GeoPosty is really valuable for lots of different things, but one of my favorite features is the way that it can be used by bands or authors to promote a tour.
Here’s an example:
Hey there, Los Angeles!
The Crunchy Towels are on tour, and they’re coming to you!
We’ll be playing at the Casbah on November 22, 2010. Go buy your tickets now or check out our other tour dates/locations.
What do you think? Cool, right? And it’s easy to set it up so that these messages show *only* to people who are in cities on your tour, using the radius-based display filtering features.
Here’s how to do it:
- Decide where you want your tour announcement. It can be a widget or page/post content.
- Pick your city. The little globe icon at the top of your editing panel will allow you to insert “Localized Content.” Choose this, then indicate the U.S. city and state where you want this particular message shown, as well as the size of the radius. You can determine the best area to reach with your announcement, depending on the city, the size of the venue, and your audience.
- Craft your message. Use shortcodes to name your visitor’s location, then be specific about the location of the gig and provide a link.
Easy, no? The only trick is that you have to set up a different shortcode for each different city that you want to see your announcement. Still, even that is not so complicated, since you can just copy/paste/edit the shortcodes and they’ll work just the same.
Geographic targeting is something that is super important for anyone who is going out on tour, but before GeoPosty, it was either expensive or unreliable or both. Using this plugin well will be the easiest, most powerful way to use your WordPress site to promote your tour to the people most likely to attend.