Money Talk: Theater websites and advertising.

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Theater websites and advertising.

Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Theater Administration
Forum Name: Money Talk
Forum Discription: Questions about fundraising and promotion
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2433
Printed Date: 5/14/24 at 1:38pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 8.05 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Theater websites and advertising.

Posted By: KyleS
Subject: Theater websites and advertising.
Date Posted: 5/31/07 at 7:32pm

We're moving to establish a web presence for our theater. One thing I am not seeing as I survey other sites is online advertising.

I see links to associations and sponsors, but nothing like "Flowers Florist wants you to see 'Little Shop of Horrors' at the Cypress Community Theater"

Seems like a logical thing to do -- we sell space in our programs, so why not sell online ads? We can tie them to show dates or seasons, provide assistance in creating ads relevant to the current run, etc.

Does anyone have any experience with online ads as they relate to community theater?

Replies:

Posted By: biggertigger
Date Posted: 6/12/07 at 10:25pm

I don't have experience with online ads or even a website. When you post ads for specific is this an easy thing to do or can it get complicated. Ultimately, is it worth your time and energy just for a specific show. Secondly, is there a separate charge for this ad space. If "Flowers Florists" is a theater sponsor, should they pony up more money for the additionaly tag line. What if they don't want you to see this particular show. You would have to get approval first.

Play devils advocate, list pros and cons. And if it is a go, then when soliciting sponsorship, clearly write out an agreement on how that sponsorship can be used. This will eleviate problems.

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The two greatest days in a theater persons life, the day you start a new show and the day the damn thing closes.

Posted By: KyleS
Date Posted: 6/24/07 at 12:58am

Thanks for your reply.

My question was more about "why aren't more theaters doing this?", but you brought up a point that needs to be addressed:

What if some advertiser buys an ad, but, for whatever reason, doesn't want to advertise for some of the productions?

Think of it as someone placing an ad in your printed program. The advertiser knows the show, so there are no surprises. We establish our season early on, so any given advertiser/sponsor knows what's coming.

The agreement allows for ads to run under these conditions:

1) For the run of a specific show. The ad shows up on the site as soon as tickets are available for the show and continues until the show closes. If the advertiser wants to continue the ad later, that can be arranged, so long as it doesn't run longer than the posted season.

2) For the established theater season. That's until the closing date of the last scheduled show. This keeps revenue within a stated "fundrasing period". The 501c3 status is important. We agree that, should a presentation be changed, the advertiser can choose to have the ad pulled.

The mechanics of how and when an ad shows up are already dealt with. Every ad has start and end dates -- right down to the minute -- for its appearance. The website handles this without further intervention. Adding, removing, or changing the lifetime of the ad takes about five minutes.

For each of these conditions, the advertiser has already agreed that his ad will appear during the times requested.

So, are ads not presented because it's too much trouble, or that folks don't know how?

That's easy compared to entering on the closing night of a show with an actor who still has a script in his hand just before his entrance. And who wasn't a late replacement.

Posted By: biggertigger
Date Posted: 6/24/07 at 10:35pm

You are correct, why don't other theaters use this to generate additional monies for their theater. My guess is time and money that it costs to do this.

I know in my area we solicite from various business for ad space in the program and many businesses are not interested in paying for the space (even though it is cheap). But I live in a really small area and small minded. It is more acceptable to donate money to the local sports team then to a group of people pretending.

Those that do advertise are the ones that have had a long time association with the theater group. (Many of which are involved in the production as well.) It is sad, and as previously mentioned in other threads, how there is a lack of support and even a sort of embarrasment to be associated with a show.

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The two greatest days in a theater persons life, the day you start a new show and the day the damn thing closes.

Posted By: SpaceCoast
Date Posted: 7/12/07 at 3:37pm

The theatre website I maintain we are going to offer a web bonus to program ads sold. If they have a website we will banner them and link to them, if they don't we will banner them and point to a page on our website

so a banner/page for every ad for the entire year
And articles in the community news, i figure if we are a community theatre, we to should help the community with sharing information about local services
we are always asking for something, I want to be able to give something back to the community

Peace!

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Devon
http://www.spacecoasttheatre.com - SpaceCoastTheatre.com
http://www.surfsideplayers.com - SurfsidePlayers.com

Posted By: TotoToo Theatre
Date Posted: 1/18/08 at 10:07pm

Hi Kyle,

Would be curious to know if you make a decision on how to handle this. Our theatre group has good success with our printed program. We raise between $1,000 and $1,200 per production through the program alone. There is a sample of it on our website. We also include links to our program advertisers on our website (at the base of "almost" every page).

I have thought about doing banner advertising for the advertisers as well, but it seems that most of our program advertisers don't value the website links - even though our website is a valuable vehicle for ticket sales.

We use DotNetNuke technology for our website and it is very easy to create the structure for banner ads, etc. But the thought of re-creating ads for the website is daunting since most advertisers seem more interested in the printed program.

I'll follow this thread with interest. Post a link to your website. I would like to check it out.

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Mark Webster
http://www.tototoo.ca - TotoToo
Ottawa's Gay & Lesbian Community Theatre

Posted By: vickifrank
Date Posted: 1/20/08 at 12:31pm

You can advertise using Google AdSense. Advertisers (not you) may place ads on your site, even narrowing to target a geographic client--say US, not AU. Monetizing your site this way is easy, but unless you have a high volume of traffic, you won't generate a lot of income. Every little bit counts, though, right?

As the host site you can limit the advertisers too--so you won't end up with undesirable sites advertising on your site. You can also make your homegrown ads run side-by-side. For instance, maybe you sell an ad to a local florist and have the ad run next to and look like the google ads.

Keep in mind that if a certain local customer only wants to be associated with a certain show that you can do this by having a page per show and placing ads on a page by page basis. So if your website has an entry page, then branches with links to individual shows the ad for the picky florist shows on only some of the pages--the ones they pay for.

Also, you can have google ads show on old pages--including past season pages, allowing you to get even a small revenue from the past.

Money from AdSense (google) can be significant (depends on number of visitors to your site). You won't pay for a season with it, but it's regular money that you don't need to raise otherwise. Usually you get paid about $0.10 a click on an ad, but I've gotten as much as $ 39.00 per click--very rare, but true.

So is it worth the time? If asking the Local Florist to place an Ad is worth the time, then Google probably is. But you can also figure it out.

If you want to estimate the type of revenue you can get, start with the traffic to the page. Figure that out of a 100 visits you get 2 ad clicks at 10 cents each. Don't expect millions if you don't promote the website. But its reasonable to get a couple of hundred a year on a site with ads on a dozen pages. You may even want to direct people to the website for other valuable things--coupons from the florist, for example and find out that more folks go to the shows, while boosting your Google revenue.

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http://www.studio-productions-inc.com
1-800-359-2964

The theater scrim people

Posted By: Stageref
Date Posted: 7/31/08 at 3:02pm

We're trying to get an on-lline community theater database off the ground. Check it out and please offer any suggestions.

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http://www.stageref.com - Stageref.com
The new, free, on-line social experience of community theater productions and people

Posted By: Cravens
Date Posted: 11/03/08 at 5:36pm

This is a great idea, why didn't I think of it sooner?! This could really help in these financial times.

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Tracy
www.longmonttheatre.org

Posted By: John Luzaich
Date Posted: 2/16/09 at 1:37pm

We're a theatre in Iowa and we just launched our new web site at http://www.osterregent.org - www.osterregent.org

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John
cfct@cfu.net
http://www.osterregent.org
http://www.facebook.com/osterregent