Under Promise, Over Deliver
Is a slower approach to building audiences more sustainable for improv?
Is this possibly the world’s worst marketing strategy?
On stage and off, we are selling what we do as improvisers. Whether it’s promotional phrases and nice quotes on our flyers and posters, or telling the audience what a good time they’re about to have. We are making a promise to people.
Earlier this year, a Guardian article reported that young people are now not as happy as older generations for the first time. One of the key reasons is social media. Social media promises so much, but delivers so little. It’s the promise of a life you can’t have. It allows for constant comparison (the thief of joy). Social media over-promises and then under-delivers. Constantly.
As someone involved in politics, I can tell you with a degree of certainty that over promising and under delivering is one of the key reasons people don’t like politicians very much as well.
As improvisers, we have to market shows and convince an audience that we are worth watching. How can we under promise when we need an audience to come along in the first place? This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot this week.
When marketing shows, this is tricky, but here’s how I believe improvisers can under promise and over deliver when putting on shows.
One of the most effective forms of marketing isn’t flyers, posters or a fancy Instagram post using the latest trend. The most effective marketing is recommendation. When a friend recommends a show to you, you’re more likely to go see it and more likely to give it a fair crack at entertaining you. In order to achieve that, it helps to work at your craft and get as good as you can before putting on a show.
When you do put on a show, be prepared to do a lot of shows in front of a small number of people until word gets out. Invite some friends and maybe get them to invite some friends. Sure, have a poster and a flyer, but don’t go overboard with that side of things, and avoid bold claims about your show.
This is very much the old fashioned, no-short-cuts way of doing it. It’s also a way I’ve seen work more than once. It’s still a method that requires you to have a mailing list, social media presence and website to make sure those who enjoyed the show have a way of recommending you, but it’s a slower burn approach to not only building an audience, but building an audience that has been impressed by you, wants to see you again and is willing to recommend you.
Whether you are a new show in town or a well established one, getting people to come along is hard. I still think that building a loyal following from people who have been unexpectedly delighted by what you do is easier than constantly getting in new people, only for them to feel that you didn’t live up to the promise on your poster. What do you think? Is that the world’s worst marketing strategy, or was I managing expectations in my headline?
Awkward teenager can’t go to the dance
The latest episode of Kornfeld and Andrews: The Radio Plays is as sweet as it is funny. A teenager locks himself in the bathroom because, well, life is complex. Especially in 2024.
In London? You might like this.
My friend Chris Mead is doing something rather brilliant. He is making a home for truly theatrical improv work and trying to create enough stage time to try those ideas out. It sounds wonderful, and I know Chris well enough to know he will have put so much time and love into this. There are more details on his Notion site here.
Have a great week,
Lloydie
PS: If there’s a fellow improviser you think might enjoy this newsletter, feel free to forward it to them or share it…
I feel like this is really the ONLY way to effectively bring in new audience members, at least for the loosely structured comedy-based improv shows most companies put on. Something like "Improvised Sondheim" will appeal to people who know Sondheim, while "A Night of Improv Comedy" is a tougher sell because it's less specific.
For an established company of competent improvisers, there's almost never a "bad" show. Some will definitely be better than others, but they aren't awful in the way improv is ridiculed in popular culture. The problem is that our potential audiences don't know that. They've seen the jokes on TV sitcoms and think most improv is terrible. So selling our shows as a night of hilarious comedy risks sounding like mere puffery. People don't know if they can believe it without a recommendation from someone else.
The top improv acts can get by because everyone knows they've been together for years and know what they're doing. The rest of us should probably use more testimonials and social proof in our ads. Most companies (including mine) could be doing a much better job of this.