Creating effective campaigns
'The key to effective print is big, bold and sexy pictures. It may not be rocket science but it works. Good images grab the public's attention and, because Northern Stage makes highly visual work, we need to show this in our publicity. I really like it when a venue uses the same picture in their brochure as we have on the posters and the print. We try to focus on one idea that sums up the show and keep on hammering that message.
Northern Stage has built a reputation for attracting young and nontraditional theatre audiences. When we are promoting our work in Newcastle and around the North East, we try to use nontraditional techniques. We use a distributor that mainly delivers club print, rather than a traditional theatre distributor; and we try to widen our presswork beyond the arts pages, placing pieces about our participation work with education reporters, or items about costume design with fashion reporters. None of this is groundbreaking, but we try to keep on returning to the basic tools and techniques of marketing and promotion but give them a little fresh tweaking.
The best ideas for promoting Northern Stage on tour often come from the companies that visit us at the Newcastle Playhouse. It's great when we get strong pictures and well-written copy in good time. As a team we try to get things right first time, every time and in good time. We don't always succeed, but because we also run a venue, we know how frustrating it is to get things late.
On recent tours we've cut down our marketing pack to the bare essentials. We want receiving venues to get just what they need, rather than having to plough through lots of unnecessary hype. We include a sample direct mail letter, a sample press release and box office notes. We try to give some ideas for marketing tricks that can support the show, but venues know their audiences better than we do, so our main focus is on supporting the marketing and press staff in the receiving venue.
When we can, we do facility visits. We think that if venue staff understand our company and our work they will sell our show to their audiences with conviction. We show them the promotional video or DVD, and then talk to them about how the work came to be made; how the education work supports the production and something about the philosophy and values of Northern Stage. Ideally we bring the whole company together.
Overall we try to support staff in the receiving venues in any way we can. Hopefully that leads to them supporting us and then we work together to generate great audiences.'