When you are promoting a gig, tickets and payment details are of prime importance. Promoting a gig does not always entail spending an enormous sum on tickets alone. It pays to get creative when it comes to other means to sell the gig. One excellent option is making sales of your gig’s performance tickets available online.
Website Promotion
A great many performers have their own personal websites. These allow them to build up an extensive email list that they can use to send out performance updates and gig notices. Most gigs allow artists to include links to their website address as a means of promoting them. If you have your own fan page on Facebook, you can also include your link in your emails and Facebook events. Consider using your Twitter account to connect with your own audience.
- Using social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to promote a gig is one of the most effective means of marketing a gig. Social media allows you to reach an extremely targeted audience. Use these sites to announce your gig and invite your fans to attend. Your gig information should be posted in your social media page along with a description of the gig and what you will be doing during the show. Some social media sites offer discount codes for ticket purchases; use these to save money on tickets.
- If you cannot sell your tickets by means of social media, or if you would prefer not to put your information on social media, you should take advantage of eventbrite. Eventbrite is a unique web-based platform that allows you to manage your gig listings, promote your gigs and track results. This platform also allows you to host your own event, view feedback and get involved with other users. An added bonus is the fact that eventbrite allows you to have an unlimited number of user profiles for the price of just one. So if you have a few separate gig listings, such as ones on MySpace and Facebook, you can have an unlimited number of profile pages hosted on eventbrite.
- Email lists are essential tools to help you market your gig and to grow your audience. Create an email list based on people who have expressed an interest in your gig via tweet, blog entry, submission in a website, submission in a blog, or attending a gig. You can further categorize your list by genre (rock/hip hop/emo), region (usa/uk), city (pop/new york) and many other criteria so that you can send email ads to only those members of your email list who are interested in your gig or those who have shown an interest through some other means.
- Gigs are a very competitive arena and it is important to work hard to attract business. One way that you do this is by creating compelling and intriguing content and giving away a freebie to attract visitors. If you have been invited to participate in a gig and you are not sure about the line up or venue, sending event flyers is a great idea as they can be used as a guide for potential attendees. For example, you can send the details of the gig to the people who have RSVPd along with their telephone numbers, email addresses and websites. Eventbrite and Ticketmaster offer an excellent service for organizing tickets for these events and you can upload any photo of your guest which can be used as a promotional material and increase your ticket sales.