We’re currently working on a redesign of our website, and we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about your own company’s website. Any feedback would be most appreciated.
Here are our questions:
- Of all the features on your company’s website, which is the most useful to you and why?
- What features does your site currently lack that you wish it had?
- How do you feel about the idea of advertising on your website?
- Do you have any other thoughts on what makes a good independent theatre website?
Thanks a lot for your help.
CambiareProductions.com
Blog.cambiareproductions.com
* Of all the features on your company’s website, which is the most useful to you and why?
Most useful to me? The blog, for pushing quick content out wihtout needing to get into the meat of the site… though I of course could be reading your question wrong.
* What features does your site currently lack that you wish it had?
It’s not yet three months old, so it has everything I think it should have except an audience. (Keys for me are contact availability and as much visual information as we can get.
* How do you feel about the idea of advertising on your website?
I don’t like it. It’s my business website, McDonald’s advertises itself on it’s site, not Cargill…
* Do you have any other thoughts on what makes a good independent theatre website?
content content content. People get shy about putting their work out there, and about tooting their horn where necessary.
For me my favorite part of the site you have up now (I apologize I don;t know if this is new or old) is the simple historical table of shows. I get to see people you’ve worked with and the kinds of shows you’ve done. I can go get a reference if I know someone and I can either attend a show or not because I have a better idea of what it is Praxis does.
Like travis said, the blog would be paramount as far as visibility for getting information out quickly.
Personally, I don’t care for splash screens. Give me information I can use as soon as your page loads up. If I have to click AGAIN once your page loads up to find any information, I’m more likely to go smoewhere else.
The things I’d like to see on a theatre company’s website includes:
1) Blog
2) Contact info
3) Audition/Employment info (mor detailed than simply time and place)
4) Past shows (pics, etc)
5) Cast members (past and present) and their bios, with contact info
6) Ticket sale info
7) RSS feeds for anything in the above sections that changes
I don’t own my own company, but those are the things that I’ve often looked for on sites and had a hard time finding.
A good independent theatre website contains all of the above, yet looks professional. If your design looks like a Myspace page, then you need to hire a professional (hell, I’ll do it for you, for a fee). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a company’s website which looks like it was designed circa 1996, and I asked myself “If they don’t care enough about their website that ite looks this crappy, how good can the company be?”
Not just quantity content but QUALITY content. Make it look good, make it effective, make it relevant.
Travis,
Thanks for your feedback. Most helpful.
I see that your CambiareProductions.com website has a “Support” page. Do you find this to be a useful fundraising tool?
That’s also a good point you make about advertising. I might split the difference with you and say that some things are worth advertising – like peer company’s productions, etc. What do you think?
BTW, that’s our old website. But I think we’re trying to preserve the scroll-down format on our “Shows” page.
The Director,
“Audition/Employment” info is a great idea. As is RSS buttons for active content.
Thanks a lot for your feedback.
It’s so helpful to hear what stands out as important.
http://www.avltheatre.com
http://www.avltheatre.com/forte/
I have a LOT of strong opinions about this, so forgive me if I ramble. Let me start by saying that we get a lot of compliments on our website, mainly about the fact that there’s a lot to look at. Pictures, videos, scripts, old blog posts, history, bios, etc., etc. People want to get a good idea of your story from your site.
Of course, having the basics about your company and whatever show is happening immediately available is the most important thing.
We’ve tried a lot of flashy, fancy web-tools, and no one ever cares about that stuff, they only care if they can find a map to your show and stuff like that. Most people won’t use your site for fun, so make sure it’s useful.
The best thing I ever did was put the blog on the front-page. That way the most current info is up-front and people can use the prominent links to get to whatever else they want.
Of course, marketers tell me the most important thing on the site is the sign-up page for our email list, that’s why so much of our site is geared towards getting people to that page.
We do have a support page, and it’s been useful. Especially if you give people the option of using PayPal or something like that.
We’ve had a few posts about this kind of thing on Theatreforte. Here are some links. Just put “http://www.avltheatre.com/forte/2007/” before any of these URL-tails.
04/blogging_basics_1.html
04/3step_website_for_small_theatr.html
11/understanding_great_web_design.html
I also recommend the website http://www.cssbeauty.com.
Last but not least, I’d love to help out if you need any aid with your website.
Thanks Slay,
Lots of great insight here. I’ll see if we can apply it to our design.
And to take you up on your offer, perhaps I can send you a link to our in-progress site before it goes live for feedback?
Thanks,
Ian
newleaftheatre.org
Of all the features on your company’s website, which is the most useful to you and why?
To be honest, it’s the non public collaboration tools on newleaftheatre.org/forum (phpBB for discussion) and newleaftheatre.org/wiki (dokuWiki for a group knowledgebase). Half of our company works day jobs and half run shows for a living, so we get to meet about once a month in person. That said, we’re on those two tools having multiple discussions and recording permanent information almost every hour. They have ROCKETED the growth of our company.
We develop every idea from production design to season selection to board development to marketing language online, and the entire company gets to have a voice and the leadership of the organization has I’d say about 90 – 95% transparency without sacrificing efficiency.
What features does your site currently lack that you wish it had?
An integrated Customer Management System that sold tickets, recorded data about who was buying tickets, and sent target email marketing based on that data. Such a system doesn’t completely exist, as I’ve found… so that’s on my list to program (I’m also a web application developer)
How do you feel about the idea of advertising on your website?
so so. I think Google Ads and such detract from the company brand in some cases, and sometimes that’s all you have going for you – the image of your company. We do a lot of targeted amazon associates work… featuring our plays and the music from our sound designs, and we also do campaigns during the holiday season to do shopping through our amazon search bar. That does pretty well for us, and rivals what we’d be making in ads with the little amount of traffic we have. And the brand isn’t really sacrificed.
Do you have any other thoughts on what makes a good independent theatre website?
Form matches Function, always. Your website should communicate – and function – just like your company and your work does. It should help communicate what an audience member will experience when they enter the theater, and therefore convince them why they should take the trip!