Market Your Team
Get Your Name Out There
Marketing is often confused with sales. Though there is a clear connection between the two, marketing is the actual act of drawing attention to one’s self or one’s product.
Marketing is and will be a continually ongoing process for your puppet team. How you present yourself is marketing, how you look at events is marketing, how you project yourself on the phone to potential venue directors is marketing.
Every team member should be required to always present him or herself in a positive manner since they could very well be the first impression of the team to an interested party. This is where your codes of conduct will play an important role.
Some ways to market
Marketing always seems to have a stigma attached to it because of the fact that it is often associated with sales and thus seems to have dollar signs attached to it. This is a misconception, however. Not all marketing requires direct money transactions. It actually becomes easier when you get word of mouth going from people who have seen your performance.
Remember that pastors speak to other pastors; people who may attend one event may know someone looking for unique ideas to do for a party, etc.
Give free performances
Churches, nursing homes, and day cares are great places to give performances that will help get your name out there as well as give your team the needed experience that will help them work out any performance anxieties that they may have in the beginning.
Living billboards
Another way to get your name out there is by having all of your team members as marketing agents for your team. Give them business cards; come up with t-shirts for them to wear at school or other public events.
Promotional materials
As you find yourself doing more and more performances and honing your craft, start having someone recorded performances. Take those recordings and get some digital media CDs put together that shows your team in action. Make it look professional and send these out to prospective clients.
Social media
With these videos, create a video blog account on something like Youtube to give you a venue in which to promote your team’s efforts on a mass level.
Have a website. Whether this is a page on a social service network such as facebook, twitter, or Myspace, or even a page on your church’s website, it is important to have a place of contact other than a phone number. Present yourself as a professional and they will see you as a professional.
These are just a few things that will help you market your team, but it is just the start. As you get more familiar with marketing yourself, you will come up with more interesting ways to market. Always think outside of the box whenever possible. By thinking outside of the box, marketing becomes fun and you find yourself marketing even when you aren’t purposely doing it.
Become the Expert
Get involved with online forums where you can offer insight, promote yourself and help others with puppet questions. Often times you will find that, by answering a person’s question, they see you as the one to go to and will start coming to you direct with questions that will lead to an ongoing relationship that then blossoms into future gigs.
Host Training events
By hosting training events, you make connections, present yourself as an expert, sell yourself, and you might even pick up some new tips and tricks that just further enhances your team.
Have fun with it.
