But my “education” about developing audiences started much earlier. My parents had a clothing store and my mother was a master salesperson. When my parents would go to the trade shows to buy apparel for the upcoming season, my mother always carried a list of her customers with her. She knew exactly who she was shopping for. And when they returned from those buying trips, she would go through her list and call all the women on her list to tell them what would be arriving in the store in the next few months. She instinctively knew how to build anticipation. She was the ultimate target marketer!! It is important to say that this was not some fancy boutique; the clientele were mostly hardworking people from the country who came to town on weekends to do their shopping. And many of them would wait patiently until “Mrs. Lerner” was free to wait on them. At a certain point I became a decent substitute, but mostly they still wanted my mom. 

I think I must have unconsciously absorbed those lessons because when I was in grad school,  co-running the Laboratory Theater at UNC-Chapel Hill, I schlepped my ass all over the campus drumming up business for the upcoming week’s offerings. As a result, we often had full houses for performances on Thursday and Friday afternoons. I used similar approaches when, much later, I ran IMAGE Film and Video Center in Atlanta. We did film screenings virtually every weekend and we always analyzed the work we were presenting by asking: Who is the audience for this week’s screening? We had learned that the audience for our social issue documentaries was not the same as the audience for our animation screenings. Plus, I thought about each of the events as a kind of dinner party–who did we want sitting at the table with us that week? Much like my mom, I made a list each week and called people up to personally invite them to that week’s screening. Once again, we were often able to fill our small theater using these personal approaches. I totally trust this way of working because it is intimate–yes, it is a lot of work–but it makes your audience feel appreciated. 

This doesn’t mean we shouldn't use social media or mass mailings; these are great tools. But don’t forget the value of more direct, personal approaches. 

Think about an upcoming event you are planning. What approaches will you use to reach your audiences?