More Thoughts on Outreach

03/13/2013

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When I spoke with Dennis Gagaoin (a.k.a. DJ Gaga) of Spokane, WA in late 2011, he mentioned the idea that techno contra might be a decent vector for outreach from the contra community:
"I believe it can even help people who aren't comfortable dancing since it provides a structure. All you have to do is know how to follow instructions!"
Dennis himself came to the contra scene through the "Deca-dance" gig he called in 2011 which was organized by Terra Price and called by Ray Polhemus.

Terra and her fellow organizers did such an effective job of marketing the event to newcomers that, as Terra mentioned,
"I actually had to do lessons on three separate times [in addition to the planned lesson before the dance] because we had so many new dancers."
How might others replicate this success?  Marketing is mostly making sure that you've answered five questions:
  1. Who is it, exactly, that are you trying to reach? The more specific you can be, the better. "The general public" is really hard to reach and a large percentage of them will ignore you anyway. "People in X age range who hang out in clubs but don't like it/people in X age range who like to dance/people in X age range who like music but not the club scene" are more manageable.
  2. What does your target audience need to know? This can be your event information.
  3. When might they be receptive to your message? When they're checking Facebook for the billionth time, when they're waiting for a bus, when they're in line at the grocery store, when they're at the campus bar with their friends....
  4. Where do they get their info? Where do they hang out?  This is actually the second-hardest part, I find. People get information many ways, from word-of-mouth to posters to listservs.
  5. Why should they care? What can you do for them? The more concrete you can be, the better. Unfortunately, "because it's awesome" doesn't really cut it with people who aren't already in the contra scene. (And besides, you probably had them at "there's going to be a contra dance.")
  6. How can you put your message into that venue? This can be the hardest part. If you want to attract, for instance, people 18-26 who who are uncomfortable in your average 21st century dance club setting, the ideal might be to go to the club and advertise there...but that might be impolitic. ("Hey you, you're miserable here, come to this other thing instead!" tends to be, at best, tacky. However, if you have your event at the same venue, or are using the same DJ, these could very much be avenues to the targeted audience. "If you like my DJing, come to something different next week!" works just fine.) However, the folks that are turned off by the club scene might be on your local college campus, or at the local coffee shop, or at the library, or....
Other ideas or suggestions? Think I'm crazy for even suggesting that a techno contra might appeal to folks outside the established contra scene? Let me know in the comments....
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Techno Contra and Marketing

02/27/2012

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_In a marketing class I once took, the professor talked about a "Marketing Mantra:"
  • _Marketing comes first.
  • Marketing drives the product.
  • Marketing drives the process.
  • Marketing is king.
_We've talked a lot on this blog about marketing crossover contra events to contra dancers, and some of the challenges that come with that. In fact, sometimes to get funding, crossover contra organizers have to frame it as an outreach project. This is all well and good (and generally seems to work), but what is the crossover contra community doing to actually make this an outreach opportunity to welcome more people into the fold?
_Terra Price talked some about how they did just that for last fall's Deca-dance event in Spokane, Washington, and it was apparently effective. On the other hand, I mentioned that to a would-be techno contra organizer while I was in Tennessee and she replied, "You mean advertise it to the gen pop [the general population]?!" while looking at me like I'd just sprouted an extra head and possibly a prehensile tail.

Contra dancers are a niche, and techno contra enthusiasts are a subset of that niche. There have been some really interesting stories coming from people who were DJs first and came into the contra scene second. And I -- as well as other dancers -- have successfully "converted" folks who originally thought contra sounded "too dorky" for them, once I actually dragged blackmailed brought them out with me. Word of mouth seems to be working reasonably well, but how else does one go find folks who aren't already "contra converts?"


_One of the main tenets of modern marketing is to go to your target and bring them to you, rather than just waiting for them to stumble upon you. To do that, you convince the target that you offer a product that is either original, or is better than the one that already exists. Right now, the movement is focused on marketing itself as an alternative to contra. I think we need to go the other way, too, and present techno contra as an alternative to the club  -- that is, somewhere to dance in a different way to the same music, rather than somewhere to dance the same way to different music, as you advertise it to contra dancers. Perhaps the folks in Miami and Saratoga Springs had the right idea, setting their events in taverns and (smokeless, at least in Florida) bars. Relocating the Contra Sonic series to Artisphere (a local arts facility) from Glen Echo Park did attract some new dancers. Having dances in churches and colleges and granges has attracted many people; could there be an untapped (and possibly underappreciated) market in taverns and clubs?
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