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Search Marketing Techniques for Local Theatres and the Arts In many ways the Internet has failed to live up to expectations, it is no more the land where anyone can make it then any business environment, those that do make it seem to do so bigger then in other places, though not aways. This is because the Internet is a global rather then a local phenomenon, and theatre, culture, the arts, and similar things are lets face it local. It is much more difficult for them to benefit from the web. Despite this however there are still ways for a local theatre performance to benefit from the Internet. This occures because of an important new development "Geotargeting." Geotargeting allows you to choose a region in which ads will be shown, in this way it is possable for even small theaters no matter how local to reach people in their area. This can be done through Search Engine Marketing, with Yahoo, Google, Ask, MSN and other engines. For those that do not know what search marketing is, it is the placeing of small text ads on the search reasult pages of Google and Yahoo, that appear when someone searches for a word which relates to your product (known as a keyword). Run a search on Google and you will see the search marketing ads to the right, those are paid for. They cost on a per click basis and they can be made to appear only to people in your area. In otherwords you only spend money on this if people in your area search for something that might be related to you and click on your ad. The cost is based on a bidding system, so you can choose to spend as little as 10 cents per click but then your resaults will be given a lesser rank and so will have less clicks. If you have never done search engine marketing before I recomend that you run a search on it, for example on Yahoo's Search Marketing on Yahoo's Site. This is likely to get you offers for an amount of money free if you sign up for the service (these offers will be in the top). Some of the search engines such as Google will aslo offer free marketing to non-profits so if this applys you can look into this as well. Both these cases will alow you to have a certain amount of free money to learn with, so you don't have to commit anything to something that may not be as effective in your area. Once you have signed up for the search programs you need to come up with a list of keywords which you think people would search for that might be interested in your theatre. Search engines require that the keywords have something to do with the website you are leading the clients to. So for an arts program this would limit you to keywords relating to the arts, theater, theatre, performance, acting, sound design, etc. This can be very limiting in a small community, as very few people might actually be searching for these things. You could therefore expand your list of keywords by creating landing pages which though related to your organization, discuss some aspect of it which could extend your list of keywords. You could discuss edcuational aspects of your organization thus expanding your search terms to education. You could discuss the impact theatre has had on movies allowing you to pick up movie related terms, and more. Another good page would be one relating to the theatre as a date, both for unmarried and married couples. Going to a live performance or any art event is a good date. Once you have set up a list of keywords, you will need to create landing pages, pages which help to describe your theatre, performance quickly and if you are able to sell tickets online do this as well. Landing pages need to be streamlined pages well designed and very concise people read very little in landing pages so you have to be catchy and direct to the point. You also need to call buyers to action, having sales on your site, or special offers that go away. This way people are more tempted to buy spontainously. People tend to buy on the spur of the moment online and so it is best to set up your site to be able to do this. Make certain however that landing pages reflect your arts based brand, after all branding is the center of all your marketing activities and should remain so even as you try to expand your reach. You will also have to write the words (copy) for each set of keyword you have chosen to advertise for. It is best if you have multiple ads cycling at first so that you can see which of these gets better resaults, and improve your campaign accordingly. Once you have set up this local campaign you need to keep track of its performance, there are third party softwares which allow you to do this but most cost a monthly fee not makeing them of value for a small organization with a limited reach. Luckly all the search engines offer some metrics in their marketing section. Google Analytics is a free service which you can also use to help track performance, by placing a small piece of code on all your web pages. You need to look at the resaults from these to drop ineffective and over expensive ads, while adjusting or expanding better run campaigns. For the most part small theatres do not have the time to delve too deeply into metrics, unless they have their own marketing director. However you should do what you can. Search marketing is not the only means to use the web to get people to come to your site, as another thing that can be done to help reach the local community online is to make deals with other local sites, highschools, local collages, for example might be willing to give you a space on their website. Other businesses which wish to be seen to sponcer the arts might also be willing to allow such a space. In this rather then just saying they sponser the arts they could have page dedicated to you on their site, and to your upcoming events. This could be good marketing for both of you, and might allow you to get in frount of more people in your community through the Internet.