Daphne wrote:
Promotion: is the message getting to the right people? I know that lots of people are sharing the convention adverts, but possibly lots of Knightmare fans aren't on this website or friends with someone in the Facebook group.
Agreed. However:
1) It's clear from comments on our Facebook posts that we're still continuing to attract members of the Knightmare Facebook page who haven't yet seen previous posts.
2) It's difficult to know exactly where to put adverts. The advert has to be relevant enough that someone in the targeted community is likely to care.
3) We've made numerous posts to Geek and Childrens TV based websites, Facebook pages and Twitter personalities. HuffPost have retweeted us, and Stuart Ashen has advertised on Twitter. I've done a couple of telephone interviews for blogs and we're working hard on pushing a press release.
To my knowledge, there's really not much more we can do. But by all means, if you come across anywhere, do feel free to push the campaign to them.
Daphne wrote:
Any chance you could get an article on the BBC news website or some other high-traffic place I haven't thought of? So many people round Britain are very nostalgic for shows like Knightmare and it might get your message to a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise see it.
We can, and are, trying. However, ultimately, it's not within our control.
To some extent, these things are circular. We're more likely to get advertisements if we're doing well in the campaign.
Hence why it's so important that members of the community make pledges.
Daphne wrote:
Youtube videos? Both making your own and commenting on other popular Knightmare-related ones, to reach a wider audience that way.
The former has been done twice and there's a vague plan for a third. However, there's a limit to how many videos I can make of myself saying "please pledge". Getting the actors involved is asking a big favour of them and hugely time consuming. I'm hoping that the third video will do just that, but it'll take days to get it done, IF the actor concerned is interested.
And as always, there's a limit to how much time we have available.
We can't comment on Knightmare youtube videos. They infringe copyright. Again, feel free to do that if you like and if you think it will help.
Daphne wrote:
Keeping your subscribers involved seems to be an important way to build goodwill: by updating the page with thanks, new perks (so people might think about upgrading), update messages, etc.
We've been doing this.
Coming up with new perks is something I'm particularly happy to do. But it's extremely hard to think of new ones that we can legitimately do.
Daphne wrote:
Perks: Even if you have a target market identified it's difficult to get more than a small percentage to support you. So make it easy for people to give you money! I know people can buy more than one pledge for this campaign, but honestly that isn't competely clear to me from the front page. Can that be made really, really obvious?
Good point. Done.
Daphne wrote:
Also, make it easier for people to give you more money at once by both having the mix-and-match pledges *and* combined options for people in a hurry. Why not have a combined Sat/Sun and deluxe Sat/Sun ticket in the £50-£100 range?
We can't.
We can only sell 350 tickets for each day, because that's the auditorium capacity. If someone buys a "two day ticket" there's no way to subsequently remove one ticket from each of the "Saturday" or "Sunday" allocations.
Daphne wrote:
Also, are there any more rewards you can offer to people who really want to support the convention without buying a ticket?
I desperately want to do this, but nobody has been able to come up with anything.
I think I've come up with a way to ship the t-shirts and programmes. But I'm not sure people would be willing to spend the necessary £3-£4 for P&P.
Something non-physical would be perfect, but I'm at a loss for ideas.
Daphne wrote:
One thing that's very effective is graded perks - persuade people to donate more by having stepped pledges where for £5 more you get the same as the previous perk plus one bonus thing, and so on.
This was done in David Rowe's campaign, and there was endless whinging about how people want one thing in the "package" but not everything. Hence, we went with the "build your own package" approach.
Daphne wrote:
Obviously the unique selling points of the convention are the chance to be in the original Knightmare studios and to meet the fantastic guests you've got on board. Why not make more of your guests? Could you offer some "meet the guest/ask the guest a question/get an autograph or photo from the guest" type perks? Since you're offering that at the convention anyway I think that would be extremely popular and a great way to make up some of your costs in advance.
I can't go into the details, but:
- We can't advance sell photographs.
- "Selling" attention from the actors is problematic. It either means we need to extend the working day for them (which will cost us more money) or it means they'll have less time available to spend with everyone else.
Daphne wrote:
How about "15 minute coffee break with (your favouite guest, if they're on board)", only available to advance supporters?
Well, we basically already have that with the backstage pass.
I might be tempted to reconsider the price of that since nobody has yet purchased one.
Daphne wrote:
Lastly, are there any companies that would sponsor the event? You may already have thought of this, of course! But a few thousand pounds is a lot for one fan but may not seem all that much to a business in return for some advertising in brochures, etc.
We've tried a few, but in the current climate it is EXTREMELY difficult to find any kind of sponsorship.
By all means, feel free to act on our behalf by offering sponsorship opportunities to anyone you think might be interested. Have them get in touch with us with an offer and we can discuss it.