Ooops, My Bad: Passive Messaging and Offers

My promotions often read like puzzles when I was new to my business. I would make lists of things I did and then let the reader fill in the blanks. All to often, they didn't want to do that and they'd just move along to something else. I later learned that what I was doing was using a passive approach to my messages and offers. A passive approach features messages and offers that are incomplete or unstructured, and they depend on the reader to finish them and act on them. This isn't some kind of moral problem, but it probably isn't getting the kinds of results you want. My old way of trying to get bookings was to make a list of the kinds of places and events I'd played for and then present an offer to play for any events my audience might have coming up. This kind of messaging didn't work. When I started to tailor shows to the needs of each venue owner or booking rep, I started to get more gigs. One example was the show I put together that was Three Johns and a Johnny which features the music of John Prine, John Lennon, John Hartford, and Johnny Cash. This was an easy show for promoters to say yes to because they knew the combination would be popular with listeners in their venue and easy for them to promote. The more clear I could make my offer and message, the better it worked to get better gigs. Don't make your audience do all the work in figuring out what you're offering. Make it easy to understand.  #marketing #advertising #promotion