You just taped a stand up special - now what?

At Punchup, we’re working to bridge the gap between comedians and their fans.  For fans, we want them to know when their favorite comedians will be performing nearby.  And for comedians, we want their tours to be as successful as possible.  We know that a large driver for touring is the production of the hour-long comedy special, which raises awareness for comedians and drives their live ticket sales.  We’ve recently worked with a few comedians as they launched specials and tours, and spent some time digging through publicly available data to help guide their approaches.  Here are our thoughts on how comedians can best leverage a special to drive ticket sales. 

It’s a crowded market.  We’ve heard it in podcasts, interviews and articles – this is a golden age for comedy, with ticket sales tripling in the last decade (Bloomberg).  We’ve also heard that there’s been greater demand for specials, which we confirmed in our recent analysis, finding that the number of specials is up nearly 3x from 46 to 123 between 2019 and 2023.  This is a conservative estimate; we only included specials in our analysis if they were English-language, and we could validate the launch date on IMDB.  

We believe the ability to self-publish on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and via podcasts has made the sharing of jokes and building an audience easier than ever.  Indeed, in our sample, YouTube saw more specials launched on its platform than all other platforms combined in 2023.  With the ease of publishing increasing the competition for limited entertainment time, it’s all the more important to be thoughtful in launching a special. 

Sell that special to a major streaming platform!  We know that this isn’t a surprise - in addition to articles on how a Netflix special supercharges careers, we were able to corroborate this sentiment by using Google Trends data as a barometer for viewership and awareness.   Unsurprisingly, for the comedians that had enough search volume to have Trends, we found a notable increase in search interest during the three weeks surrounding their special’s launch – especially on the big platforms.

[Trends data is search volume indexed against the maximum search volume (100) within a set period of time.  We pulled 5 years of data, and then specifically matched up the 25 weeks around each comedy special launch.  The closer the Trends number is to 100, the greater search volume that was happening on that comedians’ name.]  

Looking at data for Netflix, Amazon and HBO Max shows, the majority of comedians (85% for Netflix, 75% for HBO, 71% for Amazon) hit their highest search volume of our 25 week analysis window during the 3 weeks around the Specials launch, compared with just 53% on YouTube.  

But what if the big guys aren’t buying?  All is not lost - sharing a special on other platforms is still valuable in providing fresh content to your audience, helping to grow your brand.  To date, launching a special on YouTube has been the primary option for self-publication, and we know that most comedians did see an increase in search volume around their specials on that platform - it just wasn't as concentrated around the launch.

Maximize your success.  With the volume of specials (and other content) launching on YouTube, and the lower Trends response than we had seen on the big streaming platforms, we do believe that there are key actions you can take to ensure an increase in awareness and ticket sales around a YouTube Special launch.  You’ll need to do some pre-work in getting your brand ready, market yourself aggressively, and ensure you can invite all those new fans along on your next tour.

Is your brand ready?

1. Ensure consistency across social platforms.  David Zucker explains it exceedingly well: your profiles should all feature the same photos, links, and handles.  This is important so that when new fans are searching you to learn more about you, it’s immediately obvious when they have found your accounts.
2. Book a tour.  Usher was recently lauded for his smart post-Super Bowl strategy- he had a tour planned, and held a pre-sale for loyal fans prior to the big show, with general sales starting after halftime.  We know that more people will be searching for you with the special - give them something to buy!  All ticket information should be in one place, and of course, we recommend that to be Punchup pages.
3. Optimize your search results.  Our analysis of search results on specials showed that fans will be searching for your name in significantly higher volumes in the weeks during and after a special launch.  Before these new fans start looking for you, search now and make sure that all the top results are up to date.

Make a marketing plan.

4. Determine a goal, and build a marketing plan to reach that, with success metrics.  We recommend aiming for driving awareness of the special (e.g., with goals of x mentions in social media from fellow comedians, y appearances on podcasts and z streams of the special) and actual ticket sales (e.g., selling 50% of available tickets within the first month of launch).  Think about how you will reach both existing and new fans - do you have an email list you can use for blasts or as seed audiences for ads?  Would you want to reward any current fans, and enlist them to help you market?
5. Schedule social media posts.  Your new fans liked what they saw and are looking for more - give them more content!  Plan your strategy ahead of time to make sure you are posting varied content and content types across the different social platforms.  Make sure to post most frequently the day before and the few days after the special launch.  We typically see that posts made in the mornings during the week and afternoons on weekends perform best.  Remember that grid posts on Facebook and Instagram will attract new audiences; Stories posts are for current followers - and it’s important to have both.  

Reward old fans while finding new ones. While Youtube is a great place to be discovered by new fans, it is not as good at selling tickets to existing fans (more to come on this in a future post). We believe the new path forward is a hybrid approach: reaching as many new people as possible with your special while capturing emails from your existing fans. 

6. Consider a staggered launch of your special.  If you’re launching your special on YouTube, consider making it available on Punchup to existing fans first.  You could charge a small fee, or simply ask that fans sign up for your mailing list before watching for free.  In this method, there’s a direct value capture before placing it on YouTube for monetization, and it’s a small thanks to those who have been supportive of you.
7. Take a conservative approach to censorship.  A number of comics recently have faced content being removed by platforms, or demonetization.  If this might apply to your content, place a censored version on YouTube, and the full special on Punchup. In this scenario, YouTube becomes an advertisement for the full version of the special on Punchup.  For fans that come to Punchup for the uncensored version, you will still be able to capture their emails and tell them about future shows.

We know that comedians most enjoy being on stage entertaining; we are hopeful that these tips will help you leverage your latest special towards more successful tours and nights on stage.  If you have any questions or want help preparing for your special, please reach out to us at Hello@punchup.live.