For each show we start our ticket sales campaign about 2-3 weeks ahead, giving our members first shot with a post card that we mail out.  They will either send the card back in with a check or call and put it on their charge card.   Our ads for the shows have also very often been a sort of coupon which can be mailed in to order tickets.  Over the first five years we have a data base of over 500 names.  This helps us to track attendance at our shows.  Those who are repeat patrons stay on the list.  We spent about $100 on postage for our current show plus the cost of printing about 400 cards (not much cost there).  It is really the best advertising dollars we spend because these are people who love us and are loyal followers. 

We did a show and took the names and addresses off the checks written for tickets.  That doesn't tell you how to get people to your first show. We did fundraisers (a coffeehouse performance with coffee punch and sweets and took donations - we sold memberships) and recorded the names and addresses. Put out a guest book or sign up sheet every tiime you have an event for people to put their name on the mailing list.  Your list will grow each time you do a show.

At first we did not take credit cards.  That came later.  We started sending the post cards out after our first show and only accepted cash or checks. 

You're right about reserving seats without having them paid for.  Our policy is that to reserve the seat, it must be paid for. Plus it otherwise just creates more work for your box office people. Unless we are doing a musical we don't have a problem telling people to just show up at the door before the show.  With musicals we've had people waiting in the lobby in case someone doesn't show up to claim their tickets.  You'll miss a few sales that way maybe, but you have to come up with a system that works for you so the box office volunteers don't get stressed out.

Congratulations on the group order. That is great.  They'll probably keep coming back, too.  And I just thought of another thing you could do.  Does your city chamber of commerce have a list of organizations in your city and the contact person for each group?  Those would be good names for your mailing list: service sororities, social organizations, educational organizations, etc.

I'm going to suggest something here and I know its not going to be popular because it sounds ridiculous but all I can say is it has worked.  I read the book "Subscribe Now" by Danny Newman, which is the "bible" written about increasing membership/subscribers.  It has alot of ideas and I recommend it HIGHLY but one thing it really highlights are mass mailings because they work!  But the methods of getting addresses were not feasible for us so this is what I did:

I decided which neighborhoods/areas I wanted to target based on whether it was a high income area, whether or not we had existing members in that neighborhood already (neighbors talk to each other about what they're doing for weekend, right?), proximity to the theater, etc...  Once I picked which neighborhoods I wanted, my husband and I spent about two weeks getting the addresses.

We would drive to the neighborhood and start at the first street.  I would have a notebook and a pen ready and I would write the name of the street down.  Then, as we drove slowly down the street, he would call out the house numbers, usually right on the mailboxes, and I would write them down.  We did this for neighborhood after neighborhood, street after street, cul-de-sac after cul-de-sac.  Yes, it was time consuming but we amassed over 6,000 addresses in just about two weeks!  Tip-you can't just assume the house numbers follow in an orderly fashion - the numbers tend to jump around wildly, which is why you need to look at every house/mailbox.

We mailed our brochures to those addresses, addressed to "Theater Friend" or something like that.  Then, as the book recommended, about two weeks later, we mailed a follow-up flyer to the same addresses.  New members are coming in like crazy!  The response has been fantastic - our membership numbers are higher than ever been.  We're getting ready to mail another flyer and hope to get even more members.

I can only speak from experience - I know it sounds crazy but it works!

Once you get your mind wrapped around getting addresses, you'd be surprised how easy it is - I got addresses from the newspaper in the Letters to the Editor section - our paper prints street addresses.  Also in the paper are yard sale addresses.  Once agan in the paper, there is a section every Sunday called Real Estate Transactions which lists all houses sold in the last week - prime addresses since they may be newcomers!  Also, don't forget your audition cards!  These are people that came to your theater and are interested in the arts!

To give you a sense of how consumed my whole family got, we were standing in line at a local church to vote, all four of us, and we had been standing there for about an hour.  We passed by a bulletin board where they had literature about joining the church and they had some CD's that said "Membership Directory - Take One".  I saw it but didn't think much about it but my husband nudged me and whispered "Memberships!".  I took the CD, downloaded it and instantly got over 200 names and addresses!

Sorry to go on but once you start, you can't stop! 

We do ticket giveaways. On the entry form you get their email and regular addresses. Instant mailing list!