Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

I was out gigging this weekend a little closer to home than in recent months… I was actually out in Whiterock which south of Vancouver ‘proper,’ but is still included in the greater Vancouver area. The gig itself was for a block party/sidewalk sale sort of event and my employer was a coffee shop that hadn’t even opened yet. I guess the shop wanted to leave a good impression with the community even before their doors were officially open and brought me in for a couple of shows to do just that…

I was delighted to see when I arrived that said employer had gone to my website downloaded some of the posters I have available and had put them up to advertise my shows… This was pretty cool as I had put up the poster download page ages ago and this was one of the few times that I’d seen anyone take advantage of it… Then came the huge compliment…

“If you ever stop performing you could teach people how to stay on top of their marketing… Your website is so up-to-date and content easy to find that it was a dream!”

This was very flattering of course, but beyond being flattering it re-inforced something I’ve believed for years… Keep the content easy to find and keep it up-to-date. I’ve had some performers argue that they’d rather not post things like a tour calendar on-line because if an employer visits your calendar, sees that you’re not available they may not even contact you. Better they suggest to encourage the communication because it offers the opportunity to communicate with a potential new client… There is certainly validity in this line of thinking I’ll admit, but I’ve never seemed to suffer from having my tour calendar posted and I’ve had numerous people thank me for keeping it up to date so that they can track my where-abouts.

I make an effort to keep the tour calendar up-to-date and also keep up with this blog because the idea of marketing for me is to be reasonably diligent in keeping people in the loop and providing the information that is needed. After comments like I got over the weekend, apparently the effort is appreciated.