Merry Go Round Marketing Plan

Youth Acting and Voice Classes Brandon Schneider & Allie Dethmers

Executive Summary

Merry-Go-Round Youth Theatre is the largest youth theatre in upstate New York and the country. As a team we analyzed the marketing strategies for the youth theatre program. The most difficult marketing strategy Merry Go Round Playhouse had was specifying between Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival and Merry Go Round Playhouse, as well as the youth touring company and the youth voice and acting classes. We rebranded the youth theatre through a new logo and new website design. We also came up with multiple tactics and promotions to increase the number of students enrolled in classes. By honing into a key demographic we were able to analyze the most effective tactics.

Goal: Create an online presence for voice and acting classes offered at MGR Theatre through online marketing strategies and re-branding.

Objectives:● Enroll 50 students to the youth

program classes by December 2016

● Add a series of 6 sequential classes by December 2016

● Launch a new website by July 2016

History of Youth Theatre

“Originally offering weekend drama classes for local youth under the name Auburn Children's Theatre, the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse was founded in September of 1958. In 1961, the children's theatre instituted a semi-professional in-school program. Within four years the program began touring state-wide.

In 1974, the Youth Theatre became fully professionalized. In 1981 Producing Director Ed Sayles took over leadership of the corporation and the Youth Theatre began to grow in earnest. Today, the organization has blossomed into one of the nation's foremost professional touring youth theatres in the country.”

The information above for the youth theatre classes was not clearly presented online. The only information present focuses on the youth touring company. Currently, the youth acting and voice classes enroll approximately 5–7 students per class in a total of six non-sequential classes. This allows the opportunity for students to grow, while not committing to classes on a regular basis.

History of Youth Theatre

Situational Analysis

StrengthsLiving up to the standard of “Broadway in the

Finger Lakes, ”Merry-Go-Round Theatre truly is an extremely well known theatre company. They hold a high professional standard throughout the state and country. Their Youth theatre classes are very affordable only costing $20 a class. Merry- Go-Round youth theatre classes have a musical theatre focus which is a strong asset they can capitalize on.

WeaknessesMerry-Go-Round’s biggest weakness is their

youth website. While searching for classes MGR takes the consumer to the youth touring page and does not make it clear where the class sign ups are. Another weakness we found was not being able to sign up online or really have a strong idea of what the classes offered were like on the website. Overall, MGR playhouse branding is extremely confusing and needs to be clarified through online presence.

OpportunitiesSince MGR Playhouse has multiple shows going on, reaching out to audiences with families and advertising classes to them is a huge opportunity. Auburn has 5,789 citizens under 18 years old. Community outreach is a great way to entice more consumers into taking youth classes through promotion techniques. Creating a youth community at the MGR will be a huge source of revenue and only make the community of Auburn more engaged with the theatre. Creating clear online content is very simple these days with modern design tools. Making online presence clear is a great opportunity to raise sales immensely.

ThreatsMerry-Go-Round’s biggest threat in the community is the Auburn Public Theatre. The Auburn Public Theatre offers a lot of youth classes that vary from dance to voice and acting, including musical theater. Their online presence is strong, clear, and enticing. Other threats facing the youth theatre classes in local summer camps in the community such as the YMCA Camp Y-Owasco.

Core ProblemThe core problem facing the youth acting and voice classes at the Merry-

Go-Round Playhouse is the need to identify and address key differences in

brand identity between Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival and Merry Go

Round Playhouse Youth Theatre Program. To achieve success, it is necessary

to also identify and address the differences between the Youth Theatre and the

youth voice and acting classes.

Research According to the 2010, Census Interactive Population Search, the total population of

Auburn, NY is 27,687. At this time there were 5,789 students under the age of 18 living in the city. By engaging 50 students, MGR only needs to reach .86% of the under 18 population. In addition, Auburn is home to 3,148 households with individuals under the age of 18. On average, these households have 1–2 children under the age of 18.

The city of Auburn is also home to the Auburn Enlarged City School District enrolls over 4,240 students in 7 schools from Kindergarten through 12th grade. The district was named the 2014 Best Community for Music Education by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM).

Key Publics

Meet Sally. Sally is 36 year old, single mother of two, born and raised in Auburn, NY. Sally is very outgoing and grew up performing in community theatre. She holds a full time job at a local bank and can’t always be present for her kids. She needs to find a community for her children while still helping them engage in the creativity she grew up with.

Why Sally?Sally is very good representation of parents living in Auburn. Parents are key to the success of the classes. Kids count, but they can’t write the check. Parents are constantly searching for new ways for their children to find new creative outlets. In addition, everyone needs some time for themselves. When else will Sally go get her massage to take a break from the stress in the office? Most importantly, Sally is a millennial parent.

Millennials● 53% of millennial households already have

children● 1 in 4 millennials are parents today● Brands that stand for more than their bottom

line receive greater millennial brand love● 46% report having 200+ Facebook Friends● 2x more likely to be early adopters of

technology ● Value brands that enhance their lives● 70% feel a need to share feedback with

companies after good and bad experiences

As told by Millennial Marketing

Powered by FutureCast

www.millennialmarketing.com/who-are-millennials

The Kids Yes, they are kids, but they still count as third party influentials! When a child has a positive experience in the program they are sure to tell their friends and family. There is nothing like earning some bragging rights. Serving as a word of mouth advertisement, these kids make up the core of the program.

Strategies & Tactics

Out with the old, in with the new… Logo

The youth program had two key branding strategies that were not unified. We took the MGR logo and took away the old youth logo to make a more consistent brand image. This logo is fun, bright, and very child friendly, yet still looks consistent and clear..

Old youth logo

New youth logo

New Website

The largest source of confusion in MGR playhouse youth theatre was the website. The section for youth theatre was mostly geared towards the touring company and did not have clear information provided about the youth theatre classes.

By creating an external website the youth theatre was able to have their own identity to help expand their students to signing up online.

This simple fix using wix gives MGR youth theatre classes the opportunity to grow as their own identity and branch within the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse.

http://alliedethmers8.wix.com/mgrt

Promotions#1: Our first promotion would be to have current youth theatre students to gain a free pass for a friend to join for a class. Kids tend to want to take part in activities with their friends. By giving their friends an incentive to join they’ll want to join after their first free class.

#2: Our second promotion would be to have a package deal for adults with over one child. People such as Sally can pay in full for one child and half price for the other for a full semester of classes. By providing a two for one special parents will be more inclined to sign up more than one child.

#3: Our third promotion would be to have a discounted rate for those who purchase all six workshop classes. Instead of paying $20 per class they could pay a discounted rate of $100 for six classes. This is an amazing deal and makes the classes seem more like a permanent activity for their child instead of a one and done deal.

To evaluate success of MGR Playhouse’s new marketing plan it is important to utilize Google Analytics and Google Adwords to see how the new youth website is coming up in search results. In addition, if using sponsored Facebook advertisements it is important to understand their impact by using Facebook insights. To see how patrons are finding our website MGR should use website trafficking available through multiple online platforms.

Success of the marketing plan for youth acting and voice classes may also be evaluated by keeping track of enrollment numbers and using a “heard about” report. Simply ask, “How did you hear about us?” on the updated, online registration form and provide different options of how one may have learned about the programs.

Raising the prices by December 2016 will allow MGR to determine how effective the classes are and how loyal consumers are to the new brand. This can also help determine the commitment parents are willing to make.

Evaluation

Merry GO… Implement this plan!