Marketing/PR

Via an entry at Neill Archer Roan’s blog on PR, I came across a great entry on a blog called Bad Language regarding writing press releases well. In past entries I have written on the subject urging people not to use the trite phrases everyone uses in press releases and brochure copy. (spectacular, tour de force, illustrating what it means to be human, etc.)

Matthew Stibbe, who writes Bad Language, makes many of the same points and his simple list of how to make releases better is worth reading.

I almost left his blog without following a link to an even more interesting topic, however. Stibbe points out that unless you take the proper steps, every press release you send out electronically contains a record of all the changes you made to that document.

What might really be interesting to media outlets might not be what you wrote, but what you took out. So if you happen to not like a performer and to air your frustrations, you write “his pedantic lyrics and bombastic stage presence only serve as a facade for his inadequacies in other areas,” before writing something more appropriate, your true feelings will be available for any who are interested to see.

Certainly that might be a little embarassing at most. What happens though if you are copying and pasting information from a newspaper article and accidently drop a sentence about the new president of your organization being cleared of fiscal malfeasance at his previous job after a two year investigation? A record of that information being deleted has a good chance of being included and will be of much greater interest to the local paper than how happy you are that he has accepted the position.

“Yeah,” you say, “but who uses those settings and is anyone going to really turn them on to see what secrets my museum might be hiding?” Well actually, probably not. But then they don’t have to intentionally turn them on. Editors and reporters are the most likely group to have those settings active on their word processors by default. They send stories with changes and comments included in the document back and forth to each other all day long. They are probably turning all those things off while reading your press release so they don’t have to bear witness to your agonizing search for the right wording.

But if they just happen to see something interesting before they deactivate that view….

So how do you avoid broadcasting your dirty laundry? Fortunately, Mr. Stibbe has found a solution provided by those who get paid to poke through our dirty laundry…the NSA.

As amusing as it is to think of yourself adopting NSA anti-espionage techniques, it is a pretty through guide and worth employing to avoid a faux pas or two.

On a recent vacation I was driving around with my brother in law and we were passing through a new development that looked to be influenced by the New Urbanist movement which tries to locate shopping and social needs within walking distance of residences. The place appeared to be designed with a Victorian feel from the building and street lamp design I saw emerging. There were signs in the windows announcing the imminent arrival of Starbucks and some soup company.

I was thinking about how nice it would be for these folks to have so much of what they need within walking distance since there was a shopping center with a supermarket right across the two lane road from this new development.

But then I remember why I was there and I realized there was no guarantee that people would necessarily patronize the stores closest to them. In fact, my situation made me realize why you can drive yourself crazy trying to predict trends in customer behavior. And if you are like me, you do indeed go crazy trying to discern why, all things appearing generally equal, one performance sold so much better or faster than another performance.

You see, my brother in law and I were going to get our haircut. I was 4,500 miles away from home and was going to get my haircut at the same salon chain I frequent at home because I wasn’t happy with the cuts I was getting at the many locations I tried at home. The fact I am frequenting a chain should be evidence enough that I am not terribly vain about my looks and so should also attest to how dissatisfied I was with my hair that I was getting it cut on vacation.

My brother in law on the other hand drove me past two other branches of this hair salon chain located much closer to his house to get to this one. After we passed the second one, I asked where the heck we were going. He told me the woman at this branch used to work in the one closest to his house and he hadn’t been happy with the job those who replaced her did so we were going to this place.

The thing is, because this salon is located in a largely undeveloped area there is only this one woman working at the branch. When we arrived she was out getting lunch for her son and herself. So we waited outside the door until she came back and then waited while she ate lunch and then waited while she cut the hair of the guy who had signed in before she took her lunch break.

I have to say we are both happy with our hair these days.

Obviously I am not going to be flying that far to get my hair cut nor am I going to wait until I return to visit my sister to get my next cut. What my little story is meant to illustrate is that even in areas a customer rates as unimportant to them there is a point that quality can fall below that suddenly makes it important enough to base a decision upon. The problem for anyone trying to sell a good or service is that the point is completely subjective and difficult to predict without some complex mathematical formulae. A situation where all things appear generally equal to you probably doesn’t to someone else.

In fact, sometimes the customer doesn’t quite know why they are making a decision. I can identify why I do my grocery shopping at a store miles from my house but on the way home from work and not the location the same chain two blocks from my house. (younger, cleaner building with own bakery vs. driving past my house and potentially hitting 4 traffic lights).

What I don’t know is why I have never had a problem with my haircuts until the last two years. I am sure in the time since my mother stopped cutting my hair I have had some pretty bad cuts. I couldn’t tell you why it bothers me now.

This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if surveying audiences is of any value at all. We already know people often say they are interested in attending certain types of events and then never translate their stated interest into practice. Add motivations patrons aren’t consciously aware of influencing them and you start getting ready to tear your hair out.

Unless you are concerned about your coif, of course.

Earlier this year U2 scheduled a concert on the same day as we had scheduled a ballet company. I had two concerns about this 1- The publicity and stories in the media were going to totally eclipse anything I managed to get written/broadcast about my performance. 2- I really wanted to go to the U2 concert and failing that, wanted it to sell out so they would add a show.

Last week brought an announcement that the U2 show had to be postpone bringing welcome relief to both my concerns. (Except now I have to join the competition for tickets!)

Back when the two shows were postioned on the same night, every time I mentioned the fact, people told me not to worry because U2 and ballet don’t share audiences.

Really?

U2 started getting airplay in the US around 1983. I figure conservatively that the ages of people who became interested in them ranged from 13 to 30. Today that 13 year old is 36 and the 30 year old is 56. True, a lot of those 56 year old probably retired from the whole concert scene and weren’t planning on going to see U2. A lot of them probably weren’t planning to come to the ballet that night either.

I can’t believe that there aren’t U2 fans who don’t go to the ballet though. I don’t know if Bono is one of those guys who won’t go to the ballet if his wife doesn’t push him or not. But I think I am on pretty firm ground claiming that he would appreciate the mastery and artistry he saw on stage.

I am seriously considering adopting this approach as a way to promote the performance. At this point, I don’t expect much more than our usual dance crowd to turn out.

I was thinking of something along the lines of:

“U2 is Postponed so come to the ballet!
What? U2 fans don’t go to ballet? How do you know?

The founders are former NY City Ballet dancers and their aim is to make ballet about the fun instead of the perfection of technique. If there is one thing U2 fans know, it is artistry and that is what this company offers.”

I wrote this in my head on the drive home so it is still rough, but you get the thrust. This is the stated aim of the ballet company so I am not misrepresenting difficult material as accessible to sell tickets. I will have to ponder it some more, but I don’t think this approach will alienate my usual audience, (such as it is), either.

In addition, I am pondering taking some inspiration from Drew McManus’ “Take A Friend To the Orchestra,” and offering a special rate if people mention they are taking a friend to the ballet–“So You Can Talk About What You Saw Afterward.”

The whole idea of ticket pricing and discounting is always a hot topic rife for debate. I am in a particularly tough spot since Neill Archer Roan just responded to a comment I made on his blog that he applauded my decision to avoid rush discounting. Now here I am saying I might do that. (Though the discount will be available prior, I predict most people will wait until performance night to invoke it.)

However, last week I also invoked Neill’s entry, “How Audiences Use Information to Reduce Risk.”

I think proposing you bring a friend along so you can talk about the experience can cause a mental shift from “who the heck do I know would want to go with me?” to “hey, X is a smart person, maybe (s)he would be interested in trying something new.” Even though the situation hasn’t changed, suggesting that you will be inviting a friend to share a new experience rather than trying to convince someone to come along so you don’t enter an alien experience alone is less intimidating.

It’s also easier to convince said other person that you are inviting them along to enjoyable experience if you aren’t giving off a vibe that you desperately feel the need to have a familiar presence to anchor you in an alien environment.

Anyway. Some things to still ponder before I start writing press releases and ad copy. If nothing else, the idea is a good jumping off point since it is more interesting than my typical campaigns. Not much to lose. And while the potential gain might not ultimately be all that much either, if I do get a positive response, maybe I learn how to reach the community a little better next time.

I’ll let you know what happens.

Just when I thought I would have nothing of interest to blog on, (I am working on stuff, but nothing I can write about), I somehow come across Completely Pointless Movie Reviews which included a review about Utah Opera’s Romeo and Juliet.
Apparently, in an attempt to reach a younger audience, they asked Juliet to blog about how much she loves Romeo, how much she doesn’t want to marry Paris. The attempt to write like a teenager isn’t authentic enough to fool anyone I think. And the top 5 reasons to see the show that they emailed the Completely Pointless reviewer are pretty weak.

But I gotta think that it was probably the best attempt anyone had made to make a younger audience aware of the opera than had been made in the recent past. Though I suspect that plenty of young people would just see it as another example of adults trying to be cool and completely failing. Don’t know if they will make any converts out of good intentions.

Just today I saw a blog entry about an upcoming conference that is going to teach businesses to exploit blogging. The author is pretty upset that businesses are trying to co-opt blogging for their own purposes and cites a McDonald’s attempt that backfired.

Elisa at Worker Bee’s Blog touched upon a similar situationabout six months ago in relation to the arts. (Granted, it was in relation to one of my entries, but she deals with some segments of the issue better than I had.)

You gotta be careful about trying to harvest blogging for your own purposes because there are a lot of eyes watching and anything that smacks of insincerity, once detected, is loathed.