Helping SAK market their wedding events

I perform at SAK Comedy Lab as an improvisor, but many times recently I have had the pleasure of consulting with the Artistic Director about their many marketing efforts. The latest actually happened on August 5th at a busy Panerra Bread during the lunch time rush. I'd sent him an email recommending we talk about their current blogging effort, he replied and we met for an hour. We discussed where their blogging effort could go, some ways to improve it as it stands currently and I answered his questions about techniques for promoting both himself and SAK in the process, both of which are mutually beneficial to SAK.

The reason I mention this is because I have never given consulting a thought before, but here I am, consulting. Why? It's fun, I have a relationship with SAK Comedy Lab and they are a company open to new ideas and ways to improve their current strategies.

My latest talk with them happened today, in an email. The Director Of Marketing sent an email to me sharing the accolades sent to him by a bride who's wedding the Artistic Director and I performed at a few weeks prior. I saw the accolades as a great chance to use them to sell this unique product SAK offers, improv performances at weddings. I wrote a detailed email back to him describing my ideas, and thought, "Why not share my insight with my blog readers? It's not a private email and the advice within can apply to many business both like and unlike SAK." Plus, it shows how I think, how I see opportunity in the very smallest of things.

So, here's the emailed advice I sent to SAK about what they could do with those accolades:

"This is great. What are your plans to publicize this? If I can be obnoxious for a moment and butt in, here are some ideas I had:

1. Someone write a brief synopsis of the day's events, and include the letter at the beginning.
---Don't include their names.

2. Copy/paste this on the following locations:

1. Dave's blog (Dave is the Artisitic Director)
2. SAK.com homepage
3. your weekly mass email (if you guys do this)
4. Myspace: blog and bulletin
5. A mass email to local wedding planners
6. A short email to the Disney Wedding Pavillion people: I read just yesterday that Disney does 20,000 weddings a year in Seth Godin's brand new marketing book "Small is the new Big."

The lesson here is thatwhen you get great feedback on a project, use it to tell the story of the project and sell the project for you. Someone else saying how great their experience was with you is far more compelling than you saying it yourself, obviously.

Also, when you create a standardized message, send it through as many channels as it fits. Email it, blog it, fax it, ship it, call it. Get the word out. But, as I state above, be brief. Peoples' time is valuable. Get to the point and get out.