Magic is probably the easiest solo, live entertainment to sell as an online show. Folks are used to watching magic on TV and it doesn’t need an IRL audience response to work (although it does work better).
Audience awareness is changing fast with this kind of entertainment, so the advertising message needs to change with it. In March, an online show was novel. At the beginning, it didn’t need to be good, it didn’t need to compete with other shows. At the beginning, general audiences didn’t know what Zoom was.
Now, event planners are savvy. Everyone knows how much of a brain killer video chat can be. We’re all seeing entertainment sprouting up online, and there are a few magicians that are rising to the top of online shows.
We’re all global
Let’s start out by forgiving ourselves for sucking at marketing magic shows online right now!
- We have the opportunity to do more shows in more places with less energy spent.
- Our competition has the same opportunity – which means they might be able to offer more for less.
- We are available to more clients than ever.
- We are most likely offering an inferior product to what we had before.
- If we’re trying, we’re offering a different service than before.
- We have the opportunity to completely reinvent how we do business.
This is a lot to pile on to someone who is also trying to have a life, developing a new show, and trying to handle all the other parts of business. We might also be dealing with just keeping spirits up (I keep them in a spirit cabinet)
Get Less Global
We’re not Coca Cola. We can’t manage a global advertising campaign. We gotta get small to get attention and saturate. Getting small is good for tracking our success too. What’s the smallest possible market we can approach and work to dominate.
If I was a kids birthday party magician in a small town, I might have worked locally doing 250 shows per year. My focus might have been on parents within 30 miles who have a kid 5-10 years old. Once we get rid of the mile limit, it seems like we have unlimited cha-ching, however we don’t have the chance to put up unlimited fliers at unlimited grocery stores and parks. Every other magician in the world with more energy/ experience/ desperation can talk to the parents in my town now. The globality is a hardship.
We gotta set boundaries
here are some ideas…
- Do a show locally that no global magician could do. Maybe magic happens on screen and in someone’s front yard.
- Get specific like a magic show for 12yos that love superheros
- Spanglish princess birthdays
- Hospital kids birthdays
Once we have a target, we can make a message and value proposition pretty easily because we will be the best in that small market. We only want to sell 250 gigs in the next year.
Start with value
Screw my name! Forget the clever title of my show! I don’t care about “Wired Magic” or “Virtually Impossible” or “Zoom Zalabim” this stuff is nonsense and doesn’t distinguish anything. It doesn’t add value. As a customer, I care about what serves me.
If we’re competing with other magic shows for our customers, the name “Bloody Mouse” means more than “Magic Journey” and the name mostly doesn’t matter. What matters is the value. Put the value message first.
“Connecting Staff Thru Stunning Shared Experiences.” “A hilarious experience only a true murder mystery fan can enjoy.” “HR Inspiration from confusion”
These are generic, but they’re getting started toward an actual value proposition.
Use credibility
We’re not starting over in our careers here. Bring the value of what we’ve done. I see magicians who are afraid to use footage of stage shows, or past resume. Use it. It’s all value brought to the table. If it’s just a trick demonstrated on video on stage, it’s not great, but if it’s a performance in a stadium for Michael Bolton, it might help show that we’re pros.
“Virtual”
I don’t like the word “virtual.” Magic is shady enough, and this isn’t VR.
I don’t want a person coming out of a laptop or a phone
So many magicians are trying to promote themselves with photos of them poking thru a screen. Please stop.
Not only is it unflattering and a horror movie trope, but it wastes a lot of real estate. If my greatest value is that I am in a screen, I’m not worth much since there are billions of people in screens right now.
Repeat
After we tell our people our message, tell them again. Everyone’s scattered right now. Everyone’s reality is rebuilding. It’s all up in the air. We have new friends, new connections, new cares. We are opening ourselves up to new trusted brands. To become a trusted brand, a magician will need to be in the view of customers over and over again.
Reconnect with people that trust us. Keep serving people that are just starting to notice us.
Basically…
- Start with a small audience
- Offer something special just for them
- Start with a message of what is special
- Stay in the minds of our audience by repeating our value and serving