Marketing Theater: Learn From StageMagazineOnline.com

Writing for ONLINE reading is different from writing for newspapers or magazines: throw out all the rules you learned in elementary school for print media and be sure to use this checklist each time you write online.

Forget what your English teacher taught you (and all the times she nagged you), forget what you learned about headline length (my PR consultant used to tell me "as few words as possible" and if two lines, the line had to be nearly equal), disregard the rules about writing reports or papers: this is the Internet and you need to write in a conversational tone knowing that both PEOPLE and SEARCH ENGINES will be reading what you wrote! And usually, for PEOPLE to read it, they have to go through the Search Engines first!

1. In your article (and here's where most people fall down) use emotion to "sell" and don't just list the facts. We theater people live our lives with passion, emotion, telling stories of love, but when we write about what we're presenting, we get timid, tell the facts, and HOPE people connect with us (which, in their dull, boring lives, most people won't). We often get so dry a desert would seem like a well-drenched oasis.

If all you had to do was tell people you are presenting a show, all of your seats would be FULL... which they aren't! You must show people why, with ALL the ways they have to use their time, your show is the BEST thing they can do. REMEMBER... it's EASY to stay home and do nothing - it takes EFFORT to go out to see your show, and you must show people WHY they should expend that effort (and those dollars).

2. When writing for ONLINE, be SURE to use the Title Line for your headline. The job of the Title is to get people to read the article AND to attract search engines to index what you wrote. And don't worry about making it short, the way a newspaper tells you. Google and other search engines use this information FIRST when spidering a site, and to THEM it's the most important. So ALWAYS be sure to list the full theater name (for those who might search for the theater by its name), the full show name (for those searching that way), the author's name, and something about the show. "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel at the Walnut Street Theater Explodes Onto The Stage With Powerful Music, Dance, Costumes, and First Class Performances." Now THAT's an online title that regular folks can read too!

OK... so your local newspaper wouldn't print that and they will want to be more subdued, but YOU don't have to be when writing on here! It's YOUR time to tell YOUR story... and you may only get ONE chance. Let the paper shorten it, but leave it fully descriptive for online.

3. Keep your paragraphs short. FORGET what Mrs. McGillicutty told you in 7th grade English: you do NOT have to keep everything together in one paragraph. See how long paragraph #2 is above!

Write like you speak. See?

Short, punchy sentences work. Short paragraphs work too. REMEMBER: people are reading on their monitors, and it's ALWAYS harder to read on the screen than on a piece of paper! And if all they see is a sea of black, they won't even begin.

4. WRITE with EMOTION and then go back and EDIT for KEYWORDS. Think about the type search terms people might use when using Google. Romantic comedy... love story... beautiful story telling... Philadelphia area theater... theater for families... things like that. Some people even forget their town name, to say it's THEATER, etc. And repeat what you said in the title line as the first few lines of your article: people read the article, search engines read the title line.

5. Include photographs when you can. Online Reading is so visual and you need to stop people long enough to read your title and then your article... a good photograph can help. And forget trying to squeeze the whole cast into it... use 3-4 persons max. And don't worry it's not exactly as the actors appear on the set - the photograph is to attract people to your aricle - make it interesting!

6. Audio Interviews ALWAYS help. People don't have to WORK, all they have to do is LISTEN. And we all get lazy. And even if the mp3 or flash file says basically the same thing as your article, use it anyway. Here are two examples on our site that show you this: http://stagemagazineonline.com/articles/archives/63/trackback

7. Oh, one last thing about writing for online: ALWAYS put your contact information into the article in a way that people can just CLICK on it to contact you. See how this line cannot be clicked?

You really MUST do everything you can to MAKE THINGS EASY for the people you're writing to. Put your web address as a clickable link. Put a way to send you an email as a clickable link. And if you don't know how, ASK: we're here to help you Sell Those Empty Seats!

Charlie Seymour Jr