Kristin Buie
Communications Manager
North Carolina Theatre
www.nctheatre.com
Kristin Buie explains how North Carolina Theatre is leveraging several online strategies to engage the public in attending their productions and learning more about their organization’s educational department.
North Carolina Theatre
North Carolina Theatre is a premiere, non-profit, professional, regional theatre located in downtown Raleigh producing memorable Broadway revivals that blend the best talent in New York with regional performers. Founded in 1984, North Carolina Theatre has been operating for 26 seasons and has greatly contributed to Raleigh’s growing arts culture. North Carolina Theatre also has a dynamic education department providing exceptional performing arts training, performance and outreach opportunities for youth in the Raleigh community.
In the past year North Carolina Theatre has invested heavily in our internet marketing and social media strategies. While our primary goal is to drive the public to our website (and sell tickets), we have built in additional web strategies that we feel keep us relevant in the world of musical theatre and the world wide web.
E-Newsletter Stage Notes: In January 2005, North Carolina Theatre switched from a printed newsletter to our e-newsletter Stage Notes. With a database of over 30,000 names and emails, this is a great tool for sharing behind-the-scenes information to our patrons. Stage Notes is a monthly e-newsletter where we share ticket discounts, upcoming shows, special events, giving opportunities and other information pertaining to the theatre and our education department. When you visit our website and click on the Stage Notes tab, you are able to sign up to instantly receive our updates!
Blog: We started our blog in June 2008. For the past ten months we have written nearly 50 posts and have recently made it a priority to blog at least once a week. Most of our posts revolve around a show or event, and give our patrons and the general public a behind-the-scenes look at the process of producing a professional show. Our blog serves as a forum where we can post pictures, video, link to reviews, audition information, etc. We invite anyone to subscribe to our blog by the RSS feed on the left hand side, and encourage everyone to leave a comment on our blog – we always want the conversation to be continued there!
Facebook: North Carolina Theatre originally had a traditional Facebook profile, but recently transitioned to the business page, where anyone on Facebook can become a “fan” of North Carolina Theatre. On our page, we have uploaded an application where all of our blog posts are fed onto our Facebook page. We also post production photos on Facebook, as well as create events to invite people to our shows. We view Facebook as an audience development tool, one that not only reaches out to the younger generation of musical theatre goers, but exposes a wider audience to all that we are doing in the community.
Twitter: North Carolina Theatre (nctheatre) joined Twitter in February 2009 and is relatively new to the world of tweeting in 140 characters or less. This is another way to reach new audiences, and since then, we have 167 ‘followers’ and the number is growing each day. We use Twitter to share ticket discounts, behind-the-scenes information about the show, cast interviews on local TV and radio stations, etc. This is another way to connect with a new group of people and we are able to hear their feedback and comments in another form of technology.
YouTube: We have a YouTube channel where we have posted various videos to give the audience a taste of what they get if they come see our show. Due to rules and regulations set by Actors’ Equity Association we are limited in what we can post, but with the actors’ permission we are able to get short snippets of them singing and promote the show in this format. We recently took the camera back stage to visit the wig & makeup department, shot footage of the orchestra rehearsing during sitz probe and got some footage of our Miss Saigon stars in action during local press interviews. We are continually trying to expand on our video capabilities and feel that this is an important tool. People are able to subscribe to our YouTube channel, so anytime we upload a new video, they are alerted and can see it without having to search for us every time!
Podcast: We have the opportunity to podcast with a local public relations and marketing firm, MMI Associates, Inc. to help promote each show. The podcast serves as an interview where they ask us questions about the content of the show, cast, ticket information and pricing. Each podcast is distributed directly to 12 different local media outlets and posted on 11 different websites. In the future, we will begin posting our podcasts on our blog and website to further promote our individual podcasts.
Disney High School Musical 2 Viral Commercial: To help generate online buzz around our upcoming show Disney High School Musical 2, North Carolina Theatre is going to host a viral commercial contest. We will advertise this via our website, blog, Facebook, Twitter and e-blast it to local colleges and high school students. They will be charged with creating a :30 TV commercial for the web to promote the show. The entries will be narrowed down to five finalists, and people will visit our blog to vote and post comments about their favorite contestant. The winner will be announced at Target Student Preview Night on June 12th, an outreach program we have that offers discounted tickets for students and teachers, and will have their viral commercial streaming on the NC Theatre website, YouTube channel, e-blast, etc. with the chance to produce future NC Theatre commercials.
We feel that we have been successful in building a new social media audience and feel that this is an important aspect of our marketing. One of many success stories is a patron who bought ten tickets to Miss Saigon, and when asked how he heard about the show, he responded, “I saw the videos on YouTube.” Another success story deals with Facebook and North Carolina Theatre’s Student Preview Night program, which has grown by leaps and bounds. Prior to Dreamgirls in January 2008, our Target Student Preview Night audience numbers were around 600-800 per show. After we formed our Facebook page, and began promoting Target Student Preview Night and our other programs on our page, we saw a large increase in our Student Preview Night numbers. Beginning with Dreamgirls our audience numbers were 1,500+ and have remained steady ever since. All of the above services are free and we believe that they are working to help further our mission, which is to strengthen the cultural vitality of the region and cultivate musical theatre appreciation by producing outstanding professional Broadway musicals and developing the next generation of artists through youth training, performance and outreach programs.
