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Aus Special user Australia 996 Posts |
Hi Guys
I’m currently reading the book Highway to Success by Elliott Smith and Ian Quick about some aspects of being a working professional and some of the advice and insights they have to offer in their book. One interesting thing that they talk about is Return on Investment of anything that you do to advertise your shows, that is does the advertisement pay for it’s self in the work that it generates, and they suggest a approach that allows you to monitor your success in each advertising venture so that eventually you weed out the less fruitful marketing campaigns and are left with the ones that work the best for you. So my question to all the working pros is, what various forms of advertising do you do that you find most effective and gives you the highest return on investment? Magically Aus |
magicofCurtis Inner circle Los Angeles 2545 Posts |
Internet directories and SEO...
Curtis Lovell II
http://www.CurtisLovell.com http://www.MagicofCurtis.com www.facebook.com/curtislovellii Los Angeles, California - U.S.A. |
jackturk Elite user 463 Posts |
It may depend slightly on the market you're targeting.
I do a lot of family shows and for that market, Pay-Per-Click provides me with a very good ROI. I book at least 10 to 15 shows per month for an investment of about one gig -- that's a solid ROI in my opinion. SEO is good as well, but there are costs you have to factor into the time it takes to keep your rankings solid -- adding new content, creating and uploading videos, submitting to indexes, etc. Even if you're not spending a dime on "advertising" you still are investing your time, which has value. Word of mouth has probably the very best ROI of all, but again, as Julian Franklin makes clear in his viral marketing series, to make this truly effective requires forethought and planning. So that time has got to be factored as well. --Jack
"59 Ways To Recession Proof Your Entertainment Business -- FREE!"
http://www.GetLeadsLikeCrazy.com "How To Make $25,000 a Year Doing Birthday Parties Part-Time" http://www.magicmarketingcenter.com/birthdayPT |
MikeClay Special user Atlanta GA 761 Posts |
SEO SEM are what I primarily use..
but spend more time now as a guest blogger on sites that my clients (or potential clients read) I also write articles for business and trade show groups.. this is syndicated through the web and gets me more bookings than I want from time to time..
its ok.. balloon dogs don't bite
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Aus Special user Australia 996 Posts |
Whats SEO and SEM stand for?
Magically Aus |
Gerry Hennessey Special user 852 Posts |
Check out the current podcast of The Advertising Show on Itunes. Very interesting interview on ROI.
Best Gerry
"Every discipline effects every other discipline. You can't straighten out the corporation if your closet is a mess" Jim Rohn
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JeffWampler Regular user Bristol, TN 191 Posts |
What a great question...
One thing to remember when calculating ROI is the Total Customer Value. For our business, that would be the total number of gigs we get per client (multiple/repeat bookings) as well as any spin off work generated from that gig, as well as any back of room sales if applicable. To answer your question, I've used lead generation postcards that drive prospects to my website, and follow up the mailing with a phone call. I've done yellow pages advertising at just over break-even. With future repeat bookings and referrals, I'm sure that number will get better. Staying in touch with past clients costs very little, and it's much easier to book programs from people who've seen you before. I've really thought about Pay per Click and after reading Jack's post, I think he has me convinced. Another thing I think I should mention as well is that effective marketing is the right message to the right market via the right media. In this particular thread, we're concentrating mainly on the MEDIA part, i.e. which forms of ADVERTISING get you the best ROI. There's two other parts that are vitally important, the message and the market. Just to use Jack as an example, if his website didn't have the right message for his market, his Pay-Per-Click results wouldn't be as impressive. In summary, what I'm trying to say, is that there is no magic pill for advertising. Sure, some work better for our industry than others, and I think several have been highlighted here. But if an advertising medium doesn't work, it may not be a poor medium, it could be a poor message or you could just telling the right message to the wrong people. |
MikeClay Special user Atlanta GA 761 Posts |
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
SEM - Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click is part of this) Matching Marketing material to your target market is an Art form.. For me this ment I needed multiple flyers (1 for each market I performed) I even had multiple business cards for awhile
its ok.. balloon dogs don't bite
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Aus Special user Australia 996 Posts |
Thanks everyone who has posted so far, the information has been very interesting. I have a few questions about some of the information put forward so far. Firstly about gaining work from your web sites, how do you focus people to your web site in terms of casual traffic and what attempts do you guys make in converting that casual traffic to inquiries? Obviously blatantly telling people to visit the site by following the URL on your business card is one way but how do you focus people who do random searches for magicians?
The internet being a worldly phenomenon how does a US magician who only works his local and surrounding areas increases traffic from his demographic area well trying to limit say inquiries from areas he does not work in. Does it come down to perimeters of the search engine that you set for your site or the pay for click service? Secondly a question about some of the points Jeff made about what variables of ROI and what can make it more or less effective. How do you troubleshoot an ROI of a particular medium that you are finding non effective? Is it through trail and error? It’s just that I can picture how expensive trying to find this information out could be. Say for example I’m doing a mail campaign and I’m not getting any good ROI from sending my mail to schools in the area leading up to the school holidays in hope that I might score some children’s party’s etc. Since I’m not getting any good responses from that I choose to retarget my mail campaign in another area hoping that I get a better ROI, but here is the issue, that is now two mail campaigns that I have now done in order to find out if I’m targeting the right people or not. How do I find out this information without being costly and time consuming or is this just something that the performer has to wear initially until the kinks are worked out? What if after all this it is the medium itself and we have wasted all this time on message and focus at a cost of time and money? I’m also interested if anyone uses referral programs and if people find them to have good ROI’s. Magically Aus |
MikeClay Special user Atlanta GA 761 Posts |
Internet Marketing is all about your keyword strategy..
if you target local.. you will rank local
its ok.. balloon dogs don't bite
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rtgreen Inner circle Portland, Oregon 1322 Posts |
Hey Aus,
Just a little off topic, but how do you like the Highway to Success book? I've been meaning to get it, but wanted to know a bit more about it. Thanks, Richard |
Chris LaBarge Regular user Upstate New York 134 Posts |
Get on Jack Turks mailing list and listen to what he has to say about thinking like your customer and using good copy to get in their heads. This will apply to mailings, web, and phone scripts. If it's not working, you're not speaking to your target audience in their language. You can have the best SEO in the world but if your page doesn't show them that you're the answer to their prayers...you might as well use smoke signals.
Just my humble opinion. |
RJE Inner circle 1848 Posts |
Quote:
On 2009-09-29 07:31, MikeClay wrote: This is the route that we find most effective in our marketing campaigns. To calculate the success is easy: Number of packages mailed compared to number of shows booked. We avoid mass mailings and target very specific prospective clients. This might mean a mailing list as small as 10 prospects with a job specific flyer created just for them. Although each mailing may have a different flyer, they all include our web address and phone number. We do not put our e mail address on the flyer, but it can be easily found on our web site. |
Aus Special user Australia 996 Posts |
Rtgreen the book in my opinion is a great buy as far as I’m concerned but I guess that’s relative to your knowledge level. I know a bit about magic but not a great deal in terms of the business side to magic so the book was quite an interesting educational experience for me.
The book covers your mindset before starting out on your venture to become a working professional in dealing with such things as goal setting and the three D’s of success. It also covers the basic setup of a working office in terms of the physical setup of an office as well as the clerical side of the business. Advertising and lead generating are much that consume the later chapters and gives a basic run down of ROI in terms of the more common forms of advertising that’s currently available and how to monitor it so you’re not throwing good money after bad. It also covers brand development so you can distinguish yourself from the others in your market. Another great book that I hear getting referred a lot is the Guerilla Marketing Handbook. Magically Aus |
Futureal Inner circle 1695 Posts |
Highway To Success is *very* basic. If you're brand new to business (not necessarily magic business, business in general) you might pick up some ideas.
Overpriced for what it contains IMO. |
Oscar999 Elite user 401 Posts |
I'm a professional copywriter ... meeting daily deadlines ...
As much as it pains me to say this, good copy, even great copy only accounts for about 10% of the success of your promotion. The greatest leverage you have is in media selection, or list selection which accounts for upwards of 60%. Which means Lebarge hit it on the head mentioning "thinking like your customer" ... it really is all about matching "Right message to right market" as Dan Kennedy says. What great copy does for you is hopefully speak to your prospects in their language, it's called entering the conversation your prospect is already having in their head. It can put a finer point on things and help motivate a qualified prospect to act ... and act NOW. Oscar |
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