A guide for small theatre production companies and fringe theatres doing their own marketing
I’ve been writing about theatre in London for 15 years* and I’m lucky enough to get sent press releases, invites and pitches of all shapes and sizes, but I wanted to share some tips for the small productions and venues doing their marketing with a low or no budget.
You’ll likely have a list of journalists and bloggers you want to target with promotional material and to invite to review.
Bloggers will receive a lot of press releases and invites. I count myself as small-scale in the reviewing world and still receive 20-30 emails and DMs a week.
Added to this, only a very few online reviewers do it as paid work. Most, like me, have full-time jobs and blog about theatre as a hobby and are therefore time poor.
Keep information clear and concise
This means clear communication with easy-to-find key information in emails is a huge help.
- Where is your play/musical/show?
- When is it?
- How long is it?
- What is it?
WHERE London has so many fringe theatres, so include an address for where your production is in your email so reviewers have the information to hand.
Side note: if you are a theatre, is the address easy to find on your website?
There are an alarming number of small theatre websites with this vital bit of info buried somewhere in a drop-down menu or page. Make it clear and obvious, eg, ‘Find us’ in the main menu.
Dates and timing details
WHEN If there is a specific press night or dates when reviewers are welcome, make that clear as it will save back and forths on email and potentially awkward conversations.
Start time, obviously, but also running times are really helpful for planning journeys home. Even if it’s a rough idea before everything is locked down.
As a female reviewer travelling alone, venue location and when a production finishes are important considerations.
Brevity is the soul of wit (keep it short)
WHAT Think of your email as a 15-minute play, not a 3.5-hour epic. Keep it short and get to the point quickly.
Describe your production simply and succinctly, highlighting anything particularly notable.
If it is easy to understand what it is, it is easier to promote or make a decision about whether to review.
Notable information could be the credentials of one or more of the creatives, past work, pertinent themes, contemporary resonances and relationship with popular culture.
It can be useful to include a short one- or two-sentence summary that can easily be used for listings if that is something the blogger does.
Include social media handles for easy tagging (see Harnessing Social Media below).
And make sure all the details are in the email, rather than a Word or PDF attachment, so it’s easy to access.
Easy to read emails
Make your email easy to read with plenty of spacing. Reading on screen is much harder than reading in print, and big blocks of text are particularly hard to read.
More white space makes it easier to scan and quickly get the gist. Pull out the key info into a list or make it bold so it’s easy to find.
Whether you are a production company or a small theatre, think of it like trying to connect with an audience; if it’s not clear and easy to understand, your reader won’t engage.
Equally important is to make it easy for theatre reviewers and bloggers to reply, ie, don’t have a separate email for responses.
Photography
Include artwork for promotion and send production photos when available.
Large file sizes can clog up email inboxes, so use a tranfer services like Dropbox instead.
Social media/online-friendly formats are really helpful, as is having the actors’ names and the photographer’s details on each image, so it’s easy to correctly caption.
Properly labelled photos are also helpful for SEO.
HARNESS SOCIAL MEDIA
Building a social media presence takes consistency over a long period of time. Setting up an account for a play is probably not the best idea unless you’ve got a huge celebrity in the cast and have a long run or tour planned.
Focus instead on building the audience for your production company or theatre account alongside personal creatives accounts.
If people are saying nice things about your work, repost, share and tag. Repeat. Repeat again.
Your connections/audience aren’t all on a social media platform at the same time, and the algorithm doesn’t show everyone everything all the time.
Encourage reposts, shares and conversation
Tagging the blogger can lead to reposts/shares and broaden your audience. Plus, it’s always flattering for a reviewer to get a mention.
Think of content you can produce in between productions. Updates, behind the scenes, what you’ve seen, influences, etc.
Help people get to know the people in your company to build a connection with your potential audience.
On a platform like Instagram, comments boost visibility, so encourage conversation and reply to nice things people say and any questions. (Ignore/delete/block/report trolls.)
Regular, consistent posting will help build your following.
To summarise
- Include all the key information
- Include images in an easy-to-use format
- Make your email easy to read/scan and the information easy to find
- Build a social media following through consistency and conversation
- Promote, promote, promote
Thanks to Lou Reviews for sense-checking this article and spotting some things I’d missed.
*As well as being on the receiving end of lots of theatre press releases, I also used to be a business journalist. Now I’m a freelance business writer and content strategist, and I use social media to boost my visibility and attract work.
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