Hi Kyle, When someone books me, they also get the invitations supplied with their contract. The invitations have my phone number. If not I have an ad in YP. Or they'll contact the host of a previous party to get my number.

Hi Kyle,
All I've ever done since I've started is do my shows, giveout cards and try various forms of advertising, each form was tried and dropped untill now I only advertise in the YP. The main advert for my show, is my show.

I don't use agents, When I first went full time I did send them stuff, that was 5 years ago, I never got much response, if I did it was for rubbish their favourites didn't want to do, andfor low fees, so now if one phones with a job if I can do it I'll do it if I feel it's worth it and the money's right, but I don't chase them for work.

I don't advertise in the local rag, or school mags, tried them they didn't work. the only ones who do advertise in the local rag round here are the cheapies

I'm amazed that with all that you do you have only 150-200 contacts, I was expecting your total to be nearer 1000.

I've just gone through my database, I only started it last march and every booking since then is in there, it's merged with my contracts in word.

After a bit of sorting and deleting of duplicates, where I've worked for the same people more than once, I ended up with a total of 624 contacts. 121 of these are schools, Playgroups, Holiday camps, Armed forces etc, the rest are birthday party customers.

Now the invitations is a great idea. What a wonderful concept. very cool. BNow these invites you provide to your client and they send them out to everyone attending the party?

If so, then that is a great marketing idea and concept that really seems to work well for you. You are providing a service to the customer but even more, you are solving a direct need that they have and therefor building a relationship with them so they will want to use you again.

The invites are a marketing material that I am sure costs you not much to produce but the idea of getting your name and contact info. in the hands of the kids and parents, is a great idea.

Thanks for sharing. Got to love the Café with all this learning going on. I appreciate you sharing that with me.

Kyle

I know one thing for sure -- if I ever get to England, I'm gonna visit both Billy and Clive. They'll teach me how to golf, and then how to do a 2 hour show and maintain their sanity! And in return, I'll teach them all the performing secrets of "Silly Billy" and David Ginn, and I might even throw in a little Dixie Dooley!

Starrpower, give me a few years to learn how to play golf and I'll take you up on it. Mark Twain was wrong, golf isn't a nice walk ruined by a little white ball, it's a nice walk ruined by a little white ball, hedges, ditches sand and water. If it's there my ball will hit it.

However you'll have to come up with something better than Silly billy and David Ginn. seen SB wasn't impressed, and Billy lent me David Ginns book, once again not really impressed. I've never heard of this Dixie guy.

I think other kid show magicians are great to learn from and get inspired from, but I know that what I perform is truely my own and unique style of presentation that I have developed over the years. I guess I have just found who I am and who I am not and I stick with what seems to work for me.

I also was not impressed by Silly Billy but when I talked with him after the lecture, I realized why he was so successful at what he does. He markets himself very very well and everyone in NYC knows his name and what he does. It works for him so even if I may not enjoy his style, I do admire his determination to get out there and get the shows.

Kyle

Man can you guys drop David Kaye Silly billy already?? I think he has been bashed enough. I think we get it he bombed in the UK.

David is a personal friend and a person that in my eyes has contributed a lot to children entertainment through his column in magic. I will be back up NY in two weeks where several us get together for a two day jam session. We always come away with new fresh ideas for the up coming year.

Ken

David is a great guy and very friendly. He is always ready to help you and give advice. I did not particularly care for his performance style, but that is not in any way meant that he is not good at what he does.

I got a chance to talk to him for over an hour after his lecture and we talked about marketing. He was great to talk with, caring and we shared a lot of great tips with me.

I have all the respect for him and what he has done for children's magic.

Kyle

Some really GREAT marketing ideas.

First from Clive "Emazdad" Hemsley

1.) Every kid goes home with a postcard that I get the booker to put in the party bag, it has a magic trick on one side and my details on the other. At other shows like library's etc I give these out to all the kids. Billy has business cards put in the bags.

2.) I also teach the kids a song that I tell them to sing over and over on the way home,
MUM AND DAD, MUM AND DAD, AT MY PARTY I WANT EMAZDAD.

3.) If they haven't got my details but know my name, and then I'm in the YP with a photo of me and marmite the lion.

Every child gets something they value with his name and phone number on it. The children learn a song but it could be something else that teaches his name. For example the magic words. The yellow pages is great because it allows new prospects, old clients and any one looking for him to have some place to look for him.

And From Billy Whizz

4.) When someone books me, they also get the invitations supplied with their contract. The invitations have my phone number. If not I have an ad in YP.

The phone number on the invitations sound expensive to me BUT the prospects have your number posted on the frig for 2 weeks even before the party.



Please Read,
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......39&0

I agree with Scott Mr. Kaye is NOT the topic.

As our host Steve Brooks has said:


Getting Back On Topic

Direct Mail for the kid show markets?

What market would you or do you use direct mail for?

How often would you mail?

What time of year would you mail and to what markets?

Not at all Ron, I brought them in bulk, I got 20,000 printed to last a few years, and they worked out at a penny each. So the average party is about 30p worth. But like you said, they go on the fridge and stay there for ages.

I had a lady come up to me at a party recently and said she had four of my invites stuck on her fridge at the moment.
They must be working I guess eh!

Thats why I don't bother giving out business cards as much as I used too. If the kids like the show, they go home, tell mum and dad. Mum then realises she has my phone number on her fridge and phones me to do their show.

Here's a pic of the invites I send out, they're much clearer in reality: http://www.billywiz.biz/invites.htm

Best wishes all, Billy

Ok Back to the questions:

1) yes I use marketing for my kids shows and do it through out the year as well as methods I use when I am at the party.

2)What markets do I use marketing for? ALL OF THEM! Marketing will work for any market at any time no matter where you live. So I use it for my main markets of Children's performances as well as the Festival Market.

3)I do a direct 3 step process on my initial lead generation mailings. This means an initial mailing and then 2 step follow up with them.

4) When I market to the festivals, I must send out in Januaryn and early Feb. I have found that these are the months when festivals get together to start discussions on their events. I hit them at the right decision making time.

Kyle

To say work comes to you is to say , just put out hand and you will have a handful of money just like that.We did very well by visiting school secretaries, preferably private schools and doing a deal by saying if you will hand out our brochure to all your pupils up to eight years of age we will give you the equivelent in first class postage plus more to make up a round figure. So if they said they would hand out so many brocures for us and say that came to £20.00 we would add a further £10. to make it £30.for which the school funds benefitted. Private schools were perfect because they were the money people's children who not only had birthday parties but could afford entertainment. Whereas you could send out several thousands brochures through the post before any (say (20)got to the households that mattered

We also soon realised early in our career that Doctors and Solicitors, Betting shop owners were the main party givers, so we would go through yellow pages and drop leaflets to them. This information was too good to make public to magicians, but we are retired now.! Eric and Muriel.

Very cool invites, Billy (and you guys are trying to convince us you don't market and promote your shows!)

Hi Starpower, If giving invitations out when people book me is marketing, then yes I market my shows. What I've been disputing in previous post regards marketing is the expense and time spent sending out letters etc.

I paid a lump sum for my invites, and they are just put into the envelope when I send out the contract. I don't bother with follow up calls, follow up thank you letters, or birthday cards, boxes of goodies and all this other stuff which a lot of you send out.

As I said before, if you're just starting out, I understand you'll need to market your show, and I'll be doing the same when I go to Spain to live.

But what I don't understand is if you have a full diary on a regular basis, then why do you need to continue waisting time and money by sending out all this extra stuff. If you have a full diary, then your show should be enough to bring in the extra work. I realise this topic is going around in circles, but we do seem to have completely different views on either side of the pond.

Best wishes, Billy.

That is just the point. You do NOT have to waste a lot of money or time doing effective marketing. I spend very very little for the amount of marketing I do on a consistent basis. If it was costing me so much money or time every single month, I simply would have stopped a log time ago.

I have realized I can do cost-effective marketing without spending a ton of time on it and get fantastic results every time I do. For me, personally, this is win-win situation.

Even when my calendar is full I still do forms of marketing. This means I still thank my clients for having me there, I still send them a simple thank you e-mail (cost me nothing to do) and I still do those things to keep and build a relationship with that client. It costs me nothing to do this and helps my word of mouth spread even faster.

Just my opinion is all. I know we have different opinions on this topic, and that is fine. It helps us to be able to learn from one another.

Kyle

Billy:

Very interesting topic and yes we agree on a lot of topics. But I do recall when I got started doing the birthday's some 12 years ago I put together the show ( funny how I look back 12 years ago and I think how bad my show was). Now the birthday market is on somewhat crusie control where I have my ad in the parent books. I am very confident that my calendar(diary) is going to be booked heavy with birthay's. I do find that it must very different over there. I read that emazadad books and prehaps you do too the same family the next year while you are there??? I do get a lot of return work but most is for another brother or sister of the family. Most the times families will do different things for their child the next year. I have THREE girls (god help me) and we have never had the same type of birthday party the next year.

I think you and others are talking more about the childs birthday party? I do a lot of schools and this is a market (atleast I have seen) that you have to keep your name in front of them. The booking person changes from year to year so yes wasting the money on marketking to them is not a waste for me but rather an investment in my future with them.

But again I agree if you are pretty much established in the BD market there really is NO need to always sending things out to them. Lets face it, the booking person for the birthday's will be the same (unless they die). I do a newsletter once a year to all my clients and this is just to tell them more about my other services that I offer.

Best,
ken

Billy, if you can keep a full calendar, then *maybe* you don't have to market. But, if business starts to drop, it really too late ... then you'll have to work many times harder to catch up than you would have if you just kept things going. Of course, I think most of us promote to markets other than just birthdays. Perhaps if I *were* just doing b-day parties, I would share your views.

BTW, if your doing so well, why move? I guess it's really none of my business, just curious ...

"Most the times families will do different things for their child the next year. I have THREE girls (god help me) and we have never had the same type of birthday party the next year. "

This is why I don't really promote to the birthday parents after the show. I just hope they will promote my show to friends and other relatives.

Starrpower, I'm the same as Billy, I mainly do birthday parties, other work comes my way but I don't chase it. I could target more Schools / Libraries throughout the year, but that would mean working during the day on weekdays, instead of not starting until the kids get out of school as at present. this could seriously infringe on my dog walking and golf time..

Billy and I are presently discussing marketing towards a target group, Not Schools, not Pre-Schools, not Libraries, not the corporate sector.............

GOLF COURSES They have childrens parties for the members kids at Christmas and other times throughout the year

We both have a regular gigs at a couple of golf courses, Last year at my regular bonfire night gig at a course in Plymouth when the secretary asked if I needed anything I jokingly said,

"You could say the words would you and your mate Billy Wiz like a complimentry round of golf"

He laughed and answered, "would you and you mate Billy Wiz like a complimentry round of golf"

"Yes please, Thank you very much".

I got the same this year, plus an extra free round for both of us with the guy that actually booked me.

After this cheeky success Billy tried it at St mellion and Staddiscoombe courses, and we ended up playing them for free, and they repeated the offer when he was there again this year, so We've already got 4 free rounds lined up for the new year. This also demonstrates the friendly relationship we have with our clients, if we didn't have that relationship we wouldn't be able to be so cheeky.

Our clever thinking is, the more golf clubs we work for the more free golf we get. As the old saying goes, if you don't ask you don't get.

Great idea for you and Billy. Why not target gold courses. There are a ton of them, they all have family style events at some point during the year and they probably have not had your type of entertainment before. It also seems like a wide open market as I doubt anyone has thought of target marketing to them in the past.

Do you or billy plan on doing any type of traditional marketing for this new target market? Or will you use word of mouth for this? Just curious is all on your thoughts.

Kyle