Thread: Smalltown, USA: Effective use of advertising dollars when there is practically no market

Perhaps other dancers in podunk midwestern towns would like to weigh in on some of these questions.

How much do you spend trying to get gigs? Increase class sizes?
Where/how do you advertise?
Is Gigmasters and/or Partypop worth the money when you are not near a major metropolitan area?
At what point are you just throwing money away?
To what degree can you *create* a market? (e.g. pursuade people to hire a belly dancer when they didn't start out wanting to hire a belly dancer).
Do you cold call, beat the sidewalks, or mail promotional materials to businesses that might hire entertainment?

Right now, my group has a website, google ad words targeting a 60 mi radius, all the free listings I can think of, and sporadic local flyer campaigns before class sessions and events.

If someone is looking for a belly dancer or classes in my area, they can pretty much find us very easily.

But we get very few gig leads. We got maybe half a dozen last year, of which 4-5 panned out. I want more. Are there more out there or am I trying to get blood from a turnip?

I live in Mississippi and I'm in the same boat as you are. It's hard to get paid gigs here.

I haven't tried Partypop or gigmasters because I don't have a lot of money right now. I started advertising on Facebook last week. It's pretty cheap because you can set how much you want to spend. I haven't been doing it long enough to see the results yet, but so far I've got one student from it, so actually I've made a little off of it. You can even target your market- targeting women in your area for classes with one ad, or targeting men before holidays so they buy gift certificates for wives or something. You know what I mean.

The best thing I did when I moved to this area was go to every single tanning salon, hair salon, gym, coffee shop, etc. and left business cards. I've only had two places say I couldn't leave them and some even said they appreciated that I asked first instead of just leaving them. I had many students who've picked my cards up and found me that way. I've printed up a few flyers for coffee shops and places like that that have bulletin boards. You might even have luck with other dance studios. I'm friendly with many in my area (because I used to teach there before I had my studio) and since we don't teach the same things, we don't mind putting out each other's cards and reffering business to each other.

Now, as far as gigs, I've put together very nice promotional packets and personally delivered most of them. I mailed many packets to places that hold conventions, banquets, wedding receptions, etc. in case someone wants to book a private party. So far, only one place calls me for private parties, but you never know. I think they'd have me regularly there if it weren't for the economy. I don't have a promo DVD of myself yet, but when I do, I plan on including that in the packet. It also makes you look very professional to have something like that instead of calling or just showing up and giving them your card with a "call me!"

Hope that helps a little :)

I did partypop & it was a waste of my money. In small towns, relationships & word of mouth are about the only things that have worked for me.

Website:
None of your videos are displaying. NOT GOOD.

The CONTACT link on your website is a MAILTO: tag (behind the scenes code) which brings up an OUTLOOK EXPRESS email blank on my machine, which is NOT my email agent. Therefore, I can 'send' you the outlook email but it won't really go anywhere. My past experience with this MAILTO tag is that it is unreliable. Therefore, you are losing customers. Since the mailto: tag contains your email address, it hides nothing from spammers. Put your email addie out there where folks can copy and paste, or use a VERY RELIABLE form program.

PS: Phone number on website is good.

The background color (a pastel blue) does not enhance the background colors on a lot of the pictures. It fights with them instead of inviting the eye to dwell on them. Go white if you cannot coordinate.

Ditto with the purple background on the main page picture.

About Nile Breeze page: I firmly believe that folks don't care much about your history or what great teachers have influenced you or that you've been dancing since you can walk - they want to know what you can do for them.

About Tedi: the first solo portrait should be the most striking, IMO. Is that the best picture of Tedi that you have? The side view of her tummy is not flattering. Please don't bash me about how all women are beautiful. I'm sure she is. It's just not a selling pose.

Book an Event page: all of the above plus please get a wonderful picture in the best spot. Picture first, then narrative. I think some of the words could be edited out. And better control of fonts and spacing would add a lot.

I am by no means a professional web person. The stuff I am suggesting is just basic housekeeping, something to get you to the point where your web site works for you, not against you. IMO.

Good luck, and don't take it personally... been there still doing that :)

Came from a podunk midwestern town near chicago, moved to a podunk northwestern town! I've found that fliers don't really get a lot of customers. All the tabs get taken pretty quick, but no one who comes to classes came because of a flier. Person to person contact seems to work best. Inviting people in person and handing them a business card or informational pamphlet works best. Same for gigs at restaurants.

I haven't used gigmasters or partypop. I didn't even know what these were until I joined Bhuz, so I don't know how many of the average person knows about them either. Use free classifieds services. It's good you have a website and that you're easy to find. We are trying to figure out how to get hired for gigs around here too. I think increasing how many times we perform during the year will increase our exposure and hopefully the market a bit. Try to perform at every festival, charity event you possibly can. That's our angle out here anyway.

I am going to start up a facebook fan page soon. I'm hoping that I can invite all my local friends to the fan group and encourage them to invite their local friends. I've seen other people with other businesses do a good job of getting exposure this way.

I've been trying to carry information with me too. Every time I stop by the fabric store, I get asked what I'm making (a belly dance costume!) and people seem interested. I've only just started doing this, but I think it will help having that person to person interaction... especially in a podunk town!

Thanks for the comments Maurazebra; I'll be doing some of those changes tonight. We have a professional photo shoot coming up soon that will rectify our photo shortcomings.

Having the site revamped with a more professional format is on my to do list as soon as I get the funds.

Originally Posted by maurazebra

Website:
None of your videos are displaying. NOT GOOD.

Hmm... not sure what is going on at your end. I just had my husband check them on his computer and they are displayed (below the photos) and playing properly.

Can you tell me what you are seeing exactly?

Small boxes with 'x' in them. It is being caused by the security settings in my IE 8 browser. I can see the videos in my Google Chrome and Safari browsers- they are coming from YouTube and embedded in your web page. Unfortunately, IE is the most widely used browser and my IE settings are not particularly locked down, by the way. When I copy the URLs for the videos from the page's source code and paste them into the IE, I get the following: A grey box with File Download - Security Warning: Do you want to open or save this file? Name.... Type, Shockwave Flash Object, From YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Probably due to the Flash, since YouTubes are not usually a problem. Since this is happening in the layers below your web page display, the question box doesn't perculate to the top layer and therefore I cannot respond to it. Working straight from the You Tube file, if I hit PLAY button in the gray box then the video starts.

If you google for Flash security risks, you'll see plenty. It's been a high-risk tool for years. A non-Flash format on YouTube would put your videos back in the safe zone.

One final suggestion: put the towns and states you service in the title tag on your home page. It will help the search engines find you.

Originally Posted by maurazebra

If you google for Flash security risks, you'll see plenty. It's been a high-risk tool for years. A non-Flash format on YouTube would put your videos back in the safe zone.

Is this an option and if so how do I access it? I thought everything on youtube operated with flash.

I embedded the videos on my website by copying the embedding code from the youtube vid and pasting it the source code. My dreamweaver skills are very very rudimentary. I had someone make me template pages with editable boxes and I've been getting by with that.

One of my business partners does the uploads of videos to YouTube. I believe she sends them as an wmv file. But YouTube accepts a lot of different formats File formats : Getting Started - YouTube Help as you can find out by googling You Tube video file format or similar. I believe anything you download from YouTube is converted to a flash (flv) file automatically, but it sounds like your choice of Flash was deliberate, not the result of an upload/download/upload.
Anyway, if you think it worthwhile, try converting your flash files to another format and upload to YouTube and link to the new ones.

Originally Posted by Lesedi

Try to perform at every festival, charity event you possibly can. That's our angle out here anyway.

Suggest you be very choosy about these and always negotiate for pay, at very minimum expenses paid plus food and drink at the gig. Some of our best-paying customers are charity events and festivals. If you dance for them free the first time because you didn't know you can negotiate, they'll expect it forever. And a lot of their planning is done by hired event coordinators who probably get to keep any money they didn't pay you. I am reminded of a gala for the Humane Society or similar a few years ago. One local troupe was hired to dance there for free, the other troupe received a couple hundred because they asked.

Originally Posted by Lesedi

I am going to start up a facebook fan page soon. I'm hoping that I can invite all my local friends to the fan group and encourage them to invite their local friends. I've seen other people with other businesses do a good job of getting exposure this way.

We're closing down the fan page and sticking with a friend's page. Far more flexible. Also, beware, you cannot hide your friends list, so if that is the same as your mailing list your competitors now own your mailing list too.

Originally Posted by maurazebra

One of my business partners does the uploads of videos to YouTube. I believe she sends them as an wmv file. But YouTube accepts a lot of different formats File formats : Getting Started - YouTube Help as you can find out by googling You Tube video file format or similar. I believe anything you download from YouTube is converted to a flash (flv) file automatically, but it sounds like your choice of Flash was deliberate, not the result of an upload/download/upload.
Anyway, if you think it worthwhile, try converting your flash files to another format and upload to YouTube and link to the new ones.

I uploaded mp4 files. I've never seen anything on youtube regarding non-flash options, so I'm clueless here...c::

Hi Sedonia,
I would agree with Sonja there, in terms of cultivating relationships and word of mouth in small towns. I worked very hard in a small town where I was living for about 10 years, to get people aware that belly dance was Not stripping. Big time stigma there, and it took a lot of freebie shows (like at the county fair and piggybacking onto the local ballet teachers shows) to get that local awareness up, then some gigs happened. Not many though, as it depends on just how many people you have in the area in the first place. How small is small? In my case it was a town of maybe 800? That included kids and dogs I think. :-D The website is a great idea though, and Ms Zebra is very helpful.

Okay, the YouTubes on your Aethestics pages work fine.
The YouTubes on your YouTube channel work fine, and a couple of them look like the ones you have embedded in your website.
The YouTubes on your gallery page do not display in my IE at work OR at home.
Looking at web site source code: the Gallery code that displays the embedded You Tubes is contained within Javascript tags and includes a javascript attribute. The Aethestics page does not use Javascript.
I did a Google search and read that Dreamweaver inserts these Javascript tags and that they can cause display problems (my IE always asks permission to run Javascript to prevent malicious script from attacking my computer).
I think the code between the noscript tags is what you want. You can start small and remove only the Ac-Ax-RunContent code, including the stuff between parends, and see what happens. But I think you will have to remove everything up to and including the script tags, then remove the noscript tags around the the object tags. Yes, things are nested. Be careful. OR - Try replacing all the script code with code you know works, which is the tags from your Aesthetics page, replacing only the video URLS (begin with http:). You'll need the code that starts and ends with the object tags. OR- regenerate YouTube embedding code and save it somewhere and then overwrite whatever DreamWeaver does with it. OR- if none of the above work, at least insert a direct link to the vidoes (no embedding) so folks can get to them no matter what. Although the big empty spaces with the little white boxes with 'x's in them (my IE view of your gallery) is NOT attractive.

Oh, look, you've been a busy web-site-editing bee overnight!

Originally Posted by ssipes

I uploaded mp4 files. I've never seen anything on youtube regarding non-flash options, so I'm clueless here...c::

Chipping in here. Youtube uses flash, but it is hosted on Youtube's site. Because they host a gazillion videos their server is secure and can handle all that bandwith. When you put a youtube video on your site, essentially you're just hotlinking to it.

When you start to create flash on your site and host it through your Web server...well that's when these issues arise.

[Long]Yah to the word of mouth. I have that same type of small market. The up side is that there is little Bellydancer competition, but less Bellydance community. It takes a huge amount of time & energy IMO to sustain a viable market where I am, it is a constant "hustle". No resting on my laurels. I spend "myself" on advertising, I basically am selling ME ("me" not "MiddleEastern") - my best feature is being a good salesperson . I sometimes do paid ads just so my name appears in local ads, but not much, the expense has little return really. List myself on every free thing I can find time to pursue.
Most of my competition for gigs is from the non-Belly Dance realm, like the Guy With Camera (GWC) at wedding...(see wisdom of SatinWorship..g.:) folks who do things for free for fun.
As we know, you get what you pay for.

A sample of dances on a DVD is a huge asset. Short clips only for approx. 15 min. total. showing wide repetoire of styles & costuming. I give these to people, I don't expect them back.
My experience is that promo materials (flyers, cards, dvds, etc) do not have to be super glossy & high level professional (but if you can that, so much the better), but important to be clear and to the point. I do the best I can with limited resources.
Get all the free help you can. Family, friends, students, pick their brains & use their talents. Reward (barter) with free classes, coaching, something handmade, or just the goodness of their hearts in being helpful.
Hire a helper intern in exchange for classes or coaching.
Getting your services out there in a favorable way to the public eye is the point.
Pretend you have never thought of hiring a Bellydancer for your venue, role play. What would attract YOU on a flyer or statment?

Everywhere I go, I take cards, flyers. I like to think I am pleasant but not pushy. ,r:;I chat with beauty shop folks, fabric stores, schools, etc etc. I make deals with people, barter, offer discounts to first time stuff, etc.
My students who have branched off to perform & teach work just as hard & I am proud of them.
I do a lot of benefit performing, work with schools, institutions. I don't do free auditions for audiences at venues, nor undercut nor undercharge. I tailor shows & private parties to clients' needs. I have different formats & rates that I offer.
Now that I am older, I do less as I have less energy for constant self-promotion. I am constantly thinking up ideas...but don't have the time to put into action is my prob.
I look upon it both as business and spreading goodwill and positive energy.

You guys, I *really* appreciate the info regarding youtube vids, unfortunately, you might as well be speaking ancient sanskrit.

Maurazebra, I don't know what the Aesthetics page is you referred to. I also don't understand the code I copied from youtube that is supposed to embed the vid, I just cut and pasted. And you are saying that dreamweaver may have changed this code? Looks like I will have to get some tech help on this. I'm way over my head.

Andalee, if I've created any flash, it was totally without realizing it!..l;,..l;,

SSS - I really like your FAQ page on your site, very well organized!

Maurazebra, or someone else using IE, can you check this link and see if the first video works for you?

I compared the dreamweaver code to the youtube embed code and can see the extra stuff that was put in. I deleted that in the first video.

Nile Breeze Photo Gallery

Originally Posted by ssipes

Maurazebra, I don't know what the Aesthetics page is you referred to. I also don't understand the code I copied from youtube that is supposed to embed the vid, I just cut and pasted. And you are saying that dreamweaver may have changed this code? Looks like I will have to get some tech help on this. I'm way over my head.

The Belly Dance Aesthetics 101 page on your site :
Nile Breeze Dance Company Youtube Lessons

Yes, from what I read, Dreamweaver adds javascript code when you embed stuff. Can you see your source code in Dreamweaver? All of it? (I use a text editor, I don't know nothing about Dreamweaver). If you can see the source, compare the code used to embed the videos on the two pages. To aid understanding, copy and paste the individual codes into a text editor and look at them. Put each tag on a separate line, if necessary, to help you see what you are looking at. Whoever did the Aesthetics page either figured out /accidentally flipped a switch that turned the auto-generated javascript writer OFF or went back in and removed the script afterwards. IMO.

Ditto what others have said about word of mouth. News, good or bad, travels fast in a small town. It's getting the word out, so it can be spread, that's tough. Always be friendly, be approachable, just basically be nice to folks in general - professional *always*. Because depending on how small the town is, folks may know/see/recognize you outside of your dance capacity.

Keep biz cards on hand to give out. Use free bulletin boards at coffee shops, music stores and bookstores. Ask restaurants if you can leave cards there. Do local and surrounding area festivals. I've used craigslist and facebook ads. It took running the fb ads a few times before it generated students. It did definitely generate traffic to my site, though. And from the IP reports I saw some came back hours after clicking the ad and spent more time checking out my site.

I think in some ways it's more difficult in a small town, because while it's a smaller area it can be so difficult trying to find or create appropriate areas and ways to advertise.

Hey so I agree it's really hard to create demand when it isn't there. You guys have great ideas for local advertising. That said, I wouldn't rule out things like Party Pop - I had a Party Pop listing for a while and I would always ask people when they called for a party how they heard about me, and a lot of people found me on the internet through Party Pop - both when I was dancing in NJ and in MI. Party Pop gets itself to the top of search engine results, and most of us don't have enough traffic or links on our websites to get up there. I do get most of my gigs now through word-of-mouth, but for the first couple of years when I moved to MI because I hadn't accessed the existing channels, Party Pop provided a considerable number of gigs each year - which totally paid back the cost of a listing. One gig paid for the listing for the year, and everything else was gravy! If you get 6 gigs a year from Party Pop, then it's worth it, I think.

Originally Posted by ssipes

Maurazebra, or someone else using IE, can you check this link and see if the first video works for you? I compared the dreamweaver code to the youtube embed code and can see the extra stuff that was put in. I deleted that in the first video.
Nile Breeze Photo Gallery

I cannot view YouTubes at work (which is where I am) but the space for the first video is looking 'normal' in that a blank grey area now displays. The other (untouched) three are white boxes with 'x's. I'll check again when I get home... but your Sanskript Decoder Dance may have worked!

Confirmed using IE first vid (upper right) is there and working, other 3 are x.

THanks Michelle and Maurazebra! I guess mucking around with code when you have no idea what you're doing sometimes pays off!!

I am at home and can see the one upper left video, still 'x's on all other three.
One last suggestion before I return control of your website to you :) You are specifying three fonts for your headings (Papyrus, "Maiandra GD", Mistral) and menus. If the user machine doesn't have these fonts, the browser uses the default serif font. At work, I have Papyrus; at home, I don't have any of them, so I see something that looks like an italicized Times New Roman font in all your headings and menu. I think Microsoft started getting miserly with the free fonts that were installed on the Windows boxes a couple years ago. Be that as it may, you might want to designate a few more fonts just-in-case. Here's a list from 2008 of the most commonly installed fonts. Choose or be chosen for.

PS - a couple of years ago, a fine fellow named Brad Dosland critiqued a flyer of mine (at my request) on Tribe.net. The errors he found in it inspired him to write an entire article on 'the art of the blurb' which applies to everything, including web sites, IMO. Shira liked the article so much she posted it (with Brad's permission) on her website. The Art of the Blurb . I didn't commit EVERY error in the article but I did enough to inspire him. I guess that will be my claim to fame in the web world!

Hi Sedonia, I use Dreamweaver too, and I'm pretty much a beginner at web developing so I totally feel your pain!

I looked at your code and found the part that (I think) needs to be removed:

<script type="text/javascript">
AC_AX_RunContent( 'width','425','height','344','src','http://www.youtube.com/v/3DWqBgY-hcw&hl=en_US&fs=1&','type','application/x-shockwave-flash','allowscriptaccess','always','allowfullscre en','true','movie','http://www.youtube.com/v/3DWqBgY-hcw&hl=en_US&fs=1&' ); //end AC code
</script><noscript>

This code shows up before each of those 3 that aren't showing up, and I don't think you need it. I compared it to my video section, and it isn't anywhere on my page.

Just to test this out (hope you don't mind) I removed that portion and pasted the code on my website

Safiyah Bellydancer | Professional Belly Dance in Cleveland, OH | TEST

And I think it worked. So try finding those code sections and deleting them! OR you can go to View-page source and it'll display all of the code in a notepad file. You can copy and paste directly from my site if that's easier :)

And Dreamweaver is great, but it does add a lot of code that isn't necessary. As I learn more, I clean everything up. It makes it easier to navigate as you edit, and on larger sites can speed up the loading time. Feel free to PM or email me with any questions if this wasn't clear! Oh, and I'll delete your videos from my site in a few days, I promise! :P

I just got a list of new students for one of the beginner classes. Six of them responded to the question about how they heard about us. 3 from a friend, 2 from the internet, and one saw us dance 2 years ago. When we started it was mostly internet. The moral we draw from this -- word of mouth trumps all. So do your best all the time.

I wasn't able to successfully embed youtube clips in my site using dreamweaver. Dreamweaver just kept adding code that stopped the clips from playing.

No matter how carefully I pasted in just the pure 'embed' code from youtube, dreamweaver would add extraneaous crap all around it that stopped it from working! I'd delete the extra code, but as soon as I saved the file, there it was again!

It was MADDENING. In the end, I stopped using Dreamweaver.

Really? I am working off of CS4; I wonder if the version makes a difference. I haven't had any complaints about my video showing up, and I've looked at it myself in IE.