Preview performances aren’t just a testing period for your show’s creative team, they are a gold mine for assessing your marketing. In a landscape where competition for attention and ticket sales is fierce, the smartest Broadway campaigns treat previews as an active, intentional marketing phase with its own strategy, key performance indicators (KPIs) and creative opportunities.
Below are several ways to maximize previews as a marketing asset:
Treat previews as a real-time lab for your campaign
Previews provide real audiences reactions to your show, which in our world is the closest thing Broadway has to a controlled A/B test environment. During this phase of a show’s lifecycle, we can and should be testing:
Core messaging: Which lines in the show make audiences lean forward in their seats? Which characters or themes get buzz in the lobby? This information can turn into the copy we use in ads, and then we can test which of those lines of dialogue, character moments and thematic elements generate the strongest audience engagement.
Creative assets: Compare multiple versions of videos, graphics and press features across platforms during the preview period to see what gains the most traction in terms of clicks, views and ticket sales.
