Simon Callow in Being Shakespeare - Great Promo Video

So, in my opinion, a good promotional video for a one-person show should have the following ingredients:

• It should show actual clips of the performance
• The performer should give some context, if possible, about the show
• Some good pull quotes are a good idea
• The whole thing should be short and of high quality

Basically, it should give a good idea of what an audience member can expect while also being appealing enough (baiting the hook, so to speak) to get potential audience members to buy tickets.

This promo for Simon Callow's Being Shakespeare pretty much checks all the boxes.

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Grant Knutson on Marketing for Fringe Performers

Minion Production's own Grant Knutson answers some questions on how touring Fringe performers, specifically, can market their shows and get butts in seats.

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Hey there, if you know of someone or some festival/event that should be covered here on TSP, drop us a line. Thanks.

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Photos for Marketing

Bremner Duthie in '33, a Kabaret [credit: Alexander Howe]

Solo performers almost always have to do their own marketing (or the brunt of it). Good photos are a big part of it, be it headshots, publicity pics or performance photos. It can be confusing how to format these photos. Here's some quick advice...

• Have more than one photo! Seriously.

• Have a great horizontal photo and a great vertical photo. This gives options to the outlets you might be sending these pics to.

• A graphic (like a poster or flyer) is great, but most press/media outlets cannot use it. They want clear photos of the performer, preferrably, you know, performing.

• By "clear" photo I mean don't get super artsy and apply weird filters and distortions to the pic.

• The photo should be well-lit and interesting (i.e. not you just standing there. It should imply moment or action). 

• Attribute your photo correctly. Give credit where credit is due (see below)

• In the title of the pic, put your name, the show or project and photo attribution. (for instance, the photo of Bremner above is titled: "Bremner Duthie in '33 A Kabaret  - credit Alexander Howe")

• And it should be hi-res (short for high resolution). How high? Here's a handy chart.

(click on chart to see it bigger)

Solo Performer Press Kits

A press kit is one of the important things that I don't see enough solo performers utilizing. A good press kit can be of great use to the performer as well as the press. It can be a great introduction for a solo performer of what he or she does. It can be a great way to sum up who you are, what you are about and what your show is about. And it does so in a tidy little press-friendly package.

In this post, I want to explore what is in a standard press kit, how press kits have changed over the last several years and how a press kit can be utilized.

First, what is a press kit? Traditionally, a press kit was a packet of photos and information given out to press and media folks that offered all kinds of stuff about your show. Up until about two decades ago, a press kit literaly had large format, clear photo prints (with accompanying rights to further print these photos), a biographical write-up about the performer, a summation about the project/show and a listing of contact information to for follow-ups. It came in a well-organized folder.

Eventually, this gave way to placing all the information on a CD, then eventually a flashdrive, and now almost all "press kits" are done online, via a website or the like. Because if this, they are sometimes referred to as Digital Press Kits (DPK) or Electronic Press Kits (EPK)

Next, what would you need in a press kit? If you are doing good and interesting work at some point you are going to be featured on someone's blog, podcast, YouTube channel or maybe in some form of traditional media (alt weekly, newspaper, radio). Interviewers, bloggers and podcasters - in fact, all press/media people - are pretty busy folks. Why not make their lives a little easier? An organized, professional press kit will make them look good by keeping them on dealine and keeping them accurate and it will help them make you look good. It will also help promote your show to their readers/listeners. Best of all, it will help you control your own personal branding.

Here are the elements that make up a good press kit...

Press kit Checklist:

1. At least four (4) hi-res photos*

• 2, at minimum, "in performance" photos. ( At least one horizontal and one vertical. These should be taken close enough to see your face, should show you in action and should be clear and engaging. It can also help to have different ones if you are looking in different direction in the photos.)
• Your show poster
• A good headshot

All these photos should have proper accreditation in the name of the photo. Customarily, you credit the photographer who took the photo. If you own the photo full out, you are welcome to put your own name/company if you want. The caption should appear like this...

The actual title of this photo in the metadata is:
Brad McEntire in CHOP - credit-Audacity Theatre Lab

Why send in hi-res digital photos? Because, you want good art to be put with the stories people write about you and because you don't want them using some pixalated photo of you they found somewhere on the internet (podcasters, bloggers and other newer media, in particular, unfortunately sometimes do this. They will sometimes raid your Facebook for a simple photo).

Ideally, you want a whole smattering of photos because press outlets love recieving and then using different images than their competitors. So, a good variety of images can only help you. It might be worth hiring a professional photographer to get some really good pics as well (hat tip to Andrew Wade for this one).

ProTip: Don't have Adobe Photshop or Illustrator? Not a web-savvy designer? You can get great posters/flyer designed for around $5 a pop on fiverr. Or you can create one using Microsoft Word. Or you can can make a press kit or show flyer in Canva. Just some ideas I have utilized myself over the years.

* Hi-Res means High Resolution. Hi-Res is a photo at least 6" x 4" (or 1260 x 960 pixel dimensions image size). This is the minimum. Don't make any pic lower than this.

2. Biography

Ideally, you should prepare three (3) different bios, of varying length, and save them in a file on your computer.

• Full one (one page max) - summarizes who you are and what you are about
• short one (one paragraph) - just the big stuff
• one sentence (you'd be surprised how much this can be used)

3. Videos (or links to them)

I'll do a separate post on promo videos someday, but you should have two (2) in your arsenal for each show.

• A short one, like a teaser. Maybe 45 second to a minute in length. The first 15-20 seconds is a great place to put a really engaging moment from your piece or quick montage of the show set to music. The goal is to hook the viewer's attention.

• A longer one of a few minutes. It should hook attention, too, but give a bit more context to your show. Maybe in the middle have a quick Q-and-A where you talk about your show. You can describe what your aim is or the origins of your ideas behind the show. Follow this with a solid snippet or two from your show and end on either audience reactions or overlayed pull quotes.

4. Links to big/ representative online interviews (web and podcast)

This shows you have been newsworthy in some way already. No need to put pull quotes from other sources in your press kit, since journalists and so on will not be able to use them for thier own pieces.

5. Contact information 

Include phone, email, your website URL as well as social media links. You want the press to be able to contact you quickly and easily.

These last two are optional...

6. List of Awards You've Won

Won a few Best of Fest Awards? Belonged to some notable residencies? Won a well-known grant? Performed at a prestigious theatre? If you have racked up too many awards or they didn't fit in your bio, you might dedicate a full page to list them.

7. List of interview topics/questions

If you want an interviewer to cover certain topics, give them a list. If you want to go further, give them the exact questions you wanna be asked. They may not do it, but they'll know it is important to your message. Or they may just incorporate a few of the questions you may suggested into their interview. Interviews don't have to be 100% surprise.

NOTE ABOUT BEING INTERVIEWED: You don't have to answer the exact same way to every similar question you are asked from interview to interview, but make sure your message is consistent. Also, be interesting. This means being personable and engaging (This is something arts journalist-turned-solo performer Elaine Liner continually emhasizes). Remember, press folks are trying to sell their own products and you are the content. Help them sell you so they can help you sell your show.

Now, put all text elements in Word DOC for easy cut and pasting. You can use PDFs for things that wouldn't normally be cut-and-pasted, such as list of awards, but you should insert working hyperlinks into any PDFs to places where basic information can be straight lifted by press people (they love cut-and-paste... saves time).

Gather all these press kit elements, make them presentable (and, yeah, spell check everything!), then put them in a single folder on your computer. Zip that folder and then put it on your website. You can also put the individual elements as separate sub-pages on your website as well. Just keep it simple.

I would recommend putting these files not just on your website, but on a CD or , better yet, a small flashdrive to hand out to reviewers that show up to critique your show.

Do you need a physical press kit? I would say it couldn't hurt, but really, most of the time these are just added expense. I used to print out full color pages and put them in a nice folder along with a digital version of the press kit on an enclosed CD. I might make one  still in case an emergency arises (my website goes down for some reason or something happens on the press side), but it is strictly as a back up. I haven't actually handed out a physical press kit, like in a folder, since 2009.

A press kit is, admittedly, usually thought of as an old-fashioned tool of promotion, but I think it can and should be thought of in a different light for contemporary performers. The true value of a press kit nowadays is that it makes you, the performer, get all of your press materials together, fluidly and dependably, in one place. You will then have them on hand when needed.

A solid press kit will brand you as a professional. Make it easy for people to share the word about you and they just might do so.

Want a few good examples? 

• Rebecca Perry has all her Press Kit embedded in her website (under the Press/Media tab). Take a look... HERE. [update 6/2018 - Perry has redesigned her website and got rid of her Press/Media tab. Shame.]
• Also, take a look at Martin Dockery's excellent Press Kit for his show Wanderlust... HERE (bonus points because the links in the PDF are all clickable). He is also a fan of having clear photos of himself as a performer.
• You can see my Press Kit page on the website I made for my solo show CHOP... HERE (the website platform Wix doesn't allow ZIP files, so the press kit elements are included on the page as separate elements)

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Benefits for video marketing of shows

When I started in the theatre 20-someodd years back, there was very little use of video beyond archiving performances. Nowadays, a video promo of your show is not the icing on the cake, but the cake itself.

That said, here's a short little inspiring blog post by Sabioleon (circus performance promoter and producer based in Europe) about the use of video for marketing purposes... HERE.

Best take-away line for me...

video content has a longer life span than traditional editorial & advertising content

Take a look at the post... HERE. 

5 Tips of Personal Branding for Solo Performers

Personal brand is what people say about you when you leave the room.

~ Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com

As the producer of a fringe-like solo performance festival and a solo performer in my own right, I am sometimes asked by solo performers just starting out what they can do to start growing their audiences. I tell them they need to put some thought and action into starting - even as they are still creating their shows - a Personal Brand.

I know personal branding is something that sounds icky. It brings to mind those overly-slick, somewhat packaged people who brag openly about themselves and are all smoozy. I think of these people as douche bags.

On the other hand, if you think of personal branding simply as an organized way to purposely tell about who you are and what you do, then personal branding can be really beneficial for solo performers. It doesn't have to be scummy. In fact, it can really help you differentiate yourself from others. It comes down to how you would like yourself to e percieved. That's step one.

Once you understand how you wish yourself to be perceived, you can start to be much more strategic about your personal brand. This doesn’t mean you can’t be human. On the contrary, as Michael Simmons writes on Forbes.com, authenticity is key in the digital age.

1. Start a Blog

People who are good at what they do have usually racked up plenty of experiences and eventually a bunch of achievements. And there are all sorts of ways to share your knowledge, and demonstrate your expertise and your skills. Having a central location for all your work, history and information is actually important). But the biggest reason to blog is because you want to be found during Google searches.

Blogging will boost your search engine efforts and make it easier for directors and producers to find out about you. This goes for traditional actors as well. Plus, if you talk about parts you’ve played, venues you’ve played in, and shows you’ve been in or want to be in, your name will be associated with those shows, parts, and theatres, thanks to co-citation. In other words, talk about your one-person adaptation of Carlos Arniches The Lady from Trévelez at the Indianapolis Fringe Festival, and if someone searches for those two things, your name could pop up.

Speaking personally, when I narrow down performers for the Dallas Solo Fest as a member of the selection committee, I only take performers seriously if they have websites, either for their show or for themselves.

2. Create a YouTube Channel

Not only can you do a demo reel for your  show on your YouTube channel (and you should), but YouTube greatly boosts your search engine juice. If you want to win Google searches, don’t spend a lot of your energy optimizing for Google. Try to win YouTube searches instead. Since Google owns YouTube, and they put the top-ranked YouTube videos on Google search pages, your video could easily show up in a search for “Desdemona actress Portland” or whatever a director/ venue programmer/ festival organizer may be looking for.

3. Get Your Own Name as Your Web Address

Pick a domain name registrar — some people like GoDaddy because it’s inexpensive, some people hate them because of their business practices — and buy your name as a domain name. Either buy it for many years, or be sure to renew it year after year. For one thing, if you become famous, you want to own it now before it gets squatted. For another, it will tell people how to easily find you. You can use your stage name, not your real name, if that's what you wanna do. Oh, and list it on your headshots, résumés, and business cards.

TIP: Get Business Cards. Headshot on the back, contact info on the front. Way easier to have on you all the time that 8 x 10s. Even easier than carrying around postcards.

4. Get Comfortable With Google+

This tip is the out-of-left-field one. If you use Facebook, you understand how to use Google+. But the biggest reason to use it is not so you can interact with your fellow theatre people (although that certainly helps). The biggest reason is because Google assumes that if you’re connected to people on Google+, and they search for something you’ve shared, written about, or have videos and photos for, that stuff should show it in your connection’s search results. For example, if we’re connected on Google+, and you do a Google search for, for instance, “Trévelez Indianapolis,” Google may display you a recent review for the show. But if we’re not connected, you won’t see it at all. Google+ might be the most underrated social media site out there that can help people find you.

5. Network in Person

The world of theatre is like many other things... it is about relationships. Eventually, you’ll reach a point where people want to work with you because they know you and like you. They hope you will be at the same festival they will be at. They'll start to follow your work. And the best way to get to know and like people is to spend time with them outside the theatre. 

Talk about your show. Be nice. Be engaging. Make others look good. Make yourself worthy of being talked about.

Oh sure, you need to be good, be professional, and not be a punk-ass jerk. But, just like everywhere else in the working world, people want to work with and watch people they like. And if directors/ fellow peformers/ audience members can get to know a bit and like you outside of the times when you’re onstage (i.e. in the lobby or at the bar after the show), you increase the possibility of them coming to see you the next time you are on stage.

Some theatre artists I speak to — playwrights, designers, directors and performers — don’t like all this marketing. They think it’s beneath them, or too difficult, that their art should speak for itself, and they should be judged on their own merit.

Branding, networking PR and marketing are part of it. And for solo performers who are the creators as well as the production teams behind their shows, it is part of the endeavor. No one is going to automatically do it for you. Sometimes, we want part of it without the other parts. Solo performers should just get used to personal branding as part of it all. 

It would be awesome if we could live in a world where people are truly judged and rewarded based on the quality of work they do (assuming you are doing awesome work). But that’s not the world we live in. The world we live in runs on relationships and self-promotion. So, you need to do this for a while... until you can get rich and famous and get someone to do it for you. Might as well do it well and in an organized way.

Rebecca Perry on the Stageworthy Podcast

LINK: http://stageworthypodcast.com/rebecca-perry/

Rebecca Perry [credit: Rebecca Perry]

This podcast about Canadian indie and fringe theatre, Stageworthy, hosted by solo performer Phil Rickaby, is great. This first episode is chock-a-block full of little tidbits of marketing and PR wisdom about taking a solo show to the Edinburgh Fringe. So good to hear about how Rebecca Perry went about producing and promoting her show in an international market. Also, especially nice to hear how professional she approaches her production, fringe or not.

6 Tips on Self-Promotion from Austin Kleon

I have just finished producing the first ever Dallas Solo Fest. At the bar after the shows one of the things the performers (myself included) commiserated about was marketing one's show. As an out of town artist in particular, it is difficult to get the word out about your show in a new city. Added to the built-in difficulty is the aversion many artists have to self-promotion. The old stand-by of "My work Will Speak For Itself" doesn't mean crap if no one sees your show. 

This is a topic I'd like to return to here on this blog, but in the meanrime, I stumbled across this Fast Co Create article on Austin Kleon's new book Show Your Work. I have the book and highly recommend it. Lots of stuff to think about for solo artists. It is mostly common sense, but Kleon has a great way of putting a lot of disparate ideas together in one place to serve as a wonderful refresher.

"The way to avoid being “human spam” is that “before you have something to shill, you need to build up a network of goodwill,” Kleon explains. That way, when you’re sending out a Tweet about your latest radio appearance, your followers will think, “When he’s not on book tour, he’s giving me all these interesting things,” so I’ll understand it if he needs to be self-promotional when he has a big product out.

Read the full FastCo post HERE

7 Ways to Get the Press Coverage You Want

Pretty good article on creating press releases and getting press attention for those solo performers looking to promote their wares... 

"As journalists, we hear this question from entrepreneurs all the time: 'How can I convince you to write a story about my business?' The simple answer: Get our attention."

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228361#ixzz2srfhKDuh

5 Ways to Promote Your Solo Show Through Facebook

I'll admit, of all the skills I've developed as a solo performer, marketing is the one that falls furlongs behind the others. It is not that I hate marketing, it is just that it is such a mystery to me. Push comes to shove, I can't say what makes people come see a show, or pick one show over another. I don't think there even IS a blanket solution for this dilemma. But, I bet one could hedge his or her odds. In that vein, here's a nifty article on using Facebook as a solo performer to market your show...

Don’t use Facebook just to promote. It may seem counterintuitive, given the goal here is to get people to come to a show, but the trick is to make people want to come to a show without you having to beg. The solution? Make them love you for you. Post “like”- and comment-worthy things. If you’re a comedian, have funny status updates—when people see that you make them laugh, they’ll remember that when you end up posting a future status update about your one-person show, and will thus be inclined to come laugh in person.

See the whole article HERE.