Unless you follow me on Facebook, you wouldn’t have even known that I was gone.

But two weeks ago I was in San Diego, with 6,000 (!) other marketers at one of the biggest internet marketing conferences in the country world.

And I’d bet two tickets to Hamilton that I was the only guy there who marketed the theater.  Which is exactly why I went.  And oh the things I learned!

But don’t worry, like Prometheus stealing fire from Olympus, I took all sorts of tips and tricks from the Digital Marketing Gods and brought them back for you (just like I did on this post).

You ready for a few marketing truth bombs?

Here are 5 Takeaways for you:

1. Conversation is the new lead.

Many of the speakers talked about how important it was to start a conversation with your potential customer before asking them to make a purchase. Chat Bots, Facebook Messenger, and the good old telephone were just a few of the strategies we discussed to start conversations and thus increase conversions. But no matter what tool you use, it’s clear that today’s consumer wants a “Hello, how are you,” before they get a, “Do you want to buy this?” And if your marketing doesn’t offer them a chance to talk to you, then you’re losing out.  (This is one of the reasons we have “Live Chat” on our Once On This Island site.  Go check it out!)

2. Not everyone with a credit card is your potential customer.

We all like to think that our “products” (e.g. shows, in our case) are for everyone.  But they’re not.  And we’ll often take money from anyone that wants to pay our ticket price. But we shouldn’t. Getting the WRONG people in to see your show will only generate bad word of mouth.  Target the people that are predisposed to like your show, and forget the rest. Your peer reviews (which, bonus tip, are more important to millennials than any other generation) will be better, and so will your bottom line.

3. Marketers need to hang out with more real people.

When I’m at a Broadway ad meeting, and a debate breaks out about something as simple as the size of a logo on a Post-It pad, I often wonder, “When was the last time anyone at this table actually purchased a theater ticket?” At the conference, we were challenged to not only put ourselves in the minds of our consumers but to find a way to spend more time with them.  Why?  Because let’s face it, I have no idea what it’s like to be a family of four from New Jersey looking to see a show in January.  So I should find out . . . by starting one of those aforementioned conversations!

(TIP:  One of the best ways to find out what challenges your audiences face is to . . . ready for it . . . ask them!  An email or social media post that says, “Hey, what keeps you up at night?” or “What would make you go to the theater more?” It might be enough!

4. Perfect is the enemy of speed.

One of the greatest advantages digital products have over traditional products is that they can be launched, and then, if there is a problem, the “producer” can fix it on the fly.  The conference speakers all preferred us, entrepreneurs, to “ship,” when the product is ready, not when it’s perfect. Writers should do this too.  Get your work out there.  Fix it as you go.  If you’re a playwright, and you haven’t had a play produced, get help and get it on a stage somehow.  And don’t try to be perfect, because it’ll be another twenty years before you’re ready to do something with your script.  And PS, it still won’t be perfect!

5. Customers only post things on Social Media when it elevates their status.

Take a moment, and think about this one . . . true right?  No one is taking photos of themselves, sitting in a middle seat in the back row of a Spirit Airlines flight.  But get an upgrade? Flash!  Instagrammed! You only post photos and videos of yourself that you believe will make you look good to your friends, family, and followers. So, if we want more Instagrams and Tweets and Facebook Videos, then we need to give our customers social media photo ops that do just that.

What photo ops can you give your fans to make them look like superstars?

Those were just five of the takeaways my team and I ran away with.  Truth is, we had about twenty pages of ’em.  If you want to see the rest, well just watch the marketing of one of my shows.  So much of what I learn is embedded in my projects.  Truth is, I don’t come up with a lot of my initiatives on my own.  I steal them. 🙂

But that’s ok . . . and it brings me to the biggest takeaway that I learned at one of the very first conferences I ever attended . . . and it’s this:

Every business, no matter what the industry, is the same.  “But my business is different,” is a BS excuse from someone who isn’t doing their marketing work.

Applying the classic principles of sales and marketing works for all businesses, including Broadway.