Lewis Street Playhouse-External Marketing-

Kyle Daugherty

Eric Thomas

Charlie Pedersen

Introduction

• Wanted to take a Research, Planning, Action, and Evaluation method

• Current strategy focus

• Culver-Stockton College students

• Our main goal

Research

• Purpose of phase is to take what we know and research if there is a better way to accomplish our goals

• We need to meet with management to find out if our goals for the project are in line with theirs

• We need to meet with our consumers to find out what they want

Management Meeting

• We met with Erin Wessely, Brent Hickenbottom, and Dr. Dell Ann Janney to find out what our focus should be

• Find three main goals:

-Permanent identifiable placement

-Focusing on Culver market

-What do students want?

Research

• Diverse Focus Groups

-Find participants that represent as many students as possible

-Needed variety of opinions and ideas

-Needed to find best way to communicate with student body

Focus Group Findings

• Short-term:

-Keep “College Night” on Thursday

-Keep fliers simple

-Focus on E-mail

-Develop new header

Focus Group Findings

• Long term:

-Develop movie schedule for Megaphone

-Develop movie schedule for dorm room door knob hangers

-Develop rewards program for theatre

Focus Group Findings

• Mediums

-Fliers

-E-Mails

-Newspaper

-Radio

-Light Box

-Press Releases

Focus Group Findings

• Final Evaluation:

-Students need the direct connection or they will not be interested

-Students believed the simpler ads that require the least amount of time to see and know what they were saying was ultimately the best way to go

Planning

• The purpose of this phase is to take what we learned from management and students and apply it to better marketing the Lewis Street Playhouse

• We need to apply findings to as many mediums as possible

• We also need to make findings as detailed so that our action phase is easily carried out

Fliers

• Fliers needed to be changed– Simpler– New heading– Better disbursement to students – Still wanted to catch the students eye, yet

with less clutter

Press Releases

• Press releases keep the students in the know with what’s happening– More information for students who want to

know more information– A little more planning needed, but still a

good source for information

E-mail

• E-mail– Ultimate source of information

• Free!!!• Can reach the highest number of students• Once initial template is composed, easy to recreate and

send– Heading– Movie poster– Time and Date– Pricing– Website

Bulletin Board

• Bulletin board is virtually unnoticed by student body– Poorly located– Students are not there to read about

current events on or around campus– To be noticed by students, a facsimile light

box could be created and placed in a more standard location

Current Bulletin Board

Culver Media

• Megaphone– $5.00 per column inch– Very flexible pricing

• C-SCtv– Free– Maintained by Residence Life – Updated frequently

• KCSW-LP FM– Only radio station in Canton– Fairly competitive pricing

Action

• The third phase of our approach- Execution upon the research and the

planning- This requires the greatest amount of

creative ability and manpower

• This tends to be the most visible phase of the R,P,A,E method

Advertisements

• Streamline the ads• Reduce noise• Use the most

important information

• Make it easy to use for future staff

Weekly E-mail

• Continue to send out the E-mail to the student body– Send out one

specifically for “College Night”

– Send out a second one with the rest of the showings

E-mail

• The current header is a good artistic piece

• It becomes too busy for the casual e-mail reader

• This new header is simplified and gives more information

Light Box

Light Box

• This would help to create a definitive advertising element for the theatre

• It would continue to demonstrate the relationship between the Playhouse and Culver-Stockton College

• This does not have to be an all-weather system, just one that emulates the effect

Megaphone

• The Megaphone is a highly accessible form of media at Culver

• Since it is a student publication, this would give the Playhouse great flexibility and creativity in ads

KCSW

• Radio remains a low-cost alternative to other media outlets at the college

• It offers flexibility and reach that print ads are unable to provide

Evaluation

• This is the process that reviews the work that has been executed

• Evaluations direct changes that should be made to make the product better

• With our simplification processes in place, this will make changes easier to accomplish with future professionals

Conclusion

• Lewis Street Playhouse is a viable asset to the Canton and Culver-Stockton Communities

• The current marketing direction is good, but Culver is a market that has to be handled differently

• We believe that these processes of simplification will be an effective tool in marketing to the College