an add-on event to a performance/exhibition, or you may choose to schedule it separately from your showing times.
Dance Response was designed to:
encourage observation and reflection about dance work over judgement
slow down and pay attention to what we notice, remember, feel and wonder
this is about your experience as audience
about 40 min, popcorn style discussion, come and go as you need
Feedback forms, or audience surveys, are a great way of engaging your community and learning how you can better serve your audience at any point of the process.