Author: Sam Freeman
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Are ‘Hello Fresh’ the Mozart of the Mailing Letter
Let’s start, as always, with a story. I can’t cook. I’ve never been able to cook, instead relying on a list of staple set-pieces to get me through – pasta and sauce (classic), rice and chicken (dry), onion omelette (oniony), and roast chicken (borderline dangerous). My partner meanwhile can cook – she instinctively knows what…
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Sat in the dressing room, waiting for the first performance…
I’ve 3 hours to kill and I didn’t bring a book. I’ve completed The Guardian, scrolled all of Instagram, even got my work e-mails nearly up to date and so, as a last resort, I’m writing a blog post. At 7:30pm tonight I’ll be performing my third solo storytelling show, for the first time, as…
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2025 Resolutions
Hello there… General Kenobi. Right, I’ll be honest, I usually do this well in advance but I forgot and so here I am at 11pm writing some resolution. Outside a load of knobs are already letting off fireworks, blowing their pyrotechnic load early so to speak, but Harris (son) is asleep, Poppy (dog) isn’t too…
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An E-mail Dashboard for DotDigital in PowerBi
I’ve had 20 minutes so I thought I’d do a quick post about a nice little dashboard I made in PowerBi. I’ve been really pleased with this one – not least because it does some quite clever things super quickly and I’m quite proud of it. I wanted something that was a) automated so I…
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AMA Conference 2024
I’ve not been writing on here much lately, a combo of a small child, a show I need to finish (still not done) and work being quite busy mean that, frankly, I’ve not got close. Which, sat here now, is a shame as, unusually, I think I might have some interesting ideas to share –…
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A Shambolic Introduction To Power Bi for Arts Marketing People
Hey there. Look, I usually write really long blog posts, but recently a few people have messaged me asking how they get started in Power Bi and feeling a bit intimidated by it. I thought rather than write a post I’d record a shambolic video in the hottest room in my house for half an…
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Theatre Marketing – Getting Data Quickly
We’ve all been in that meeting right? You know the one where 12 people are gathered round the table, slowly losing the will to live, while someone mutters the words ‘audiences’ in the middle distance. Occasionally someone will stir, breathing in a little too firmly as if about to make a valuable point, only the…
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Building The Perfect Theatre Subscription
I like subscriptions – they’re great – one sale resulting in tickets sold for multiple performances. We’ve done them lots over the years – sometimes successfully, sometimes with minimal impact – but, if I’m honest, I’ve never given them the attention they deserve. So I started pondering how I could make them better. Not just…
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2024 Resolutions
Hello there… (General Kenobi) It’s that time again where I look back over the last 12 months, lament the passing of time, realise I’ve not achieved half of what I was hoping to achieve and then write some new, equally unachievable resolutions for the new year. Or at least that’s how it usually goes. This…
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Father Of A Boy – Wee in my face
I’m glad I wear glasses for many reasons. They make me look smarter than I actually am, I’ve never been hit in the face while wearing them and, like Clark Kent, when I don’t wear them (and combine them with a clean shave) then I can become entirely unrecognisable. But that’s not the reason that,…
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Father Of A Boy – Sleep
We have a baby. I’m tired. But I’m not as tired as my partner. My partner who is getting up in the night to feed and comfort sometimes 8 or 9 times. Sometimes waking me for nappies, sometimes letting my troubled sleep continue. 11pm to 5am is the witching hour – time passes in slow…
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Father Of A Boy – Birth
I’m now a dad. I’m not really one for big announcements when real life stuff happens to me (it’s different when it’s work), but largely I keep myself to myself. But I thought I’d share this – sometimes you have a life event so huge that, for me, it feels like writing about it helps…
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Arts Marketing: Come and work with me?
This is an unusual blog for me. Usually I’m writing about arts marketing ideas I’ve had, or something to do with graphs & data, maybe even some ticketing type geekery. This isn’t that. It’s a plea and sales pitch. I’m looking for a Head Of Marketing to join our team at Theatr Clwyd, it’s an…
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Tour Autopsy: Every Time I Close My Eyes
I’ve been touring my second storytelling show over the last month or so – Every Time I Close My Eyes (All I See Is You). Regular readers will know this is my second tour (the autopsy of that tour is here) and I like to take a little bit of time to evaluate what I’ve…
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Portrait of a shark by a fictional marketeer.
Beginning: What’s the point in a house style? I saw a tweet from a clearly pissed off creative the other week lamenting the arts marketing team of a theatre forcing their brand’s house style on their show image. I’m going to be really up front and say that in my professional career while I’ve been…
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Arts Marketing: Jack Of All, Master Of None
A lot of people have been visiting my blog recently. This is unusual. This isn’t a popular blog. And look, I’ll be honest, I think I prefer it a bit more exclusive. I’ve had international visitors, well, rather visitor, someone in Ashburn in Virginia is obsessed with this blog (48 visits since January). They’re even…
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Exploring Data: Show Search
I’ve been writing arts marketing blog posts for what feel like a long time now. I decided in my 2023 New Year’s Resolutions to make a few changes to how and why I write them. Increasingly I felt like I wasn’t saying or doing anything particularly original – instead merely regurgitating some version of what…
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2023 Resolutions
Welcome back annual readers. Another year on the slow march towards our terminal decline. Another year where I check all the stuff I didn’t do in 2022 then make equally unrealistic plans for 2023. I always start by evaluating my 2022 resolutions then move on to 2023 – enjoy x 2022 Resolutions Write a new…