Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 18:32:15 -0400
From: Kevin Pittman <kevin.pittman-AT-oit.gatech.edu>
To: puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
Cc: 
Subject: [Puptcrit] Q: Where to advertise puppetry services?


A question to all the professional puppeteers out there on this list:

After six months in business as a part-time professional puppeteer, I've 
decided that I've got to sink some money into good advertising if I'm 
going to get anywhere.  My problem is that families are my target audience 
but I don't have children and I don't have relatives or close friends
with children, so I'm not familiar with the sorts of places where people
with children would look to find out about entertainers.  

I'm going to try to get in touch with some friends of friends who have 
children and survey them for ideas, and I also have the "Real Yellow Pages" 
on my to-do list.  I already pass out colorful flyers and business 
cards every time I do a promotional performance and, of course, I have 
a nice (IMHO) website that is clearly referenced on every flyer and 
document I distribute.  [www.forestpuppets.com, if anyone's interested]

Can anyone offer some other suggestions, especially ones that have 
actually been used with good success?

Along those lines, I was recently given the suggestion of signing up with
a local company that matches local entertainers with local clients needing 
entertainment services.  I had not ever considered signing up with one of 
these services, and before I contact this particular one I'd like to get 
some general feedback from other professional puppeters if I could:

* Has anyone on this list signed up with services like this? 
* If so, do they seem to be genuinely beneficial or more trouble than they 
   are worth?  
* What would be a generally reasonable fee range for using one of these 
   services (i.e., I'd like to have a sense of how much is too much for 
   one of these services to be asking)?
* Is it typical for these services to contractually forbid you from directly 
   doing future business with any client that they find for you?

Thanks,
Kevin

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Pittman                              
Pawpeteer - n. A person who creates and/or performs with animal
            character puppets, esp. anthropomorphic characters. 
http://moonshade.oit.gatech.edu/puppets
klp-AT-moonshade.oit.gatech.edu

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