Building a Mailing List

It's been a little while since I've updated this blog. I've been very self-involved, working on my own actor and dancer stuff.

I knew that emails and Evites weren't sufficient promotion for our events. I knew that industry postcards were a step in the right direction, but we still weren't getting the attendance we wanted. It is to that end that I set out to collect mailing addresses from all the people I did plays with over the past year. I don't recall whether or not I hit up the filmmakers and cast from short films for their addys. I figure I can build my own mailing list and postcard them so they have a physical reminder of our events instead of a notice that hovers around in cyberspace.

Here's what's funny about this project: different people have different lags in their communication. I asked for mailing addresses nearly one month ago. I got a chunk the first week and they tapered off after that. I did get another one three days ago, even though I sent out the notice a month ago. I'm sure I'll receive addresses here and there for a while. If some of these people are so busy that it takes them a month to get back to my email about a mailing addy, how long did it take them to get around to reading my show emails?

I'm not all finger-pointy here. I'm also a guilty dog. I read an email from a Las Vegas friend a little over a week ago. She said she was coming to town for some number of days and wanted to get together with friends in the area. I didn't write anything down from the email so I still haven't contacted her and I have no idea when she's leaving. That information is still in cyberspace.

I've been told by my dance teachers that I'm doing two performances in December. I'm performing belly dance with the rest of my class at a restaurant in Hollywood at the beginning of that month, and I'm pole dancing with my other classmates later in the month in West Hollywood. My plan is to shoot special postcard pics for the pole event (since I'm a better pole dancer than belly dancer) and send out a couple mailings of those before that event. I'll probably tack a blurb on the front or back of the postcard that I'm belly dancing elsewhere at another time. I'll still use the emails and Evites, but we'll see how this affects the attendance. Then I can apply it to Sonny marketing when we get there.