This post is about marketing. I just thought I'd get that out of the way.
I am sure some of you think I am jumping the gun here:
"How on earth can marketing be number two on this list???" You demand.
"I thought this series was about doing virtual storytelling! Where is all the info about cameras and stuff! Why are you starting here?"
There is a good reason why we are starting here.
We are not actually talking about the marketing piece itself, we are talking about the plan for the marketing: These are two different things.
For the last however many years you have been a storyteller/performer, your job has been pretty straightforward...
1. I will show up at your event.
2. I will do a live show of a certain length
3. You will pay me for this experience
4. I will put the money in the bank
5. Lather rinse repeat
You probably have some idea how to market that.
Contact schools
Contact libraries
Contact venues
Contact senior centers
Contact hospitals
Contact park services
etc, etc, etc
If you never got to the marketing, or you had issues with it, click here to read the long, in-depth series I did on marketing!
Traditionally, our marketing is like this, "Hey, I am a storyteller/puppeteer/singer/poet (you get the drift), and I would like to come and tell/sing/perform for your clientele.
What they expect is some form of this:
Yes, lots of touching, gathering, shouting, laughing, moving about, and generally having a fabulous, loud, communal time.
There is no way on the Flat Earth that you could sell something like this to any venue in the world right now.
So, what can you sell? What is going to be the new marketing strategy?
Well, in our current circumstances there are some options:
1. - You can do "live" virtual.
2. - You can go pre-recorded
3. - You can do a mix of both of the above
4. - You could offer in-person shows with some very strict guidelines to protect the health and well being of the audience, the venue, and yourself
Each of those things has its own challenges. So, you need to decide what you want to do.
Do I want to do all pre-recorded?
Am I more comfortable with Live virtual?
Do I want to mix the two?
Am I determined to do in-person gigs?
Will I do it all?
I'll wait while you answer those questions.
Okay, now you have the beginnings of a plan.
What are you going to offer?
Performances?
Residencies?
Workshops?
Q&A events?
Hour length performances?
New material?
Old material?
What are you going to do?
At each stage of this questioning phase, stop and imagine how that affects the market that you want to tap. Each and every decision you make will impact the changes you are about to make. It will also decide how you are going to make them.
For example:
I knew I wanted to do performances
I want most of them to be pre-recorded
I will do live zoom, but it is not my preference
I will not be doing any in person shows anywhere until at least May of 2021. I will reassess at that point
Having made those decisions, I had to decide what I was going to offer, and could I either tap a market or create one.
I committed to marketing to my traditional markets and offering them a version of the normalcy that we all crave.
That was my hook. See, we can still share stories just as we always have. It will look a little different, but we will get that warm, happy, fun experience that we have come to know and love.
If that is what we were going to offer, then I had to figure out how to make that happen.
I didn't plan to write this series so soon or while I was in the middle of it, but I am fielding so many storytelling questions through my email, I thought I'd better give it my best shot.
Unfortunately, I have a number of different things to do that are not strictly in my Thursday model, but that is because the virtual storytelling processes we put in place last March are now beginning to generate work all over the country.
This is a good thing. It means that despite the lockdown and the lack of traveling and the advent of virtual school - the virtual storytelling shows are selling.
Now that we are starting to get work, and the business model we put together seems to be sound, I feel like I can share what we've done and how we mean to work this element of our business now and into the future.
I am going to do this in parts to prevent it from getting too long. My goal with this series is to cover the following elements -
1 - Revamping the thought process on delivering storytelling
2 - Deciding on the direction of your virtual storytelling focus
3 - Performing for a camera
4 - Performing for a virtual audience
5 - Pre-recording material for audiences
6 - Delivering material via a virtual platform
7 - Creating Products vs Services in the Virtual Model
8 - A potential model for virtual residencies
9 - Marketing your virtual performances
Now, to be clear, there are lots of elements I can touch on in this series, but going in-depth would require me to write a manual.
I am encouraging The David to do a series of videos about marketing and business processes. He is reluctant as he hates working with the camera, and he isn't sure he wants to teach a live/virtual workshop. I'll keep trying to convince him because he is way better at explaining the business side of this than me.
I've gotten emails from a number of performers who are just now beginning to grapple with what is going on in terms of the virtual storytelling world.
My goal in this series is to give people a jumping-off place to begin to focus on reshaping their work if they haven't already done so.
I admit upfront that I have so much to learn, so what I'm doing here is offering what I have already learned, and I hope you will have ideas to help me to keep learning.
I only know what we did as a company. If you have thoughts, suggestions, or comments, please leave them below so we can learn from your process if you are willing to share your insights.
You might ask - Why aren't you charging people to take a workshop on this? You are always talking about monetizing your work, and here you are giving things away for free!
I may very well start teaching virtual workshops on this subject too - but the truth is I would be nowhere if so many great storytellers hadn't been kind, caring, and helpful to me as I started my career.
Paying it forward is a necessity if our art form is to survive.
Another caveat here - I mean to go through this slowly and explain it in steps so that it doesn't seem random, or unachievable. Another reason to, at some point, teach a four hour intensive on reshaping your storytelling for the virtual world.
Okay, enough pre-amble - Let's begin -
We live in a world built on the concept of scarcity -
That means, we only pay top dollar for things that are hard to come by. This creates a situation where people who provide services or products need to make it feel as if we don't buy it NOW and for whatever price they set, we will go begging in the future.
In other words - capitalism in all things including our work
Now, this is not a bad thing. Timpanogos and The National Festival only happen once a year, and they are an experience. The same thing is true of all of our wonderful national storytelling events. They have their own character and their own atmosphere. We swear by our favorites because they are all unique. We pay what we pay to be part of that experience.
Well, what about storytelling itself? If people don't have to travel across the world or even across state lines, will they value it?
What if everybody can just click on a link and hear storytelling? Will it be overexposed?
If you can see it virtually, who will want to watch it in person?
We are not the first entertainment industry to be struck by this problem of a changing business model.
Cable television freaked out over Youtube and Hulu.
How can satellite or cable compete if they force people to pay whatever cable television costs (I don't know what that is as we haven't had cable television for almost two decades) when you can watch it on Youtube for free?
Then, Netflix arrived on the scene, rendered Blockbuster obsolete, and allowed people to binge entire seasons instead of waiting from week to week.
Advertisers freaked out - The whole structure broke into pieces and started trying to reform itself into something new.
Well, cable, satellite, and streaming services have embraced a new philosophy - The concept of Plenty
There are plenty of ways to stream material and everyone can get what they want while paying a much smaller fee. People liked the myriad options, and the world of television and movies is still evolving.
New releases of movies are now rentable online instead of us going to the theatre.
My family watched the new Bill and Ted movie with some friends in our living room on one of our kid's giant computer monitors linked to my husband's laptop.
When I first began trying t figure out how I was going to deal with all of this virtual content and whether I wanted to do it at all, there was a hue and cry from some of the people with whom I shared my ideas.
"If you go virtual, your work will be rendered obsolete!"
"Why would anyone hire you if they could just download your work off the internet?"
"You will record yourself right out of a career!"
"Any show you record will make it impossible for you to do it live."
"How will you keep people from "stealing" your shows?"
"This is a terrible idea!"
Those are words from the philosophy of Scarcity - If they can get you anywhere, why would anybody hire you? Your presence will become useless. Don't do it!
Well, over the course of the pandemic, we have seen something very different happen. We have seen that many storytellers have embraced the Philosophy of Plenty
The philosophy of Plenty sounds like this:
There are seven billion people in the world -
Who knows how many of them would love storytelling if they had any idea what it was -
Let us make sure that lots of people are sharing stories -
People will find us if there are lots of places they could encounter stories -
Let's grow our audience by using storytelling as a powerful tool during this global pandemic -
Storytellers need to tell, and people need stories. We got lots. Let's share -
How sweet. How naive. How silly. What about that whole overexposed thing!
In fact, you can watch hours of bootleg shows, ghost stories, badly shot footage, professional footage and heaven knows what else of me doin' my thing. I will bet the same is true of you.
You know what else you can find? Music.
Trust me when I tell you that if Tina was coming to town and I could get tickets...I would go, despite watching the above clip.
And despite having hours of storytelling online - I still get asked to show up in person for multiple hundreds of gigs per year.
When this pandemic is over, I hope to have been in even more homes, classrooms, and living rooms than I have up to now. I hope more people are trying to figure out how to get me to show up in person and perform. I think they will.
Why?
Because there is nothing like live performance. There is nothing like sitting in an audience with five, or twenty-five, or five hundred or more and experiencing a shared event.
Nothing.
In fact, I use my youtube virtual storytelling stuff in my marketing. I send schools and supporters to that stuff all of the time. They love it, and it has encouraged more than one group to hire me.
Lots of people find me by running across those videos.
Watching a storyteller online whets the appetite for a "real" experience. People want to see it live. They. Just. Do.
So, Don't let anyone dissuade you from doing this.
Virtual content is a way to use storytelling and the many opportunities we have right now to expand our business and reach new audiences who will come look for us live when the opportunity comes around once more.
So, strap in, and let's begin this journey into virtual telling.
There is more than plenty.
We have nothing to lose!
Part 1 - The Virtual Storyteller - The Philosophy of Plenty - Don't Let People Talk You Out Of It!
Storytellers are learning how to make art, share our work, and find audiences that are just as hungry for us as we are for them.
Artists Standing Strong Together and other online groups found their feet and started connecting people from various parts of the storytelling world with each other.
What did all of this wild change mean?
We suddenly had access to international performers we could never see live!
I know I have not done much blogging during these crazy times, but I have been trying to reform my own business model. Now that I have a little more knowledge in me about how to make this work, I have some information to offer.
I will be blogging more about the business of storytelling in the time of COVID. In fact, that is what my next series is going to be dedicated to doing.
I am going to answer the questions I have been fielding, explain how I transformed residencies into online products, and go into detail about how we marketed this product, how we figured out what we wanted to do, and offer as much information as I can about this new world of work.
I am of the opinion it will be at least 2 years before we are back up to capacity in a safe way. Even after that, I don't think virtual telling will ever go away.
Let us march forward with both of these great skills under our belt.
You can't stop storytellers when stories are on the line.
“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Back in March, when the world was struck with "The Rona" as my twenty-year-olds call it, I was hit with what would eventually come out to a thirty-two thousand dollar deficit in my budget.
I knew I wasn't the only one.
I put it out there. I needed to say that out loud. That surprised some of my non-artist friends. They were not sure why I would admit such a thing in public.
Simply put, we are independent artists. Many of our small businesses consist of us and possibly one other person. Rarely are there more than just two and maybe even three. We are islands in the midst of this raging storm. I hoped that my simply laying it out would help anyone who was feeling adrift find some morsel of commonality, someplace where they could begin to talk about a devastating thing that we were sharing communally.
The message I wanted to share as loudly as I could as quickly as I could, was, "Is anyone out there? If you are, then we are sharing a common thing. You are not alone! We could be better together! We could support each other!"
The response from other artists was quick. People started connecting with me to say they felt the same way. We kept reassuring each other that we would get through this somehow.
The more I connected with my friends and colleagues, the more worried I became. I was worried about the misinformation that was going to start spouting everywhere about COVID. I was worried about the isolation that was coming. I was worried that many of my friends didn't have the funds to weather this crisis. I was worried about how to restart work in a world where storytellers couldn't see live audiences. I was worried about lots of things.
The amount of angst and helplessness I was starting to feel about the future was overwhelming.
Control Freaks don't do well when they can't control at least basic things. The David jumped into the mix within the first two days, suggesting a new business model, and we decided to run with it. We started reshaping our business before the weekend arrived.
That was great for me, but it didn't change my concern for the storytelling community and itinerate artists in general. I was still doing what I could through my various social media outlets to listen and respond to people.
I wished I had more to offer other than my written support.
Sheila Arnold, a person who has been an acquaintance of mine for many years, started responding on one of the threads I had going with a group of artists, and I could feel she was having the same thoughts I was.
We carved out twenty minutes to sit and share our ideas. The end result of that was the need for a fund that would grant emergency cash to storytellers who needed immediate help to cover expenses.
As a card-carrying introvert and knowing that the way The David and I were going to have to work to transform our business, I was upfront about not being able to run such an endeavor.
There were other reasons as well: My hyper-focused, often abrasive, hyper controlling, hyper obsessive personality is not a good look when it is running something.
I know my limitations.
Luckily, Sheila really likes people, is happy doing the public upfront thing, is a very caring person, and enjoys organizing. Within two days we had a name.
Sheila gathered some friends and they began to put the fund together -
We formed a grant committee - They started reviewing applications
NSN agreed to host the fund -
ASST started paying out cash grants
Sheila started running online storytelling events
My brain exploded - I thought - This has legs. This probably is going to need to become its own entity at some point. I started thinking about what that should look like. It needed a person to organize it. It needed someone to spend all of their time championing the bits of it. It needed someone to write copy, grants, find funders, reach out to various segments of society, bring people together. It needed to be a place for all artists, and possibly a place that might even attract younger storytellers. It needed to be an actual company as well as an artist conglomerate!
I suggested this to Sheila. She said, "I can't think about that right now."
That was true. She was really busy with the group that we'd started calling ASST - Assist
Sheila kept running Monday meetings. She single-handedly made ASST the gold standard for online performing.
Storytellers from all over the world stepped up to be a part of this growing thing
It was amazing what was pouring out of a quick conversation and Sheila's tenacity.
I promised Sheila that I would be whatever back-up the group needed. If she came to a wall, didn't have
Claudia Elizabeth Aldred
enough of something, or wanted some kind of writing or anything, I would help.
I donated to the fund, set up a blog spot where information about grants and other things could be found, and stepped in when asked.
I came to see almost immediately that Sheila was perfect as our front lady. I was happy to be in the shadows. I brought up the idea of becoming an organized body again. Sheila informed me that it was a good thought, but not right now!
Then, we had what might be called and an inciting event - no need to discuss what it was - let's just say that I was planning to head to a Monday meeting when I got a chat query from a friend of mine in New Zealand.
Yes, Caroline, I am blaming this on you.
I called her to see what was up, and we ended up spending an hour video conferencing. It was productive, I was invigorated.
Sheila is a big proponent of really long meetings, so I figured I'd pop in for what I assumed was going to be the last half hour.
The Zoom Room was empty.
I panicked. I know that may sound odd, but I knew something was wrong. I didn't know what it was, but I figured it was bad.
I tried to contact Sheila immediately, but she was not responding. It took about half an hour before she got back to me. She was livid. Because of this incident, she told me that she'd announced in the Monday meeting that we were going to form our own 501c3. Now.
Okay.
That was less than a month ago. Since then...
We filed papers of incorporation
I took down the blog because it had become an ungainly mess.
Then, this morning, I got an email from the North Carolina Secretary of State informing me that Artists Standing Strong Together is now officially incorporated.
We are a legal, official, free-standing thing.
What does that mean?
Well, as far as people who are connecting with ASST are concerned, not much will change.
Internally, it means there will be lots of change. All of it will revolve around putting a structure in place so that after COVID and all of the touring artists go back to touring, and the volunteers are pooped, ASST will still be able to carry out its mission in our community.
"What," you might ask, "is Artists Standing Strong Together's mission?"
Our Mission Statement:
Connecting Itinerate Artists With Resources
That's it.
That is what we were formed to do.
That will be the work of Artists Standing Strong Together
We will be a group that houses and administers the Storyteller Relief Fund
We will be a group that listens to the needs of the itinerate performing community and responds
We will be a group that offers practical advice on how to run a successful independent artist business
We will be a group that continues to offer online storytelling and performing venues
We will continue to be a group that welcomes and facilitates the conversations artists want to have about race, gender, cultural misappropriation, taxes, mentoring, crafting material, personal narrative, virtual storytelling, how to use Zoom or anything else independent artist want to talk about!
I spent two summers of high school building, painting, maintaining, and producing props with a cast. I helped construct backdrops and frames.
I was part of erecting those frames, putting up backdrops, and breaking the whole thing down, stowing them, and preparing for the next travel show.
I also did traveling theatre at university.
I even did a couple of shows after graduating. I looked around at the life of being in a small, traveling theatre company and said, "You know, this is not how I want to live my life."
So, I bid adieu to that part of my life and moved on to other things.
Storytelling is light on the gear.
I don't have puppets, a set, props, or costumes.
I don't have backdrops or lights, or anything like that to cart from place to place.
In fact, I have my mat - which is made from recycled coca-cola bottles that I bought in Australia, and my sound system when needed.
That was in the before time.
I have been performing in a little nook in my living room. It took me months to figure out how to light it so I didn't have crazy shadows and I could be seen.
That required lighting that I did not have.
Ultimately, I figured it out.
The David was polite enough about the situation as the summer went on, and then he started making these comments.
TD: "Have you considered a backdrop?
Me: "No."
TD: "You should think about it."
A few weeks later.
TD: "Have you looked at backdrops?"
Me: "No."
TD: I thought you would have looked at some backdrops."
A few days later
TD: "Backdrops?"
Me: Oh, yeah. I'm going to order some."
Every single day after that.
TD: "Backdrops?"
Me: "I'm doing it!"
It took me a lot of searching to find backdrops I liked. I finally settled on these two from an outfit called GladsBuy.
Bookcase from GladsBuy
Brick Wall from GladsBuy
These are not virtual backgrounds, they are actual backdrops made from vinyl. They have grommets in the top of them to hang on a frame. I've used them on a couple of occasions already, and they look great.
After buying these things, I related the whole annoying process to my daughter. She sat down, pulled out a pen, and designed a backdrop for me that incorporated the themes of my business.
Then, a friend of mine who was watching all of this play out online, called me and offered to make me a custom backdrop. I said yes. So, I went from having no backdrops to having three and one on the way in a matter of days.
Well, if you have a backdrop, you have to have something on which to hang it.
Luckily, I know all about backdrops.
So, more gear.
I headed to efavormart, and ordered a frame for my new backdrops.
I put it together a couple of days ago.
It is lightweight, designed to be put together and taken apart. It takes less than five minutes to put it up or stow it. It comes in its own little pouch and fits in a closet. What more could I ask for?
Oh, I know what I could ask for.
I have to figure out how to light this new situation without huge shadows on the canvas.
I've been waiting for my artist card for years. I'm sure there has to be one. There must be.
How do I know this?
I imagine it is sort of like this but with artist stuff on it
Because negotiating a fee for storytelling, or any art, is tricky. For some organizations or people, when they get into the process of hiring an artist, they are flabbergasted at how much it can cost.
Some organizations want an artist to come, but they are annoyed that they have to pay you at all aside from covering dinner.
Some organizations are shocked to find out that you won't come for free or work for a pittance.
Some organizations think they've offered you plenty of compensation and they don't get why one hundred dollars is not sufficient for your time. You are only going to be telling for an hour!
Some people complain that they are hiring you to do something you love, so why are you charging so much?
Clearly, there is a formula on the artist card that must look something like this -
Artists love their work. + They are only banging on drums/telling stories/singing for x amount of time. + They are only working with families/children. + They are not traveling far. + They really are having fun. + I am offering them exposure. = They really should be paying me for giving them this opportunity.
I suppose that is why some people approach fee negotiations with an artist like, "I guess I'll toss them a bone. I'm sure that will be sufficient."
Luckily for me, I don't negotiate fees. I leave that to The David. I let him wrangle with people over dollars and cents.
Yes, in the best of times, it is hard to negotiate a fee.
Throw in a global pandemic and you make things even harder.
In the before time -
"We have fifteen libraries. We have this much money, how many of them will you visit if we pay you x amount?"
In the now -
Client: "We want a virtual show and we want to stream it to all fifteen of the libraries for two weeks, and we want to pay you as if you have only visited one branch on one afternoon because you are recording the show. That seems fair.
Artist: "Umm. No. I'm sorry. I can't afford to do it like that. Let's talk about a fee for each library in your system. Certainly not as high as if I was there in person. That way, I am in every library, you have programming for your entire system, and I am compensated for the work I am putting into preparing this program for you.
Client: "What? You want us to compensate you for essentially working every one of our libraries this summer even though your show is pre-recorded? That is unreasonable. The formula on your artist card says that creating pre-recorded virtual programming is much easier and less expensive to produce!"
Since it is being used against me on a regular basis, there must be a way for me to use it to help my situation.
I could take it to my mortgage broker. She'd say, "Wow, I didn't know you had an artist card. Considering this formula, I am going to drop your mortgage payments by forty percent!"
How about grocery shopping? I could present my artist card right before my credit card. "Wow! You're an artist who loves what she does. Your groceries are going to cost fifty percent less than everyone else who has to work for a living!"
Oh, at the bookstore! "Wait! You're an artist? Well, here are all of your books at ten percent of what everyone else has to pay for books!"
Yes! My artist card, the card that makes people assume they don't need to pay me, should also alert the people that I have to pay that I shouldn't be charged full price for anything!
Sadly, my artist card has not come, so, I am still in the position of negotiating a fee.
I've purchased lights, backdrops, frames on which to hang the backdrop, editing software, upgraded the internet to the fastest speeds allowable in my area, and spent hours rehearsing, recording, re-recording in various parts of my house to find the best place to make solid sound without echoing or feedback. I've invested hours and hours in educating myself about how all of this works. We are combining years of education, brand new skills, and our knowledge of our craft to make art in a new way with an unfamiliar tech world.
What a client is getting on the other end of this process is a high quality, well put together, specifically crafted piece that is designed for this particular medium that displays our artform to the best of our ability.
That is no small accomplishment.
That is not cheap.
That is not easy.
That is not thrown together.
That is not an afterthought.
If we charged what our work and dedication is actually worth every single time we stepped into a venue, nobody could afford it.
The price we quoted is already a steep discount unless it is in the six figures.
You are more than worth the fee you charge.
If we do not fight for the right to be properly compensated for our work, we won't be, and nobody will have any idea we should be.
