The value is in the mailing list.<\/p>\n
Let me make this simple.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t matter what the price of the event is if nobody knows about it.<\/p>\n
So I’m having dinner with a promoter last night.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s telling me about this gig, multiple nights, tens of thousands of seats, and that he made a deal with Goldstar up front.\u00c2\u00a0 Not when he was desperate, not when tickets were not selling, but as part of his overall marketing\/sales plan.<\/p>\n
But doesn’t Goldstar cheapen the experience?\u00c2\u00a0 Of both the performer and the viewer?<\/p>\n
This is where we get back to the question of properly pricing your event.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got a plethora of overpriced shows paid for by promoters who need to fill their buildings.\u00c2\u00a0 Prices go up, demand falters and somehow it’s the public’s fault.\u00c2\u00a0 So what do we do?<\/p>\n
Reasonable people would say to lower the price.<\/p>\n
Still, in the modern world, it’s hard to get the word out.<\/p>\n
So this promoter asks me, have I heard of PaleyFest?<\/p>\n
I had to admit I had no clue.\u00c2\u00a0 Was it William Paley?\u00c2\u00a0 Or the writer Grace Paley?\u00c2\u00a0 Did I even hear him right, did he really say "Paley"?<\/p>\n
Now this gentleman is not unsophisticated.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s the picture of worldly.\u00c2\u00a0 But he too had no clue what PaleyFest was.<\/p>\n
But from the weekly Goldstar e-mail, the company he just made a deal with, he bought a ticket to PaleyFest at the Wilshire Theatre.<\/p>\n
And what was playing?<\/p>\n
Jimmy Fallon.<\/p>\n
Turns out PaleyFest is all about revealing the inner workings of TV shows to the public.\u00c2\u00a0 And in this case, it was Jimmy Fallon and his band of merrymakers.\u00c2\u00a0 For ten bucks on Goldstar.\u00c2\u00a0 General admission.<\/p>\n
My friend got a good seat and was mesmerized, as Fallon and his troops told their story, Fallon evidencing what a great comedian he is, to my friend’s taste anyway.<\/p>\n
Now this guy’s hooked.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only did he go to the show, he became a fan, he records Fallon every night.<\/p>\n
Think about this.<\/p>\n
Goldstar is reaching people no one else can.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, the enticement is a discount.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re on the list, you’re also looking to go out. And you’ll take a chance.\u00c2\u00a0 No one takes a chance for a hundred bucks at the shed.\u00c2\u00a0 You want a guarantee that the band will play all their hits and sound just like the record.\u00c2\u00a0 Improvisation is out.\u00c2\u00a0 New material is out.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re in for too much money.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re in for less, you’re open to something new.<\/p>\n
So let’s dial back.<\/p>\n
If you advertise on TV, you still won’t reach everybody.\u00c2\u00a0 Check the shares.\u00c2\u00a0 Cable channels can have 100,000 people watching.\u00c2\u00a0 And in a country of 300 million, a network hit reaches somewhere between 10 and 20 million.\u00c2\u00a0 People fall through the cracks.<\/p>\n
Concomitantly, it’s not about mainstream entertainment.\u00c2\u00a0 Your niche act can carve out a profitable business.\u00c2\u00a0 If it can find an audience.<\/p>\n
That’s what Goldstar does.<\/p>\n
Now I’m not on the payroll.\u00c2\u00a0 And I still think tickets should be priced right from the get-go.\u00c2\u00a0 But the dude who runs the company is right. He’s targeting people who wouldn’t go to the show anyway, who wouldn’t know about it.\u00c2\u00a0 Are there some schnorrers, just looking for a deal?\u00c2\u00a0 Sure.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, these are not hard core fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Hard core fans need to be up close and personal, they want the best seats. These are people just interested in being inside the building.<\/p>\n
Everything is changing.\u00c2\u00a0 We no longer live in a top down society.\u00c2\u00a0 There are a zillion fiefdoms.\u00c2\u00a0 How do you connect them?<\/p>\n
You have to know who your audience is.\u00c2\u00a0 You have to gain their trust.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t spam them.\u00c2\u00a0 They have to feel like they’re getting a benefit.<\/p>\n
In other words, e-mail me every day telling me to buy and I’m out.<\/p>\n
E-mail me once a week and I buy infrequently and I’m staying in.<\/p>\n
With it so hard to reach people marketers are banging the heads of those whose attention they’ve got.\u00c2\u00a0 And this repetition pisses people off.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Hollywood hype.\u00c2\u00a0 Is Rob Lowe EVERYWHERE this week?\u00c2\u00a0 If they want to sell something, it’s a scorched earth policy, making me want to withhold my money just to mess with them.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t want this relationship with your audience, you want TRUST!<\/p>\n
\nGoldstar<\/a>
PaleyFest<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The value is in the mailing list. Let me make this simple.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t matter what the price of the event is if nobody knows about it. So I’m having dinner with a promoter last night.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s telling me about this gig, multiple nights, tens of thousands of seats, and that he made a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-goldstar","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4042"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4044,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042\/revisions\/4044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}