[8/5/2008 SteppersUSA News]
Stepping is Local
By Markie Bee
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In politics, there's a saying... "All politics are local." It's the basis for all campaigns, that's why you see candidates for national office visit each town and city. Making the local connection work is what wins the election. When it comes down to promoting anything in stepping, the same basic rule applies. I've been saying the use of the web as well as pluggers and the all important word of mouth are necessary to make any type of steppers event work, and that's no joke Jack! Local advertising is critical for steppers events, large and small. If there isn't enough time and resources allocated to local publicity in the form of press releases, pluggers, and of course (good) word of mouth going on for your event (and it doesn't matter if it's a steppers set, a steppers party, a steppers ball, or a steppers contest) it doesn't matter how much pub you place on the internet, because all of the variables need to be in place to make the event the focus of your audience. If you are going to have a steppers contest, you need to zero in on a couple of audiences. Dancers who will compete need to be catered to by offering them prizes as well as a fairly judged competition and in the steppers market, it best be steppers vs. steppers, or it will not be perceived as a fair competition by the contestants and the audience alike. Contest's rely on their reputations to continue and thrive so promoters need to be flexible and adjust their strategy (Much like Pete Frazier has with the WLSC through the years). The second audience contest promoters must promote to are the people who watch the contests. They want to see great performances in a fast paced contest environment. The last two Large contest's didn't draw enough steppers, so The Steppin Across America Contest was cancelled, and the Baton Rouge contest was scaled back to a $1000 contest with one steppers couple competing with swingout dancers. Nuff said about contest's. Once I have more info I may get into it in more detail.
Plugging and local promotion is still key to making your event work. As a case study, I can point to the use of pluggers to promote this web site. I placed less than 1000 pluggers at the Willow Brook event last month and saw a nice bump in the number of visitors and subscriptions to the newsletter. I handed the plugger to many people as well as placed them on tables. It's a national site, but we offer local information about events in Chicago, from those pluggers people are realizing SteppersUSA is a site for steppers about steppers and unlike any other site out there. A bit of strategic plugging always helps. There will be more to come.

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