No one sells out tickets better than Live Nation. Raise those pinkies because today we are joined with Malcolm Gray who discusses the best practices for selling out concerts, events, and seminars using Facebook ads.
Malcon Gray
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Brian Meert
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No one sells out tickets better than Live Nation. Raise those pinkies because today we are joined with Malcolm Gray who discusses the best practices for selling out concerts, events, and seminars using Facebook ads.
Malcon Gray
https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmjgray/
https://www.instagram.com/malcolmjgray
https://twitter.com/malcolmjgray?
Brian Meert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmeert
Duke of Digital
https://www.dukeofdigital.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dukeofdigital/
AdvertiseMint
https://www.advertisemint.com
https://business.facebook.com/advertisemint/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/advertisemint/
https://www.instagram.com/advertisemint
If you're selling tickets to an event, no one does it better than live nation. Raise those pinkies because today we're going to walk you through how to sell out an event like a pro.
Speaker 2:Presented by AdvertiseMint The Duke of Digital will guide you through the rapidly changing landscape of digital marketing social media and how to grow your business online. Ro submit a question for the show text 3 2 3 8 2 1 2 0 4 4 or visit dukeofdigital.com. If you need an expert to fix your adds the friendly team at AdvertiseMint is ready to help visit AdvertiseMint. That's mint.com or call 8 4 4 2 3 6 4 6 8 6. to
Speaker 1:grow your business. Here is your host Brian Meert. A ll r ight, I'm really excited today because we have a special guest, u h, one of our neighbors here in Hollywood. U h, we're actually o ne a one building over. U h, but Malcolm g ray, the senior marketing manager at live nation. U h, and I know we've had a couple of fun conversations, u h, over the past couple of years about Facebook ads and, you know, we'll sit down and go to lunch and just, u h, have a great time k ind o f talking through stuff. But I'm glad to have you on the show. U h, I mean, I know that you are, you've worked with live nation for several years. U h, you guys are live nation is pretty much, I, I would think at this point the only t icketing system left. Like you guys sell all the tickets for all the concerts. That's not true.
Speaker 3:We will do too. But yeah, we have a good business.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. Um, I know that you've, you've been a radio host, uh, you're a big fan of the office, you know, welcome to the show. Uh, we're glad to have you here.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me. Sorry I'm sweating on camera, but we'll get through it.
Speaker 1:No, he's all right. Did I miss anything? And you know, tell us a little about yourself. Uh, you know, your, your background at live nation. Oh yeah. Well you left on my modeling
Speaker 3:career, but other than that, I think you pretty much hit all the points. I um, yeah, I'm from Boston. Um, and I started my career as an accountant, um, and hated it. And then, you know, I went to grad school in Samson college and then I got my masters in integrated marketing. And from there I started doing radio, um, worked at WERS 88, nine as one of the program directors, but also on air talent. And that's what I got. Like my, I like kinda built my music journalism chops. So my love for music, um, that I've always had, I was like a kid. Um, I got to actually funnel that into a profession. And then when I graduated I knew I wanted to move to Los Angeles, so I started applying to jobs to kind of see what was out there. There's not a lot of entertainment marketing opportunities in Boston. Um, so yeah, I applying jobs to LA. I applied to live nation online and the rest is history for the most part.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fantastic. All right, so walk us through a couple of things. Best concert you've ever attended?
Speaker 3:Actually, it was, um, a festival performance. I saw Frank ocean at FYF Fest a few years ago and incredible, incredible. Like what made it incredible man? Well, he doesn't do a lot of shows. I don't know what you know about, he's very elusive. He's very like mysterious. He drops albums whenever you want. So he kinda like is anti-industry so when he actually shows up and does a performance, it's like really special. And he did a performance, uh, in LA and like he, yeah, he, one of his songs, he in essence serenaded Brad Pitt on camera. Um, he just has this, I dunno way about him where he just creates this, this hive of super fans and it's, and it's just amazing to OSC in essence. Did you hear about when Drake got booed last week? No. Tyler creator's festival. Well, Drake got booed because the fans, he, Tyler left an open slot on like the festival flyer. So nobody knew who the headliner for the second night was. And people thought I was going to be Frank ocean.[inaudible] it wasn't a, they booed drank instead, which is crazy. But, uh, yeah, that's what happened.
Speaker 1:Oh man. Um, all right. Well, are there, walk us through some of the perks that you get with your job. I, I would think that's probably the biggest question most people would have had is your alive nation. Is this mean you get VIP tickets to any event, uh, anytime you want. Are there musicians walking around your offices
Speaker 3:all the time? No. God, no. Um, you know, I, I, there are a lot of perks for working for a company like that. Um, I do go to a lot more shows, um, throughout the the year. Um, but I think, you know, the best part of it is I get to actually be in music. You know, a lot of people don't get to make money in the music industry and, you know, we have a full time job like supporting this huge business, which is amazing. Um, but yeah, I get to go out more shows. Um, I get to, I think I've always wanted to be in music because I always was drawn to, you know, being a part of an artist story and helping them in whatever part of the journey they're on. Um, so even though we're selling tickets, uh, we're still helping connect artists with fans at a different level. Um, so that just that kind of stuff every day, like it really puts me in a good place and I enjoy just those aspects of the job. Um, but yeah, going to shows being around a lot of likeminded people, I can just have, sometimes we'll spend like 45 minutes just breaking down a new album, uh, when we're just in our cubicles, just like talking to each other. That stuff is always great. Um, and yeah. You know, just, just, just I guess the overall lifestyle of working at a music company.
Speaker 1:I see. Now are there any up and coming musicians that you have seen that you think our listeners should check out?
Speaker 3:Oh, a million of course. Um, what's up and coming?
Speaker 1:I mean like when's the, you're like, these guys are going to go far or they've got something that's different. That is what you hear is a lot of times what's ahead of, you know, mainstream or you know, before it makes it big. Are there any of the ones that are, any artists that you see in that you're like, Oh, there they're on their way. Watch for these guys.
Speaker 3:A lot of people haven't listened to. Uh, lately, this guy Dominic fight, he already has like a big song called three nights that you might have heard his name, like car commercials and stuff like that. Um, but he's somebody that I've been seeing grow over the past like year and a half, and it's like, it's, it feels like it's going to be big. Um, another guy is, um, a rapper, baby Keem who has done some work with like, uh, on a projects with Kendrick. Um, Kendrick Lamar. But uh, yeah, he's on his first headlining tour right now and everything pretty much sold out and it's the energy around it. He really has the kids on his side. Um, another guy that I really like, um, his channel trace, he's from, actually I think he's from Compton. Um, but he kind of makes like house music, um, with rap lyrics over it. It's really interesting. Uh, but he just was in the studio with James Blake. Uh, he just toured with Toro and why? So he's probably gonna have a big 2020 as well. So those are kinda some of the guys that people should check out cause they'll have a really, really big year next year.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. I love being on the inside scoop. I'm going to go add those guys to my Spotify playlist.[inaudible]. All right. So today's topic, what I wanted to dive in, um, and because we've had this conversation a couple of times, which is, you know, promoting big events with Facebook ads and this kingdom come to, you know, business owners that are, you know, people that are musicians or artists or a big event that someone's putting on like a networking event or even an online webinar of someone that's like, I want to put an event on which has a start date and an end date or a specific time. And I want to help sell tickets for it. And I think I wanted to have you on the show because I would meet you, at least in my world, are one of the top people when we talk about the[inaudible] and it's like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tickets that you're like, yeah, done, sold, gone. Next, let's keep going. Um, which is just crazy. So I wanted to run through a couple of questions. Um, you know, let's start, let's go back to how did you get into the event marketing or the social team or the digital team specifically at live nation
Speaker 3:one. Thank you. That was very nice too. Um, yeah, honestly, this is my first job out of grad school. Um, I had internships during grad school, um, where I was just running social media. Um, and my first like I did like a temporary contract right when I first graduated. Um, and I literally was running paid social for organization called karma loop. It was like e-commerce street wear store from uh, the, the early in, uh, mid two thousands. Um, but yeah, I was just running organic social for them and literally within that six month clip when I was working with them, we generate$300,000 worth of revenue just from organic posts. This is before pay pay was already air, but like we're making 300 K like probably would have touched$1 million around holiday time within a year, which is like crazy for organic posts, you know. Um, so I had that background going into, uh, applying for jobs and then RS had the organic social because I understand when I was doing radio how to engage with the city to get them to tune in by. All right, cool. We're, we're tagging artists on Twitter. Um, one more play in their song on the radio so they can hurry up and tune in and catch it, like that kind of stuff. So understanding how to navigate in real time social media during the radio days, I was able to apply all this knowledge to the new challenge that was selling tickets, right? Uh, when I came in, um, I had, uh, like a light background in pay social, but in essence I learned everything on the spot. And you know, that being my first, uh, like real, real pay social job, I was able to kind of as a learned paid social learning specifically for this business. Right. And I'm learning how to navigate Facebook and all the tools that they have, but understanding out of all the shiny new tools that they have, what stuff actually works for us and what will actually help move the needle in terms of ticket sales. Um, so yeah, kind of just going through that, teach myself like going to Starbucks and just working on the weekends, taking like all the Facebook blueprint classes, like just trying to like up my game and kind of understand how these things really work together and you know, understanding internally what kind of access we have to data and all these kinds of things and how we can use that to inform better decision making in terms of targeting and also like, uh, placements.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Now I know we've talked about this before, but how many events at any given one time would you say that you're working on? And I know they come and go and you know, everything's kind of, you know, in waves, but how many events are you working on actively trying to sell out or fill up?
Speaker 3:Uh, so I, you know, I run a paid social for club and theater touring, right? So I think we were doing upwards of 150 tours a year and you look at, uh, maybe like 20 dates, so an average. So like that number throughout the year, whatever that, I can't do that math that quick, but something like that. Right. Um, it's a lot of dates, you know. Um, and it's a lot of, we got to cover a lot of ground. All w we're all across the country also going a little bit in Canada. So, you know, just trying to in essence build systems ahead of time so it's kind of plug and play. And then as you see trends you kind of make adjustments. Um, one of the biggest adjustments we've made is, you know, allocating more, uh, attention to Instagram story and how that's been growing and you know, selling a lot more tickets. Um, it's been interesting because it feels like it's the fastest growing placement on, uh, on social, in essence, especially within the Facebook, uh, ecosystem. So, you know, finding fans where they are and cause always going to be shifting and always being ready for the next thing and where they're going to go and try to be there before they get there and just be ready when they're,
Speaker 1:uh, when they're there. Now when you say shifting with, you know, Instagram stories, would you have like a rule of thumb of, you know, we used to have 10% of our budgets there and now it's, you know, 25 or 50%. Like, is there anything more that you can tell us kind of about how
Speaker 3:much more you're doing with Instagram stories? You know, we're still testing, right? But I think, um, I do, we do shift a little bit and probably like an extra 10% towards that. Right. But also various per artists per Gianna, you know, um, just kinda, we really, the thing with touring is we really have to treat a case by case, right? So it's like, okay, cool. If we have an artist who's fans are, if we're doing like a classic rock cover band or, right. Our fans are probably going to be, I don't know, at least 35 to 54. Right. Where as opposed to we do upcoming rap artists, their fans might be 13 to 35. Right? They're more likely to use story whereas, um, you know, the classic rock cover band or more likely to use Facebook feed or get the information from different places. So it really varies. Um, but yeah, I think shifting more towards story when it makes sense can really make a big impact.
Speaker 1:Nice. Now w what would be some of the common struggles that you're faced with when promoting events on the Facebook ad platform?
Speaker 3:I think, you know, it's technical or just like in general it can be both. I think the biggest part for me is just finding great creative. Um, a lot of times we don't have access to a lot of great creative, um, in terms of, you know, we're, we're actually putting on shows on sale sometimes six months before the show actually plays off. So, you know, we would love to have a lot more options for um, creative. Cause you know, no matter how many campaigns you can run, it has to be frustrated to catch a new, hopefully catch somebody else's eye that maybe saw the old one that didn't react. Like they didn't react to the creative from the last time. So hopefully we can catch it with a video or we do like a really, really great live shot or we do a really, really great press photo or just being able to rotate that kind of stuff and know their system in place to make that better. But you know, I think that's with anything, just having access to unlimited creative would make these, uh, you know, make the event and just advertising online just a lot easier.
Speaker 1:Nice. Nice. I mean I say that so much. How important creative is for Facebook ads, you know, how does it work, you know, at live creative. Do you guys have your own creative team? Do you wait for the artists to give you creative? Do you use any tools to kind of help or is it a mix and match?
Speaker 3:You know, for the most part locked for touring, uh, we get a lot of the creative given to us. Right. Um, so press photos and approved photos and things like that. Um, we have our tour flyers, which are like ad mats is what we call them. Um, so a lot of it comes from that. It comes from the agents and managers and, uh, artists teams, but also that we make some stuff in house and we make some stuff on the fly as well. Um, get everything approved and go up. But, you know, we're running fast and it's music man. Things change so quickly. Um, and sometimes you get a, you get an announcement for a show that's announced in the next day and you just gotta turn it around and turn it on, you know? Yup.
Speaker 1:Are there any strategies in terms of advertising that you would change? Uh, if it's a mainstream artists, someone extremely popular versus someone that just starting out or beginning or, or do you do kind of the same strategies across the board?
Speaker 3:I think it's based on access to data, right? I think I'm a lot of the more mainstream artists, they're targetable right on, on Facebook and Instagram. But, um, a lot of the smaller artists, they're not, right. So you have to get, you have to get a little bit more traders. Right. And that's when you can bring in like, okay, has this artist been featured on a publication recently? Like what is the, what are the publications that really feature this artist? Uh, maybe you could start targeting fans of those publications, right? Um, maybe there's something specifically in lifestyle, then you have to do a little more digging. Like, all right, cool. Has this artist been in, uh, has, who are the other artists that they work with? Um, have they been in any TV or movies? Have they, you know, do they skateboard? Do they do this kind of stuff? So you try and make these lifestyle tie-ins based on how much data you have. Uh, that's targetable on the platform, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Do you, you know, ultimately the end goal and the end result is ticket sales. Yep. Right. That's what, you know, everything's being measured on[inaudible] is that the main objective that you use when running ads? I think for me
Speaker 3:it's, you know, we're trying to be, we're trying to sell obviously as many tickets as possible but also as efficiently as possible. Right? So it's a balance know and just trying to find that balance. But we love sold out shows more of those.
Speaker 1:Any, you know, you've, you've done this, you know, so many times there's so many different venues. Any tips for other businesses or artists that are looking to maybe start their first show or get out there and do this? What would be some of your, you know, uh, want to do tips that you're like, this is what you need to be focusing on with Facebook ads?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think starting small, but finding your audience, right? Like using the tools that you have. Um, you have an email list. If you don't have an email to start one, right? Cause that's stuff, you can input that into Facebook as a custom audience and you can start targeting those people directly that already know who you are and you build lookalikes off of those. Right. Um, and then you kinda start to grow and grow and grow. Um, but it's also like, it's also just you just gotta keep doing it. You know, you gotta keep looking for new fans, but you also have to have new things to offer them. Right? You don't want to keep running ads with the same content that you have, but every time you get a new song, you can run something new. Right. Um, you know, I think it's just being more strategic and using, um, whatever, whatever data you have to hit more of the right people. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1:Um, do you have any, you know, advice for selling tickets last minute? Um, and I, I've been in several situations where, you know, we get a knock on the door or someone calls us and they're like, yeah, we need help. Uh, you know, we've, we've paid everything for the venues. You've got these big areas and they're one thing or another, they haven't hit, you know, the numbers that they're looking for. And so it's kind of crunch time, you know, do you guys use accelerated bidding? Like what do you do during that time? And I would say that generally, maybe the last 48 hours or 72 hours kind of before a show when you, Hey, there's extra, you know, uh, you know, tickets available that we want to get sold. Yeah. Uh, you know, for, it's really interesting because we always just want to sell as many tickets as fast as possible. Right? But I, I do think, um, that's based on
Speaker 3:the stuff you've tested before, right? So in essence, if you announced the show and you'd try a Facebook feed, you try Instagram feed, you try Instagram story to check out those placements or whatever works for you. Hopefully the whole point is you try each of those and then see based on how people are reacting to those ads, that's where you, when you really need to do the push, that's the placement that you focus on, right? So if you, if you put out all three placements and then, you know, Instagram stories sold the most tickets, people are, are more engaged there. If you really need to sell it out, that's where you put your bulk of your money. Right. I just feel like that's what's worked for us in the past too. Just knowing what works, where this audience is, how they engage and then be able to boom, uh, or maybe it is, you know, you'll sell more tickets through Facebook feed using the event, but for awareness and hopefully you can inspire some walk-up through Instagram story. You put some money there as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The only, it's crazy. I've seen that mistake made a lot, which is people, there's so many tools and options within the Facebook ad platform that they're always like, well we need to go everywhere, do everything. And a lot of times they overlook what is working best for them. It's right in front of them. And I'm like, you have a golden egg right there. Yeah. How about we, you know, go double down or 10 X on that one right there. And they're like, but what about that? And it's always, but there's other options. Those ones might do well and I'm like, but you have one that is doing well. You got to know like If you had to take a guess. Um, because this is something that, you know, I've had conversations with other business owners and they generally at times they can approach Facebook cause they hear it so great that they're like, I want to put up an ad and I want someone to do something right now. Like one ad one, you know, one shot, one kill. I like sweet. We've got it. What in your opinion would be, how many times do you think people are seeing an ad for a, an artist or a concert before they actually make the decision to, to buy tickets? I think the industry thing was like three times. Okay. Right. Um, cause you know, obviously, um, I just touched social, right? We're not talking about people getting into our emails. We're not talking about people. I'm getting hit with emails and like organic stuff. We're not talking about all the ways we're not talking about
Speaker 3:display. Um, so it's like I think most people know when they want to buy a ticket, but it varies per genre. Right? Cause it's a pop artist that is probably going to sell out. Um, you know, they might only need to see it one time and then they'll take a screenshot of it, right. And they'll have their presale password and the screenshot, they'll share it with their friends, but, um, we don't get that conversion correctly. Right. So, you know, it's just trying to figure out, um, the best way to hit everyone, but also working, you know, between the marketing department too. All right, cool sequencing. It's like, all right, cool. We'll set up social this day. You hit them with email this day, boom, boom, boom. One of us will get it. As long as we're selling tickets, it doesn't really matter as long as we're doing it efficiently and, you know, the shows are sold out and we can move on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So like, let's go back in time. 10 years ago, live nation had a marketing department and they had a job of, you know, selling tickets. Um, today, how has Facebook advertising impacted that mix? Is it, is it something that's growing? Is it, you know, huge. And that's know one of the main areas that they rely on? Is it just one of the pieces of many things that, that go to reach, you know, the, the fans and get them to buy tickets?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think for like, I can only speak for me, I know NEC has their, um, their things as well, but I, I it's huge. I think Facebook is a huge part of, um, I think just anything entertainment now, right? They just did, we just, Facebook just has the data, has the people that has the eyeballs, right. And obviously Facebook including Instagram, like it's just where everyone is and music is so tied to Instagram, right. They're just these things that are just going to be tied together. Like artists can build relevance just off Instagram alone. Right. And it's such a powerful platform for the music industry. So I think it's always going to be a part of it. And music fans are always going to be on Instagram following their favorite artists. So just, it just suits us to be there as well to tell them, Oh, they're coming to town. You love them so much. Yeah. Come see him, you know. Um, but I think Facebook is a huge part of our, our strategy, but also like it should be part of everybody's strategy around music. Right
Speaker 1:now, since you started at live nation, what would you say have been some of the biggest changes with the Facebook ad platform that have helped you be able to increase results and performance? You know, are there any tools that you're like, man, this is so much better than what it was five years ago, or specific things that you do within the ad platform that have helped you kind of achieve that final goal?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the, uh, I think the, the, the advancement in audience targeting has been great. Um, obviously them building out Instagram ads would, is great and be able to run stuff on story has really, really helped us a lot. And, you know, they, they understand what they're doing. Uh, um, but, you know, I do think, um, how they've been able to allow the ease of being to allow custom audience is into, to be able to target with your own data, um, has been great. Obviously besides the Cambridge stuff. Um, that take some stuff away, which I wish would come back. Um, but I think just how complex their targeting system is and being able to hit more the right people has been like amazing for our business.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It, you know, it still surprises me now because I've been working with Facebook ads for, you know, six years, six plus years now. And you know, I'll be talking with someone like at a dinner or a business networking event or something and they'll be like, well, we want to know the inner workings, like, how does this work or that work? And it all starts to walk them through it. It amazes me now that even still today, people's eyes get big and they're like, wait, what? You can do that? Like, wait, you have that ability? Like how else would you do that anywhere else? I'm like, you can't, like, these are some of the tools that are coming out, which are just so much more powerful than anything else in advertising. Yeah. Um, all right, well we've got a, we had a couple of fans text in a couple of listeners, uh, and they with some questions and I wanted to run through these. So the first one is from Roger and he asked, do you find more success when targeting highly specific audiences, which would be like detailed targeting or within a 1% lookalike or broader audiences, like a 10% look alike or even, you know, no, no targeting and let Facebook's algorithm kind of find the right users.
Speaker 3:You know, it's interesting, right? Uh, for what's up Roger, um, for, we're, we're trying to sell tickets, right? So if it's a campaign where a tour is going on sale, um, we try to keep the targeting pretty tight, right? Um, because there's so many nuances within music, you have to hit people that are interested in this artist at least first. Right? Um, so I do a lot of specific targeting for a show announced and on sale. Um, and then, you know, it depends on what we're doing. If we're doing like a promo sale, if we're doing like all right, 30% like if we're doing something for Christmas, all right, 25% off tickets for these specific shows, right. Then you can get a little more broad because the interests and the specific show, they're so, they're so diverse that I'll just let Facebook find the people base and optimize towards him so he can sell more tickets that way. Right. Um, but if doing like a specific artist, like I'm not going to target, I'm not going to go as wide because you know, it might take a while for Facebook to optimize sorts of people we're looking for in a budget might be done. So I'm for like larger or larger scale promo stuff, we'll probably do a little broader, but for specific artists we'll go a little tighter with.
Speaker 1:I liked that. And when you, when you do go tart tighter with the targeting, I mean that comes back to the creative issue, which is you've got to have more creative because you're reaching that audience generally much faster.
Speaker 3:Right. And you, you got to think about it too, right? If I go up with a picture of[inaudible] for example, and I'm doing a little broad targeting, there might not be people who that, that, that whatever the creative is might not resonate because people don't know he is per se. But if you're going tight, I was like, Hey, when I'm talking to[inaudible] fans and affinity artists that will Neff Duffy know who this person is, then it's like, okay, cool. Then you in the consumer's mind it's like, Oh, I know Fetty WAP. Do I want to see him? Yes or no? Then that can make a decision where as somebody who has no idea who it is, we'll just keep scrolling and then we waste that impression.
Speaker 1:Oh, exactly. That's wonderful. What would you say is a breakdown between image ads and video ads that you might do?
Speaker 3:I mean, I'd love to run 100% video, right. But you know, we don't get it all the time, so, uh, it's usually around 50 50, but yes, we push everyone that we work with to just give us video cause we know it's gonna perform best.
Speaker 1:That's that. It's such a, like, I think that's a great thing to be able to, to hear for other people because you know, when we, you know, we've talked with you, obviously videos generally work best, they generally perform best. Um, but a lot of times you don't have access to unlimited creatives and people who've got budgets or you know, limited teams. And so I think it's nice to even hear it, you know, at live nation that they're like, no, yeah, we get video when we can, but we've got to move quick and images can work in the meantime or, and be able to run.
Speaker 3:I think, you know, video would be number one, a really, uh, great, um, very clear photo of the artist, whether it's live or press also works as well. Okay. Those would be my top two. Nice, nice. Do you do a lot of[inaudible]
Speaker 1:a text over the images or is it generally just focused on the artist and then use the ad copy above and below?
Speaker 3:It varies, but I mean there's varies on a placement. Right? Um, Instagram, I would just love to use video, but sometimes we just use the tour flyer. Right. Instagram story at least. Um, Instagram feed probably would just love video. Um, maybe some texts at certain points obviously, but we'll just put all the info in the caption and Facebook events. Uh, we'd love to, we'd probably just do press photo or video without texts on it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, next question. This is from Christian. What type of schedule do you use for running ads for your events? How far out do you start presale or early bird ads? Do you run any post experience ads regarding the, you know, the experience of the concert or talk to them about merge or fan clubs? Messenger bots?
Speaker 3:Oh yes. So we usually run around, um, announced pre-sale on sale kind of. That's usually, it will show. It announces, you'll usually see an ad for it, um, throughout that entire on sale period. And how far back would you start that from the actual show date? It varies, right? Cause you know, we're working with people that confirm shows that are either in eight months or eight days. Sometimes, you know, so all that stuff kind of varies. Um, I feel like there's, I dunno some, I feel like the average is probably like two to three months. Um, usually. Um, but yeah, I think, uh, that stuff varies. We, and based on, you know, how many tickets are sold within certain periods, we'll throw on more advertising just kind of for everything else. Um, and if the stick is still out there, some shows, uh, will sell very, very, very early and some show so very, very late. So just understanding the audience, the genre, uh, and the market is Whoa. And then you kinda can play sure. Your, your Ash strategy on that.
Speaker 1:Nice. Um, let's do this. Any, any final words as we kind of come to a close here of, of wisdom regarding Facebook ads for, for other business owners or you know, people in, um, the event industry where they're, they're trying to sell tickets. Any advice for them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say try everything, you know, but be able to try everything and then analyze the data and then you kind of like learn from there. But start with using whatever data you actually have. So if you have email lists or your friend has an email list with likeminded consumers, add that, put that into your targeting and start building that. You know, I think you can start from literally like 300 people and then kind of just work from there and see what works for you. Um, use video as much as you can, but I know it's expensive, so just having a really appealing asset and creative will help, um, take you a little bit further. Um, but also understanding where your, where your audience is gonna engage and convert and that you just keep hitting them there.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fantastic advice or actually really is good advice for people that run it ads. Okay. Last question, and I know this is one that a lot of people will probably want to hear the answer to, which is, you know, what advice would you have for people that want to get into the music industry? Uh, sometimes I know that can be extremely tough or feels like there's these incredible, you know, walls they can't get through or, you know, what would you, what would you say to that
Speaker 3:man? I would say, um, if you're in school, try to find internship if you are not in school, um, start something on your own. Right? I think it's just a lot of ways you can take it. Um, whether it's starting an event, whether it's trying to write for a publication, um, whether it's trying to manage an artist, whether it's trying to do anything, find out where those people are and go to those spaces, right? So if you find about an album release party or a listening party or if you are going to the launch of something, whatever it is, music related, whatever company you want to be a part of, anything that they sponsor, anything that, um, they have going on, just show up and go and try to meet people there. I think that's the first step is committing to entering the lifestyle in the industry and in kind of figuring out what you want to do within that industry and just go in there and try to make it happen. It sounds very simple and it sounds ridiculous, but it's really, that's really the truth of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I w you know, it's crazy because how many tools are now available for musicians or people that want to get into the music industry that weren't available a long time ago. Um, and I would, you know, my 100% be like roll up your sleeves and start doing what it is you want to do and it doesn't, you don't have to do things perfectly, but find someone, if you want to be a promoter, find someone, be like, I want to promote you and start doing the work however you can. What happens is as you're doing that, someone else see you and be like, Hey,
Speaker 3:you do this. Can you do it for my next event? Um, and it's also like, use your network. Fine. All right. If you find 10 music companies you'd like to work for, talk to your friends and be like, Hey, do you guys know what you want and you at this, at this place or at this place, at this place. Mostly like most likely you'll know somebody at least you know is connected to somebody at one of these companies that you can set up a coffee with that you can set up. And also don't be afraid to like cold email people cause you never know. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I'm just literally reach out and, and you know, commit yourself to getting into the industry and after a while it will happen. Nice. Ah, wonderful, wonderful advice. Um, well thank you guys so much for joining us, Malcolm. Thank you for being here today, a fantastic podcast and we'll catch you guys on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Duke of digital podcast with Brian Mitt. Want to network with other business owners. Join our exclusive group at facebook.com/groups/duke of digital fancy the Duke. Leave a five star review on your favorite podcast app. And you can be mentioned on the show. The Duke of digital was produced by advertisement and recorded in Hollywood, California. All rights reserved.