Marketing Lessons from ‘Miranda Sings’
Miranda Sings has taken over YouTube and now she is taking over Melbourne with a series of value-added additions to her one-woman show!
For the uninitiated, Colleen Ballinger’s alter-ego Miranda Sings has become a YouTube sensation for her comical ‘voice lessons’, duets with famous Broadway performers and signature off-key renditions of pop songs. And after incredibly successful tours throughout America and the UK, she has arrived in Australia with her one-woman show!
Finishing up her Sydney season last weekend, Colleen Ballinger performed to sell-out crowds at every show and the Melbourne season has just released a handful of new seats that will bring the Chapel off Chapel performance venue to maximum capacity. (When I last checked there were five seats left over the three concerts)
But in a time when lots of live entertainment is struggling to sell-out, Miranda Sings is selling out almost a month in advance. Why? Due to the power of YouTube.
There is a great debate over social media such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Is it increasing our connectedness or is it just increasing our isolation? In the case of Colleen Ballinger’s Miranda Sings it is reducing the distance between the performer and the audience which produces a huge legion of highly loyal fans.
But this isn’t enough on its own to sell out concerts. This idea has to be backed up by some clever marketing which leverages the strong association that fans have with Miranda Sings – which it has been during the Australian tour to great success.
The Australian tour has been packed with extra value-added opportunities for these loyal fans to interact with their YouTube idol, Miranda Sings. Ranging from ‘Meet & Greet’ tickets and dress up competitions to win tickets to the VIP opening night party through to the chance to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Colleen Ballinger, there have been plenty of incentives for fans to engage during the Miranda Sings tour.
However, that isn’t where the benefit ends.
The large bulk of Miranda Sings fans are highly active on social media especially since the only way to consume her product is to follow her on YouTube – the ‘Miranda Sings Australia’ Facebook page created for the Australian tour already has over 3,600 fans. And characteristic of the online generation, these fans are highly vocal when it comes to sharing their experiences online to their networks.
This results in the impact of Miranda Sings being shared and tweeted throughout large networks of people with similar interests and hopefully alerts new similar consumers to the hilarious off-key performances. Especially when there is the incentive of sharing your accomplishment of meeting Colleen Ballinger or climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Miranda Sings.
I mean, the main reason we all use Facebook and Twitter is to lord our accomplishments over other people!
The power of social media is like that old saying: When a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world it causes a hurricane in another. Except in this case the hurricane is over 67 million Miranda Sings views.
If you want tickets to the remaining Melbourne shows you need to act fast. Visit chapeloffchapel.com.au for more details.
