|
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Can a theater do well without having a website?
|
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 01-31-2014 11:03 AM
Not specifically about theaters, but I've been surprised at the number of small businesses around here that don't have their own web presence at all. We're currently trying to arrange to have a tree removed, the roots of which are pushing up the patio slab. The businesses that will do this and have websites tend to be branches of regional and national chains. The smaller businesses that employ only a few people and only serve the locality in which they're based tend not to - you find out about them from flyers put in the mailbox, recommendations from friends and relatives, and sometimes reviews on Yelp.
I'm guessing that like these businesses, the theaters that tend not to have websites are independents in smaller communities, where people find out what's playing through word of mouth, the local paper or just walking/driving past the place; and have concluded that the cost of running a website simply isn't worth the likely return. If your business is a geographically specific one, I can see the logic in this. If you are a theater or an arborist in Colton, CA, there is no advantage to you in telling the world outside, say, a 20-mile radius that you exist. If you already have effective ways of marketing yourself within that radius, there needs to be a convincing business case for investing in another one.
As you point out, the cost of creating and maintaining a simple site is very low (i.e. the cost of a couple of days of your time to learn the basics of a content management system such as Wordpress or Drupal, plus, say, $50 a month for hosting and a domain name). But if you want online ticket sales functionality as well, and/or the ability to host multimedia content (e.g. trailers for the movies you're playing), the time and money input is going to increase significantly.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Justin Hamaker
Film God
Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004
|
posted 01-31-2014 02:13 PM
In today's business world, I would view a web site like a business care. Even if you don't have a detailed presence, you should at least have something which lists the services you offer, with contact information.
As for theatres, I think a web presence is vital. When we've surveyed customers, approximately 75% were getting showtimes from the internet. My theatre has done a pretty good job at branding and promoting our web site, so most of that traffic does come to our site. However, a fair amount is through Fandango and Google.
The problem with using third party sites is you have to rely on someone else accurately entering your information, and you make it too easy for your customers to see what your competition is doing.
Outside of major metro markets, I don't know if there is much advantage to on-line ticketing. But having the presence so people can get your showtimes is critical.
As for social media, I think it's a great tool to use, but not depend on. Facebook may be free, but it's only going to push your posts to about 5%-10% of your fans unless you pay for your posts. Boosted posts, aren't a bad way to spend your marketing money as long as you're smart about it. But you have to be willing to do so.
I don't really have experience with Twitter and other sites.
As for the surveying I mentioned above: We found that only 5% of our customers were using the newspaper - and those were almost exclusively senior citizens. About 15% were using our recording line, and about 75% were using the internet (I would need to go back and look up the breakdown of sites). The remaining ~5% were using other methods such as word of mouth or driving by the theatre.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Justin Hamaker
Film God
Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004
|
posted 01-31-2014 03:42 PM
As for the accuracy issue, I have a comma delimited file I send to Cinema Source so all they have to do is import the times. This has resulted in virtually 100% accuracy on Google, Yahoo, and their other subscriber sites for close to 10 years.
For Fandango, IMDb, Flixter, on others, Tribune Media Services has a program where you can input your times yourself. This way you're not dependent on some monkey to get the correct times off the fax or email.
Using these two methods, our internet times are virtually 100% accurate every week. The only issue we have is people not looking at the right theatre when they look at Fandango, Google, and other third party sources.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
|
posted 01-31-2014 05:52 PM
I pretty much live and die by my website. In years past, I used to send about 5000 flyers out in the mail every month but that had two drawbacks: I had to try to book all of my movies a month in advance, which meant I was playing older stuff that I could have otherwise, and also it got pretty expensive -- close to $1000 per month for postage alone. I sold ads to other businesses on my flyer and that helped to defray some of the cost but it was still a hefty chunk of change.
My main advertising medium now is my website, which actually costs me nothing since my web and mailserver lives about six feet behind where I'm sitting right now.
I discontinued the flyers when I got my digital cinema setup. I had 10,000 fridge magnets printed with my website and "movie hotline" phone number, and put them in envelopes with a write-up about how wonderful the digital cinema is. I mailed the magnets out to everyone in the area and that sort of gave everyone the push to start checking for showtimes on my website. I had a website for some years prior to that, of course, but the traffic really took off after I sent out the magnets.
I also have an email mailing list with a few hundred people on it -- they get an automatic email ever time I have a confirmed booking for a movie.
And, of course, my app, which apparently has 40-some users at the moment.
I don't do online ticketing or anything like that -- it seems like a useless thing for a small theatre to do. Heck, I don't even accept credit or debit cards here at all. That saves lot of hassle, too: everyone who comes here knows that they have to bring actual money; if they don't they find out soon enough.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 02-05-2014 09:00 PM
We've had our website since around 1990 and it's by far the best advertising we have, except possibly our marquee (since we're right on the main drag). I did a very informal survey and at least half of the respondents said they get our showtimes from the site. Onoy a couple people mentioned the newspaper. We don't get all that many phone calls anymore...used to be, we could predict how busy a movie would be by how many calls would be on our phone in the daytime. These days, even a blockbuster movie will only generate a few calls a day.
Our site is hosted locally and costs $15 a month, which is the best advertising money we spend.
Keeping a site updated isn't all that hard -- it all depends on how fancy your site is. Ours is nice looking, but not flashy or fancy at all, so it loads fast and looks good on phones. At the very least, a theater site should have pictures of the theater, a list of shows and times, and onesheet images. Those basics will cover about 97% of what site visitors want to see.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Justin Hamaker
Film God
Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004
|
posted 02-06-2014 03:19 PM
quote: Scott Jentsch
Some theaters dismiss this notion, and say that their customers know to go to their web site for their showtimes and information, but that's ignoring the people that don't do that, and that number could be huge in relation to the number that actually do it.
We are currently in the process of surveying customers on where they get show times. We started last Friday and will continue for 2 weeks, so I'll have some actual data from the theatre in about a week.
One of the things we frequently see is customers come in at the wrong time, or looking for a movie we aren't playing. The reason is not that our times were listed incorrectly, it's that they were misreading the results from Google. The problem with Google is that when someone searches your theatre and a movie title, Google will present them with all theatres within a certain radius (something like 30 miles). But the way the listings are presented, other theatres may be listed first. And if you're theatre is not listing the movie, there is no indication you aren't playing the movie (see the following graphic).
The search string for the image above was "Lone Survivor Lakeport". As you can see, the heading on the page says "Lone Survivor Showtimes for Lakeport, CA", then lists the times for the Clover Theatre and the Ukiah Stadium 6. There is no listing for Lakeport Cinema 5, with a notation "Not showtimes available for this theatre".
Right below that is our web site, but they have a cached version which lists movies that have been off screen for more than a week.
I'm actually trying to get in touch with someone at Google to see about getting this changed.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic