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

Bit late getting to this topic on two fronts… One – I should/could/might have mentioned it months ago as it’s a pretty obvious and essential part of anyone’s promotional presence these days. Two I was late actually getting to the publishing of this post because I got swept up in the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and was a bit tardy actually uploading it… Luckily thanks to the wonders of modern compu-tronics I was able to back-date it by a day and make it look like I actually did post it on Monday as a marketing tip…sweet!

In this day and age of internet savvy consumers, having some sort of digital presence on the web has become virtually mandatory. Even if this simply means a video posted to YouTube or some sort of presence on one of the social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook, having some sort of way that people can track you down and connect with you electronically about possible employment has taken the forefront in most people’s marketing campaigns.

Things to include/not include when designing your website –

1. Make it easy to navigate – When people arrive at your site they want to be able to access the information that they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible. Don’t drag them on a wild goose chase trying to find the information simply to get them to look through more of your site. The navigation system for the information that you present should be clear and consistent on all of the pages of your site

2. Don’t overload pages with too much text – The use of empty space or ‘white space’ on a page actually helps the eye read, so a full page of text can come off looking a little bit daunting. It’s likely better to present less information and increase the number of pages so that the point that your trying to make are presented in an easier to consume presentation.

3. Include download-able resources – An on-line press kit in pdf format, high resolution images that can be put into event programs, graphics, logos, or stylized text specific to you, all of these things can make you a breeze to work with for someone who’s hired you.

4. Contact Information – Potential clients often want to be able to contact you and send you an email or call you once they’ve had a look around your site. Making this information easy to find is a must. If they have to search too much to find out how to contact you it can mean the difference between getting the job and getting passed over.

5. Availability – Now this is a tricky one… I’m of the opinion that including my tour calendar on-line is a good thing because it allows potential clients the opportunity to check my availability and see if I’m even available for a job or whether I’m already booked for the date their looking at. I know many performers who disagree and say that listing your availability may actually mean that someone comes to your site, see’s that you’re not available and then passes you over before you even get a chance to establish a potential relationship that may have benefits in the future. This is a valid argument, but I’ve also found that including my schedule on-line has meant that Fans of the show can track where I’m going to be and when which has meant that people make more of an effort to come out and see me if they know I’m going to be in their area. Like I said…this one’s tricky and it’s a matter of personal preference.

6. Video – back in 2004 when I started working without he PNE to develop their street performer’s program I dealt strictly with videos that had been sent in either on DVD or on tape (yes people used to send out actual video tapes…). These days, I walk into a meeting, have a list of video links and we watch possible candidates via the videos they’ve got posted on-line. Often when I’m making a list of possible acts to consider I’ll email a list that includes the following:

Act Name: The Checkerboard Guy (David Aiken)
Website: http://www.checkerhead.com
Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1YjxtliNNE

Based on this information a decision the creative director from the PNE can quickly access information about the performers I’m suggesting and make a preliminary decision about who he’s interested in and who he’s not, so having these elements in place is critical, at least for the way that I present folks for events that I’m working with.

Now it should also be noted that having different videos for different markets is also incredibly important. Potential clients need to see you working in a setting that as closely as possible resembles the venue that you’ll be working in for them. This can lead to the creation of a vast number of different video presentations if you work in a variety of different markets, but it this is your biggest challenge, then it means you’ve got a great career that can likely support the creation of multiple videos anyway. Congratulations!

The bottom line on all of this is that having your own little corner of cyberspace where people can find you and access information about you is likely THE most important piece of the marketing puzzle that exist in the current age.

Where in the world am I today?: Papeete, Tahiti on my way back to Vancouver

I can’t believe I haven’t brought this item up sooner… Here I am well into the 10th month of writing posts for this blog and I the subject of promotional t-shirts hasn’t come up… I must have figured that I’d already talked about it as it’s one of the main pieces of ‘swag’ that I keep in my arsinal. Years ago I used to treat t-shirts more as ‘merch’ as an item that I’d sell after shows and I’d make a point of carrying around boxes of shirts on the off chance that I could convince people to buy some at the end of my shows…

T-shirts are a fantastic way to get your name/logo/brand out into the world no doubt about it, but although there are some great pluses, there are some unfortunate realities that are also present with this particular promotional item.

First the pluses… I have vivid memories of performing at the Edmonton Fringe Festival in the early 90s and selling (to my mind) incredible numbers of t-shirts at the end of my shows. Inevitably, whenever I would arrive at one of my outdoor stage spots at the Fringe there would be one or two spectators in the crowd wearing Checkerboard Guy t-shirts which was a remarkable stroke to one’s ego! That people –

1. Like the show enough to buy a shirt was cool and
2. Liked it enough to come back and see it again and made a point of wearing the shirt to show their support was even cooler!

I think this was one of the closest experiences I had to feeling like a ‘rock star’ with real bona fide FANS… Very cool. This was a pretty EGO-DRIVE pursuit however and when I realized this, I actually started to look at some of the unfortunate realities that go along with t-shirt sales.

1. Sizing – How do you deal with the fact that people want different sizes of t-shirts everything from t-shirts that fit their three-year old to XXL (or bigger) shirts for the SUPER FANS? Back in the day when I did shirts a lot I’d often opt to get just XL shirts and say that it was a one-size fits all scenario, but this was never really a satisfactory solution.
2. Inventory – How do you decide how many shirts to have printed? Unless you’re constantly on tour and have fairly consistent indicators as to how many shirts you’ll be selling, determining the number of shirts, and thus the amount of capital that will be locked into unsold shirts can be tricky.
3. Shipping – Like it or not, t-shirts need to be brought with you to sell and they tend to be reasonably bulky and heavey. Given the amount of traveling that I do and the number of times I fly to gigs, bringing extra ‘stuff’ with me is often something I’m not all that keen on considering.
4. Return on Investment – By the time you’ve bought the shirts, had them printed, shipped them to the gig and possibly paid someone to sit at a table and sell them for you after your shows, the unfortunate reality is that the return on your investment isn’t as good with a t-shirt as it is with just about any other merchandise item, well unless you sell the shirts for a ridiculous mark-up, but I never felt good about doing this, so in the end, the sale of t-shirts as merchandise always ended up being more of a ‘just over break-even’ sort of scenario for me and as a result I’ve sort of shelved the idea of using shirts as a source of revenue.

Shirts as promotional items on the other hand, that’s a completely different scenario. If I’m trying to make a good impression on a client that I’d like to work for then a t-shirt and perhaps a baseball cap thrown in along with my promotional kit and video helps sweeten the pot. If I’m doing a gig or have done a gig and someone went out of their way to help ensure that the show went as smoothly as possible, then sending along a t-shirt afterwards  is an easy and memorable way to say thanks! I use baseball caps a lot as thank you gifts for the technical staff that supports my shows when I work on cruise ships. These days I seem to be returning to the same ships a fair bit, so I’ll sometimes bring t-shirts along as well just in case I run into people who already have hats.

Giving my ‘crew’ a shirt or a hat before one of my shows is my way of acknowledging the fact that although it’s their job to make me look and sound good, I do appreciate their efforts on my behalf. I also love the look of the crew all wearing cbg swag as it creates a cool sense that we’re all part of ‘team cbg’ which is hopefully fun for everyone.

‘You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar’ as the saying goes, and using a custom printed t-shirt as your honey can help you land the gig in the first place and also ensure that your shows look and sound as good as possible when you step out on stage.

Where in the world am I today?: Flying from Honolulu to Hilo then on to the STAR Princess

Today’s cool marketing tip comes to you thanks to my buddy David Duchemin, formerly “The Rubber Chicken Guy!” Dave now works as a humanitarian photographer and has also authored a very popular book on photographic vision entitled ‘Within the Frame.’

Anyway, back in his days as “The Rubber Chicken Guy” he wore a bright green suit and had catch phrases in his marketing like ‘Green, It’s the new Funny’ so this whole green image thing became a very big part of his promotional materials. Then one day he showed up on my doorstep and handed me a bottle of Jones Green Apple Soda with his picture all over the label.

As it turns out, it’s a pretty easy thing to get done. Just head over to

http://www.myjones.com/

And order up some of your very own soda in a flavor/colour that most suits your image and have your image plastered all over the bottle’s label… It’s the sort of thing that’s sure to leave an impression and is likely something that people will end up talking about well after they’ve enjoyed the soda!

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

For almost a year now I’ve been proactively marketing myself to several cruise lines as a way to augment the work that my agent does for me. Now some might say that it’s the job of the agent to pro-actively market me to the lines, but I view my relationship with my agent as team effort. This particular agent only takes a 10% commission on gigs, so it’s not like they’re making so much off me that they can really afford the materials or time to sell me as much as I’d like to be sold, so I ran the idea past them of a semi-regular direct mailing to keep my face crossing the desk of the various entertainment buyers for the cruise industry and they were happy to OK my efforts to assist.

Is it a lot of work? Well, the reality is that these semi-regular mailings (about once every 6 – 8 weeks or so) aren’t all that hard to create and there are only 12 lines that I mail to, so it doesn’t really require all that much effort on my behalf, and the simple exercise of making the effort achieves two things – 1. It puts my face on the desk of the buyers for these 12 lines once ever month or two and 2. – It shows good faith on my part to my agent and demonstrates a willingness to make and extra effort to sell my show. It really doesn’t take that much time to get the postcards into the mail and the benefits far out weigh the relatively small investment of time to make it happen.

What do I include on the postcards? First off I either send out one of my Promotional Postcards or a large format postcard (5 x 7) that I then doctor up with my image so that it shows images of me in some sort of interesting location… I did this at the beginning of the Alaska Cruise Season with a picture of me super-imposed onto the Vancouver Cruise Ship Terminal and suggested that cruise lines consider using a guy who already lives in the place that many of the ships depart from – seemed logical to me…

Each postcard has a similar format. First I put a quote at the top (someone important saying something great about me), next comes the sales pitch where I try to sell the benefits of hiring me. This is followed by an appeal or a ‘call to action’ and each card ends with the contact information for my agent. That’s it. Nothing too complicated, just a chance to have my picture cross the desk of the buyer’s desk and suggest that hey… This is a guy you should hire!

I did this with another agent years ago and after a year of doing it with very little in the way of hard core results I started to question wether it was actually worth doing or not. Then I got a gig at one of the venues I’d been sending cards to and when I showed up, there on the wall next to the desk of the person who I had been sending cards to was a bulletin board covered with my face… I never doubted the benefits of this sort of mailing again. You may not get a gig in the week or the month or the year after one of these mailings has been sent out, but eventually you likely will and if you booked one gig from having sent out five, ten or twenty postcards, well likely that one gig more than compensates for the effort of doing the mailings in the first place.

Where in the world am I today?: Juneau, Alaska aboard the Golden Princess

Quite a while back I posted about how much I love the annual Trading Cards that I get done up… Well it’s that time of year again… The time of year when I need to either put my nose to the grindstone and come up with the new design myself, or else track someone else down who might be interested in helping come up with some design ideas/concepts that could eventually become the design for the 2010 card…

In the last couple of years I’ve opted to sit down and tackle the process myself… I’ve been reasonably happy with the results, but beyond the certain pleasure I get from coming up with the annual design, I’ve tried to avoid the challenge of having to explain how to create the design to someone who doesn’t necessarily get it…

Because I’ve been involved with the cards since the first year (1999), I totally get what the process is all about and have a pretty good grip on how to deliver a design that will look reasonably good when people mess around with the color scheme and put their own picture into the basic frame that gets created.

The challenge for me comes from wanting to have a design that’s eye-catching enough to provide a certain dynamic to the cards, yet not too over powering to what ever image is put inside the frame. One also needs to keep in mind that the printing/cutting process isn’t an exact science, so having a bit of space in the design to allow for these production variances is also a very good idea…

One of the things on my list of stuff to do while aboard the Golden Princess this week (beyond just doing my shows) was to start formulating a design for the 2010 cards… If anyone out there reading this blog has any brilliant ideas that they’d like to send my way I’d be more than happy to hear them… You can reach me via email or leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

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

Back in December of ’08, almost a year ago now I started a dialogue with the guy who’s launching the CreativeMix a conference for people who rely on creativity for a living. The very first CreativeMix ‘Ideation Conference’ will take place on October 22, 2009, and yours truly will be one of the guest speakers at the conference along with some pretty seriously creative types from around Vancouver… It’s pretty cool to be included in such illustrious company… For more info about the conference, check out the website and consider dropping in to be a part of things…

But I digress… Monday’s are for a discussion of marketing ideas and I thought I’d throw this one out there because Corwin Hiebert head-honcho for this little party said that he was pro-actively marketing the event by having custom coffee cup sleeves printed and distributed to coffee shops around the lower mainland. Apparently the statistics were something crazy like the average person who drinks coffee holds on to their cup for between 30 – 45 minutes and he figured having his logo and information about his event on a sleeve was a potential 30 – 45 minute advertising plug to his target market. Apparently creative types drink a lot of coffee… Who knew??? I don’t which makes me wonder about how on Earth I got selected to be a guest speaker, but that’s another story…

Knowing your target market and finding a way to sneak into their psyche like Corwin is attempting to do with these coffee cup sleeves is a pretty clever approach. Will it work? Hard to know exactly, but it’s a promotional/marketing angle that I’d never considered before and got me thinking a bit more outside the box about ways to reach a potential buyer in a different way… I’m not saying run out and have a bunch of custom coffee cup sleeves printed, but what I am saying is push yourself to come up with new and original ways to set yourself apart from the crowd as people will remember it and as soon as they remember you, your chances of getting a gig skyrocket!

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

Some of the most memorable items of promotional material that I’ve ever encountered have been the brain child of some of the most interesting and creative performers that I’ve had the pleasure to have met. Taking extra time to do something just a little bit off the beaten path can pay huge dividends if you play your cards right and know the tolerance level of your target market.

As an example, I have vivid memories of performer Tom Comet (long before he started Circus Orange) who went to a planned parenthood clinic, picked up an extraordinary number of condoms and had stickers made that were the exact same size as the condom packages and took the time to apply his sticker to the package with the slogan –

Performer Tom Comet gives you one Free F%@K!

On his packaging he used the correct spelling for that often offensive four letter word, but the idea of using a condom to promote his show was something that people talked about A LOT after receiving one of these give-aways!

Another friend of mine, Little Joe Cobden took the time to discover a distributor of cardboard matches who would print his promotional slogan on the match book cover that said – Little Joe says, don’t play with matches… It could burn your house down. Again, a crazy idea of a promotional item, but one that people talked about a lot when he gave them out. Crazy, but doing something different can really create a buzz about your show and provide you with more intrigue than another youtube video might.

Just the other day while performing at the Pacific National Exhibition with my new show that features a stunt performing Hot Dog named Willie The Wiener I struck upon the idea of using little packages of ketchup to promote the show… I could go the route that Tom went and give away regular ketchup packages with stickers printed to size and stuck on them, or look into having them pre-printed like my friend Joe did with his match books… At this point I’m still not entirely sure what the future of this show is going to be, so I’m not about to dump thousands of dollars on promo for a show who’s future is undetermined, but coming up with an idea like the mini-ketchup packages to go along with a show about a Hot Dog Super Stunt Star is just an example of how to look at your show and come up with an idea that is different enough to leave a real impression.

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

As part of the work I’ve done at the Pacific National Exhibition for the last 5 years I’ve thrown a welcome-to-Vancouver BBQ for the performers that have been a part of the Street Stars Program. This year I wasn’t actually hired on to be the manager of the program as I had been in previous year, but I was brought in as a consultant to discuss who to bring in to fill the performance slots and my revenue as the consultant was directly tied to the fact that the performers who arrived and were present at the orientation meeting last Friday were all people that I had suggested to be brought in.

It’s been my experience that spending some money on a welcome dinner like the one we threw Friday evening after we had done the orientation meeting at the Fair is always money well spent because by making the effort to make other performers feel welcome and well taken care of, they turn around and share information about great jobs that they’ve done that they think you could do, and this sharing is done in a much more open way than might otherwise be the case.

For myself I can easily state that when people make the effort to feed me I feel a huge appreciation and gratitude towards the host, and although I don’t expect this sort of reaction when I provide good hospitality to others, it just seems to work out to be the case. If you’re a good host, people just seem to want to return the favour by providing you with information or feedback that will help you… It’s one of those deposits into the karma bank that seems to pay pretty immediate dividends for some reason…

The other nice think about throwing a party at the beginning of an event is that it sets the mood/tone for the entire event. This makes the experience a positive one right from the beginning and has already made my job as both a performer and semi-coordiator of this year’s PNE Street Stars Program a lot more relaxed and successful because people started the gig already in a good mood. Performers in a good mood do better shows, better shows means happier audiences, happier audiences means a happier employers and this means a certain job security for the guy who suggested the performers in the first place…

Beyond the positive business spin-offs, it’s just a really great way to spend and evening. Being able to enjoy great conversations with great people and look forward to the days and shows ahead is a big part of the fun of being a performer and it’s a pleasure to be the instigator of making such an evening happen. Next time you get the chance I highly recommend breaking bread with friends and seeing where it leads.

Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing  in Peru

Monday’s are devoted to marketing, so what does Play-Doh have to do with with marketing? Well it’s like this… Back around the late 80’s I started to really pro-actively market my show to the festival circuit across the country. I’d send off these carefully boxed up packages that included all of the regular stuff, the video, the pictures, the bio and press release, perhaps some stickers and a jar of Play-Doh.

Why the Play-Doh? Well I felt that there was something about Play-Doh that suggested a sense of playful fun that was in keeping with my show and wanted to say thank you to who ever it was who was opening the box for taking the time to review my materials. It wasn’t until I started to attend some of the festivals and visit some of the offices of the producers I had sent packages to that I began to see what a great marketing gimmick the Play-Doh was. Well after the video had been shelved and the press kit filled, people seemed to keep the Play-Doh on their desks which was a constant reminder of me.

I thought it would be even better to take this concept one step further and send out eggs of Silly Putty, but before sending it out, take the time to embed my face on the putty inside the egg. One of the things that Silly Putty marketed when it came out was the ability to lift the ink off of newsprint. In the adds they showed kids ‘copying’ images from comic strips then stretching them out and having fun with the warped images (OK… I’m totally showing off my age by knowing about this stuff). I totally thought it would be a hoot to send the putty pre-embedded with my image, but never quite got to that idea.

I’ve also heard of people who’ve put their entire promo kit on a view•master viewer and sent it out. Or another guy who had his own lunchbox made.

The point is to make the receiving of your promotional material into an event, not just the opening of an envelope. Anything you can do to be remembered right from the get go will have a long term benefit and it well worth the additional investment it takes to make it happen.

Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing  in Peru

Just before I left for Peru I celebrated my 41 Birthday and was blown away with the number of people who contacted me via Facebook to wish me a good day! I posted a while back about the power of remembering people’s Birthdays and how much of an impact making the extra effort to send a card through the mail, but in this Facebook world in which we live having that little reminder pop up telling you it’s so-in-so’s Birthday and then being able to just send off some quick well wishes is pretty spectacular.

When I got inundated with Facebook well wishes last birthday I asked one friend if they thought responding to the messages was important. They suggested that as it was my birthday the gift of receiving the well wishes was what was important, but I think the opportunity to connect with you’re network is something that you shouldn’t pass up. Sure it’s mostly friends that contact you, not business contacts, but those friendships can lead to performance opportunities and staying in people’s brains with a quick thank you for a birthday greeting doesn’t take too much effort not to be worth while.

So make the most of Birthdays! Oh, and don’t for get to ‘eat cake.’