25 Marketing
Marketing
The basics of Marketing for Theatre were covered in an earlier chapter. Here we want to focus on how to get into a career marketing for the theatre and the required skills or considerations it requires.
Pathways
In 1985, I was looking for a different job from what I had. And I’d always been interested in theatre. I originally wanted to be on the stage, but I went through some theatre at University of Winnipeg and did some auditions and realized, yeah, I cannot live like that. It was just really scary. But I was on a short medical leave of absence. The job I had was really very, very stressful, I had high blood pressure, and I was like 25. So, I took three months off and decided that I’d like to do something different. I went to Manpower for help at the time and the job counsellor suggested, well, there’s this place called Prairie Theatre Exchange that is looking for someone and they need someone that fits this kind of offbeat criteria for a government grant. And so, Colin [Jackson] hired me as the tour coordinator, without any kind of experience, without any kind of training, that was ’85, you could do that back then. Partly because I think that I did well in the interviews and I can demonstrate writing and all that kind of stuff, but also partly because he could get a grant to cover part of my salary, but I proved myself.
I started as tour coordinator, and after about four years they made me the publications manager, so I was writing everything for the theatre. Writing is probably my strongest skill. And then, we moved into this building [Portage Place]. The first season was 89/90, which was a really interesting year because the offices didn’t move over until the spring of ’90. And so we packed up all that, you know, four story building and our offices and got over here and unpacked. And a week later I got accepted in a position at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I went over there for 11 years and there I went into development, but still a kind of marketing. I was the volunteer and special events coordinator, which involved more marketing than fundraising. But I evolved into the individual campaign manager. Ultimately, I ended up as the interim director of development. In 2002, I came back to PTE and I was both fundraising and marketing until just a few years ago when we did a little kind of shift so that Carmen [Johnston] took over all of the development work and I focused on marketing. So, it’s been a varied trajectory. But the key aspects of it, everything that I did involved writing skills and problem solving. Those are my top two things. Along the way I did a lot of workshops and seminars and, you know, learning as I go, so… I developed the knowledge and skill set that I needed to accomplish each of my jobs. – Haanita Seval, Director of Marketing, PTE, Winnipeg, MB
You can pursue a degree in marketing or communications. Often you would then need to do some training to understand how this applies specifically to the theatre industry. For many years my company hired a marketing summer student. Most were doing a Creative Communications diploma at the local college where they focused on a specific area of publicity, marketing, or communications. They would also do a practicum for hands on experience. They were getting incredible training, but as they began working with us they didn’t necessarily have an understanding of how to apply their knowledge to the performing arts. Those who had a background in theatre, even just having done a high school drama class or been on stage, demonstrated better understanding. The ideal is someone with both the marketing expertise and theatrical context. Regardless, no one will jump right into being a Marketing Manager, most will start out in a junior position and work their way up, learning as they go.
Some smaller theatre companies, independents, collective groups, or folks coming together to do the Fringe may be looking to contract someone to do some marketing tasks. This can be a good way to get experience and build up a portfolio of communication pieces you’ve created such as media releases, social media campaigns, and mailings.
Considerations in marketing for theatre
Do you love theatre? It will be hard to get others excited to go to a show if you don’t believe in the power, beauty and importance of live performance. If you want to work in marketing for theatre be sure you are passionate about it.
You will also need to see a lot of theatre! You will need to work with artists. You will need to be a cheerleader for the art form.
Getting Work
…the thing that will always impress me the most is if a candidate comes in actually having gone to the website and understanding what it is that the organization does and is able to cite their understanding of what the organization does. I mean, to me that is the bare minimum of applying for any job. I think a portfolio is important. It should have writing examples of different styles and purpose. – Haanita Seval, Director of Marketing, PTE, Winnipeg, MB
In most cases, getting work in this particular area of the arts will be closer to the process of finding work elsewhere. There will be a job posting, at least for full-time work. You will submit your well-written cover letter and your resume. This is a field focused on communications, so your cover letter needs to demonstrate if you can write well. Show your passion, show your ability to tell a story and engage the reader. And, definitely make sure it is grammatically correct. In terms of your resume, it will be closer to a standard CV with a focus on your past marketing work. I’ve also seen marketing candidates submit a portfolio with their job application or bring one in to an interview. It has included a range of samples of their past work, even work that they did as part of a class was useful to see.
There is definitely a need for more specialists in this field, so if you show the passion and aptitude for it there will be chances for placements, assistantships, and eventually full-time positions.
To find job postings, PACT’s Artsboard includes marketing and communications posts. More broadly covering the non-profit sector, which theatres fall under, is Charity Village. AFC also has a great resource on Conducting an On-Line Job Search.
Skill Set
Marketing and communication work requires a range of both soft skills as well as hard skills (technical knowledge). This is a non-exhaustive list just so you can see if you are on your way to having what might be required.
- Communication – being able to express yourself and convey concepts clearly is crucial, perhaps the most challenging part of communication I’ve seen with those entering this field is comfort-level with picking up the phone and calling someone
- Creativity – often the writing is more about storytelling and requires an imaginative approach
- Problem-Solving – there will be problems from printing issues to last minute changes in information, how you manage them is the real test
- Data Analysis – tracking and assessing everything from website traffic to ticket sales will allow for an understanding of what is working or not working
- Listening – both internally to team members and the artists who are expressing the intent of the show, but also paying attention to what patrons say
- Customer Service and Customer Knowledge – ultimately your job is about selling a product to a patron
- Decision-Making – often you will have to make a call in the moment in order to meet a deadline, being indecisive will slow things down
- Management – as you move up the ranks you will likely have other staff working with you, you will need to supervise and make sure everyone and everything stays on target
- Strong Writing and Copywriting – you will be doing a lot of writing
- Proficiency with Tools – such as Google Analytics, social media, and digital marketing platforms
- Basic Design Skills – you may with smaller companies have to do some graphic design, creating a basic flyer or promo, or you may work with a professional graphic designer and need to know how to have the conversation
- Spreadsheet Proficiency – for data, budget, reports
I’m not sure that promotional writing is being taught. It’s different than anything else, right? It’s trying to figure out how to paint a word picture of something you’ve never seen that will appeal to and make somebody make a decision to attend a play that they’ve never seen that they know nothing about. It’s both a skill and a technique.
A really good grounding in the basic computer software that we use, like Word, like Excel, you know, those are the two top ones. I’ve worked with people who had never used Excel before, and it’s really basic. A knowledge, like very rudimentary knowledge of how design, graphic design works, because we need to work with designers and somebody who doesn’t have any kind of a grounding in it may not understand the challenges of too much text, right? – Haanita Seval, Director of Marketing, PTE, Winnipeg, MB
- Deadline and Schedule Management – the show opens on a specific date so if you want an audience to be there you will need to keep to a strict timeline
- Teamwork – this is a collaborative form, marketing should align with the playwright’s intention for a particular show and the director’s vision
- Crisis Management – there will be meltdowns, there may be lockdowns, so being able to calmly get through challenges will save your sanity but also keep everyone else feeling grounded
- Building Relationships – this is all about working with others, you will form a relationship with the patrons, with the media, with the community, with stakeholders
Definitely passion for theatre. Definitely a collaborative personality. The ability to work collaboratively, but also be self-motivating because if you’re at the top of the heap, really nobody should need to be telling you what to do. Excellent writing skills with the ability to write for different audiences. Are you writing for subscribers or are you writing for single ticket buyers? The message and the voice need to be different because they have different relationships with us. If you’re writing for single ticket buyers and you’re writing for the 30 and unders, that will sound different than if you’re trying to convince a company to bring people for an entertainment evening. So, you need to be able to have all these different voices and be articulate and empathetic in each of the voices that you use.
There does need to be experience in marketing for theatre if you’re going for my job, and that includes both publicity and social media, which is related but separate from marketing. Marketing tends to deal with paid promotion and direct campaigns to target markets. Publicity is more working with media and the free promotion that you can get from working with different groups to spread the word, outreach, that sort of thing. And then social media. My particular job does not entail social media but I think that a person in my position still needs to have a really good understanding of how social media works. And what works and what doesn’t. Experience in planning, creating and booking ads and ad campaigns. A demonstrated ability to handle the fast-paced, high-energy shifting pace of an arts environment. Experience in developing marketing plans and budgets absolutely is necessary for this position. Problem solving is like right up there, because things seldom go to plan. And the first question that should be on your mind when something goes off the rails is what can we do to fix this? Or, what else could we do? If we can’t do that anymore, then what else can we do? And last on my list is a sense of humour. Because if you don’t have a sense of humour, you are not going to function in this place, and probably most of the performing arts. We’re a special kind of people, I think. – Haanita Seval, Director of Marketing, PTE, Winnipeg, MB
Contracts
Again, in most cases you are going to be hired as an employee so your contract will be more of a standard employment contract. You want to make sure your role is clear and you understand expectations. Marketing can be very broad so a contract can allow for a clear focus on your responsibilities.
There are some contracted/gig positions for social media content folks or independent theatres will sometimes engage a freelance marketing or publicity person on a show by show basis. No matter how short-term, I would still advocate for having a contract in writing that makes clear the tasks expected, the number of hours, payment, and the timeline. As well it should outline if there is a budget for you to spend.
Resources and Advice
Be prepared to be maybe a little lower in the hierarchy than you might feel like you should be. Any role that you have is preparation for the next role and puts you into that ideal position to take advantage of having built your skills and your profile and, you know, and then you’re there. So, nothing is, is well, nothing is too small.
It’s not a reflection of your skills. It’s maybe a reflection of your experience just starting. I think that students need to know how fast paced and high energy and sometimes stressful working in an arts environment can be, because of competing deadlines and situations changing. It’s not a standard office situation. I don’t think that they should expect to be working 12 hour days. But I do think that they shouldn’t be surprised if sometimes your days are a bit longer than other days. They should be able to buy in completely to the organization that they’re working for. That means attending performances, helping wherever you can.
Yeah. I mean, one of the challenges of arts organizations these days is that we simply are not able to hire the number of staff that we actually need. And that’s one of the things that sometimes causes workloads that might be heavier than we would like to assign. But that’s where the planning and the priority listing and list making in general really, really helps. It isn’t a 9 to 5 job where you could leave everything behind you at the office. It’s something that’s going to stick in your mind, you’re thinking about when you’re at home, too. So, yeah, those are the top ones. – Haanita Seval, Director of Marketing, PTE, Winnipeg, MB
The more you can explore how theatres are marketing their shows, the better prepared you will be! Check out websites, posters, social media, advertising…
And just for fun – Can a one-minute trailer convince you to see a show?