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Tony James Inner circle Cheshire UK 1398 Posts |
How much time are you prepared to spend on marketing yourself and what would be the best way to invest that time?
Tony James
Still A Child At Heart |
Jim Poor Special user Fairfax, VA 676 Posts |
In the photography world, the most common advice is about two days out of a five day week should be dedicated to "active marketing" (calls, follow-ups, etc) I think that is a pretty good start point.
Of course the big questions to be answered relate to the amount of time you devote to magic to begin with (full time, weekends, etc). Even more important, what are your goals? For example, my current near-term goal is to start making enough money that magic starts to pay for itself. My mid-term goal is to network and get established to the point that I don't have to depend entirely on my day job, should it suddenly evaporate. The amount of marketing I eventually do will relate to each of those goals. There are a lot of good threads on general marketing. A quick glance revealed much good information, but I didn't see a direct answer to "How much time..." Then again, I didn't read everything. Best, Jim |
magic4u02 Eternal Order Philadelphia, PA 15110 Posts |
I devote a lot of time to the marketing of my show and making sure my name remains in the minds of both my clients as well as my prospects. It is soemthing I do and something I have made a habit and it sort of becomes a way of life. Once you get into the habit of doing effective marketing, you do it naturally and not so much the feeling that you have to do all this extra work.
Now the real gem or solution is to learn to 2) find out what marketing is best and most effective for you and your magic business and 2) then forming systems into your marketing so that these sysytems beocme automated. When you develop marketing system in this fashion, you end up saving yourself a lot of time but you still are marketing at the high level of which you want to be at. I spent a lot of time up front first just figuring out what marketing works for me in the markets I perform in. So up front my ratio of time spent on marketing to actual performance time was prety high. however, I knew this was going to be time well spent because that was the only way I would know and find out whatmarketing worked well for my wife and I. Then I tracked everything and all results. This allowed me to really see what marketing works best for us and then we worked on developing systems set in place to make our marketing more time-effective while still maintaining that same level of marketing we wanted to be at. Some of these systems can be as easy as: - Creating templates of letters that are the letters you send out most often to prospects and clients based on the most common requests you receive. - Creating phone scripts and placing them by your phones so that you do not even have to think when it comes to a prospect calling you and it ensures you cover off on everything you want them to know about. - making an automated form on your website so that people can request information from you and then they receive an automated response back in their own e-mail. This can be 100% automated to work for you without you having to do anything. There are many many more that I can go into, but the idea is to start working smart. marketing still needs to be done, but you can still effectively active market yourself while keeping the time you spend on it down to a minimum. Kyle
Kyle Peron
http://www.kylekellymagic.com Entertainers Product Site http://kpmagicproducts.com Join Our Facebook Fan Page at http://facebook.com/perondesign |
Habu Veteran user Texas / Alabama 393 Posts |
This is a good question, most people ask how much money should I spend, not how much time.
I think the best thing to do is two part:
www.magicbyhabu.com
Real name: Rick Jackson Habu: Taken from SR-71 spy plane I worked on. It's name came from a poisonous snake on Okinawa. Hope my magic isn't poisonous! |
Habu Veteran user Texas / Alabama 393 Posts |
DOH, he answered while I was typing, LOL
but I was right, he did have a good answer.
www.magicbyhabu.com
Real name: Rick Jackson Habu: Taken from SR-71 spy plane I worked on. It's name came from a poisonous snake on Okinawa. Hope my magic isn't poisonous! |
magic4u02 Eternal Order Philadelphia, PA 15110 Posts |
Hehehe thanks Habu. I really appreciate the kind words. That was actually kind of scary how that worked out. Nice trick huh? hehe
Kyle
Kyle Peron
http://www.kylekellymagic.com Entertainers Product Site http://kpmagicproducts.com Join Our Facebook Fan Page at http://facebook.com/perondesign |
Tony James Inner circle Cheshire UK 1398 Posts |
A lot of people spend time and money on websites and paid for advertising so that when someone wants a children's entertainer their's is the name which jumps out.
But with all the alternative entertainments and party locations available, how do you influence people to even think about have an event that will need an entertainer like you, quite apart from that entertainer being you?
Tony James
Still A Child At Heart |
Habu Veteran user Texas / Alabama 393 Posts |
Tony, In my area that is the problem exactly.
I am 60 miles either way from any large cities. This area is primarily a farming community with some large industry such as Tysons Chicken and some manufacturing. There are some affluent people here, but for the most part average to lower income. To get to the higher income residential areas I would have to travel 50+ miles. That is something I am willing to do. However, I do plan to market the area I live in which means educating the public that there is a magician available to perform at their events. Now, as you said, I need to find a way to get the word out on a low budget. There are things I can do, but it will require a lot of leg work on my part to initiate it. So on one hand I have a relatively untapped area to work on-which is good, and on the other hand the availability of people who would pay the fee I would like to charge is very limited.
www.magicbyhabu.com
Real name: Rick Jackson Habu: Taken from SR-71 spy plane I worked on. It's name came from a poisonous snake on Okinawa. Hope my magic isn't poisonous! |
Tony James Inner circle Cheshire UK 1398 Posts |
So how do you present yourself to that market?
Mailshot them? Do a freebie in a local hall and invite the parents? Pick up a school? What works for you?
Tony James
Still A Child At Heart |
Habu Veteran user Texas / Alabama 393 Posts |
Well I don't know what works yet...we moved here about a year ago from New Jersey.
My plan is to contact some local party planning and catering services to see what arrangements I can make with them. If I can locate a business that hosts parties like a young children's pizza and games type place, that would be a possible business connection. I did children's birthday parties for a McDonald's 18 years ago. I even trained some of the cashiers on how to do some of the magic in case I could not do the show. (If I did the show it would have a 15 min magic show for an extra charge. If I could not do it they would do about 5 mins but would not charge extra) I also plan to do a free fund raiser for the PTA/PTO for one of the local schools. I am a substitute for the city schools so I should be able to arraigned something. I will use that as a vehicle to get the word out about a magician being in town. I may also approach a local church or civic center. But I only want to have one or two shows this way for advertising purposes. I do NOT intend to tell children in the classes in which I substitute that I am a magician for hire because I think that would be using my position as a substitute teacher improperly. The school superintendent would probably feel that way also. I am also going to get a business phone so that I am listed in the local phone books. All of those things that I can do will cost me nothing or very little. After that I will do something like sending out postcards to day care centers, schools, etc and maybe put an add in the local papers once a month advertising birthday parties. That is where I am now with my marketing plan to introduce magic into the area and to let them know who to call.
www.magicbyhabu.com
Real name: Rick Jackson Habu: Taken from SR-71 spy plane I worked on. It's name came from a poisonous snake on Okinawa. Hope my magic isn't poisonous! |
mrmystic Regular user Chicago 200 Posts |
Marketing to a small town doesn't have to cost you much at all. I had a large gap between shows a month ago about 3 and 1/2 hours. I thought I might go see a movie since neither show was anywhere near my home, but didn't see anything I liked. Instead I drove to the town where my second show was to see what was there. This little town was about 40 miles from my home and I had never spent any time there other then doing a party every few years. I was in my tux and walked around. I saw the library and walked in to the childrens section. I didn't have any of my marketing supplys with me as I wasn't planning to do this, but I did have my business cards with my website on it. I told the women working the counter who I was and she pulled up my website on her computer. They have since booked two shows for the summer with me. I then walked all through down town (the whole two and a half blocks of one street downtown) and checked out the shops and stopped for lunch. Wearing a tux makes people ask of you if you are going to a wedding or something. My answer, "No, I am doing a magic show down the road this evening and have some time to kill." This starts a conversation that lead to two other jobs, one is for the towns summer festival kickoff which could lead to many unknown jobs in the future.
I am sure glad there wasn't anything good playing at the theater that day. My cost, a few cents worth of business cards. |
kimmo Inner circle Sheffield 1193 Posts |
This is where I'm ashamed of myself. I did work hard on my website but apart from that I just sit at home and wait for the phone to ring. Luckily for me my customers seem to recommend me to their friends and I'm usually busy. But I could do so much more. I am a terrible businessman. Very often I don't even have any business cards on me when I'm asked and customers have to try and track me down. One joked that I was like the magical equivalent of the A team! Owning up to you guys is hopefully my first step to doing something about this!
VISIT MY ONLINE STORE!: www.kimmomagicshop.com
NEW LECTURE NOTES - SHOW US YOUR TRIX NOW AVAILABLE AS AN INSTANT DIGITAL DOWNLOAD! Kimmo DVD available Now! Watch the promo here! Order your copy NOW! CLICK HERE! ENTERTAINER,MAGICIAN AND VENTRILOQUIST'S BLOG - DON'T READ THIS... |
Emazdad Inner circle Plymouth UK 1954 Posts |
Don't be ashamed Kimmo, I'm just the same, apart from the YP ad and yellow pages the only thing I do is stick posters in church halls and cards in party bags.
To be honest I get more calls than I can handle anyway, and I don't want to interrupt my golf time, by having to actuallt work any more at home than I have to. I did my working for a living bit in the RN for 23 years, now I'm doing what I want when I want.
Yours Funfully
Clive "Emazdad" Hemsley www.emazdad.com "Magic is a secret, without the secret there is no magic" Remember there are only 3 types of people in the world, those that can count and those that can't. |
magicgeorge Inner circle Belfast 4299 Posts |
I'm exactly the same, Kimmo. I ran out of business cards over Christmas and still haven't got around to going to the printers! Yesterday, I was writing my number on playing cards with a marker.
I'm definitely another candidate for a kick in the posterier when it comes to business side of things. I'm a lazy sod, probably why I play with toys for a living. George |
wallythe wizard New user 47 Posts |
Hi,
Likewise I am like Kimmo and the others. |
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