WHO CAN HELP AND HOW?

During a recent Escape Pod Zoom call Jes Raymond told us how she got people to a show in a town she never played before.

“This past weekend, we had a little show up in a tiny town—St. Johnsbury. One of those places with a small newspaper. And I just decided that instead of making a bunch of social media posts about the show—especially to a town I don’t know—I’d do the human work.

I figured out who the journalist was at the local paper who writes the arts column. I wrote to them directly and sent them a press release. Then I found the local radio station—Vermont Public—and called them. I got our event on their calendar.

We ended up having about 150 people show up at this little church in a town I’d never played before.”

Yes! Doing the human work! As Jes said, “I’ve been trying this new practice of asking: Who could help me? And how?”

Posting on social media is like buying a lottery ticket, because maybe it’ll pay off. But contacting the people who can directly help you? They either write you back, or they don’t – those are 50/50 odds, much better than gambling with an algorithm and hoping it just “works out.”

And Jes hit the jackpot twice, adding 35 new people to her email list!

“Don’t leave the email list somewhere for people to come up to. Put it on a clipboard and pass it around the audience during the show. Tell them: ‘This is the email list, here’s what it’s for, we’re going to pass it around.’”

Building an email list online is great and all, but imagine the open rate for those 35 people who just joined that list? They were at a show, in the crowd, enjoying the event, laughing with friends – that’s an engaged audience!