[1/11/2010 SteppersUSA Daily News]
Advertising For Your Market
By Markie Bee
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Steppers West Associates "A Memorial Day Weekend Jam" starting May
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for $80!
As Chicago style stepping moves
into the larger national market new challenges are raised for those
pushing out the art form to the masses. For most businesses that
have done their homework, know their local market as well as the
demographics in their city and surrounding areas.
What happens when the market gets big enough to start hosting larger
events and they want to attract that percentage of the national
audience that may be willing to travel to their city to attend?
In several recent conversations with promoters from cities across
the country, it has become abundantly apparent these folks have put
a lot of thought into this very question. The majority seemed to
believe a realistic expectation of "out of town visitors" to a
Chicago style steppers event in a city other than Chicago trends
between 15 to 30 percent of the total attendance.
This revealing information comes mostly from experiences from before
and during the current national economic down turn. Projecting
attendance is always a difficult task because nobody has a crystal
ball. (I like to make the comparison to shaking a stick in the air,
the end that's farther from your hand creates a greater arc than the
part closer to your hand). There are too many variables to make a
solid prediction.
When advertising to the national audience it's important
to hit the mark with the audience that
will be interested in your event while doing that promotion with the
least capital outlay.
One way promoters have gravitated to recently is the use of Facebook and
(to a lesser degree Twitter and MySpace) promoting to that percentage of
people who are connected using those social media sites.
It provides a cost effective way of connecting with some of the members.
For example right now the Chicago style steppers Facebook group has a
membership of over 2900 members and I leverage that audience for my
advertisers by posting their events in the group.
Of course free listings on SteppersUSA.Com and newsletters like Cynthia
Bean's are also widely used as well as a few others with less reach.
What about the paid solutions? Before I get into the paid solutions
available, let's take a look at how much should really be budgeted for
advertising for a steppers event.
Here's the scenario; your location will handle between 500 and 800
guests. To stay on the conservative side lets set the goal to reach at
500 (Important note I'm just dealing with advertising budgets here. I've
already covered acquiring locations in previous articles).
Experienced event planners and promoters set their advertising budget at
two to three percent of the projected gross revenue from the event. In
this case we are selling tickets for $20 (before any discounting which
is discretionary) which means a gross take of $10 thousand.
Using the three percent model that means you have a grand total of $300
for advertising. If you spend $225 for flyers and tickets you're left
with $75 budget for all other advertising. That's not a lot of money so
how do you get the most "bang for the buck"?
So… you still have $75 left now what? Let's look at those paid
advertising solutions on the web.
Continuing with our example we have to decide how many people might
visit from other cities (Chicago steppers love to travel) and as I
mentioned earlier you can usually count on between 15 to 30 percent of
the total attendance. I'll stay right down the middle and use 20 percent
with our example. This means you are marketing to around 100 people
(thousands will see the ad) from out of town. Using our base equation we
found we had $75 left to advertise to the national audience (fact:
anything on the web is national/international). The key is to try to
spend wisely and try to spread the budget over as many sites you can for
maximum exposure without going over budget. This means checking the
prices for advertising on sites and newsletters where you know the most
people gravitate to when finding steppers events.
Once you’ve found the sites that won't break the budget, hire them.
(Shameless plug time… with SteppersUSA you can post your flyer AND get
display advertising for a reasonable monthly rate of $35 and get the
best steppers market penetration on the web. End of shameless plug). If
you stick to your budget you will realize profit from your fifth ticket
sale (or 2-/12 tickets per site).
If you control your budget before the event happens you will end up with
more money for intangibles your customers will appreciate when you need
more seats/tables, decorations, etc., as well as being one step closer
to profit and the exposure your event needs to set it apart from all the
others.
If you can click the ads under this logo you
can make money too!
Try It!
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