Most effective theatre marketing?

As a regular theatre-goer, my schedule gets pretty packed simply by visiting all my favourite haunts and watching out for favourite writers and actors. So the marketing that works best for me is theatres keeping their websites up to date and making sure plenty of info is available. Also I have been known to book shows purely because the theatre emailed me and the blurb sounded interesting, so above all, the blurb is most vital for me. I can love or hate a title, I can know a writer/director/performer or never have heard of them, but the intriguingness of the blurb is - for me at least - what decides whether I'll book a show immediately or leave it until the word of mouth starts to come in. (If you can use those 20-50 words to make your show sound dark or off-kilter, I'm there. If you tend more towards the earnest side, you're more likely to lose me.)

On the whole a show sells on the title. Casting goes a long way to help. Occasionally a really big name director will put bums on seats. But the vast majority of people seem to book on title first.

There are few living writers who can guarantee bums on seats.

There are similarly few new shows that can generate buzz on their own without a name or two attached.

Look at two of the biggest openings in recent years. Book of Mormon and Hamilton sold over here because of the US buzz. Would they have worked over here first?

Fancy graphics and clever videos only take you so far. A known title will always be a good start.

Bang on Mark, because of high ticket prices, I often look on here for word of mouth. Of course there are some shows I would see without question, but they are few and far between. Apart from WOM, Subject is my next criteria. Having said that, I am famous for backing none starters. I had a spare afternoon years ago and whittled my choice down to Wicked or Marguerite. I figured that with the writers, Ruthie and Julian in it, Marguerite would run longest. How wrong can you be!

All of the above plus deals/reasonable pricing. I'll regularly take a punt on something for 20 quid that I wouldn't have considered for 40.

It's a mix for me, depending on the kind of show. My main interest are and have always been musicals. So I'm likely to try and catch all the new "big" musicals in London and some of the fringe shows (with their limited runs it often depends on whether I'm in town at the right time). Though I've become more discerning in the last years and have been giving some shows a miss - mostly family-oriented stuff like "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and now "Wind in the Willows". So musicals don't need much to lure me in as I'm open to pretty much everything.

For plays/dramas, it's a mix of what Baemax calls "the blurb" and casting. For classics like Shakespeare I usually go based on the cast, since these shows tend to come around again and again, so I take my pick based on who's in it. With modern shows, sometimes casting can give me the needed nudge to book something, i.e. I had been mildly interested in "Oslo" but only booked once Toby Stephens was announced for the lead.

Otherwise it's the blurb, when I find a particular topic interesting - for example I'm very interested in shows dealing with today's modern (virtual) reality, the internet, etc., so I went to see "The Nether" and would have loved to see "Killology" except I missed it (but bought the play text instead).

When I'm undecided, this forum is a great help - like now, I wasn't sure whether I should bother with Adrian Mole at the Menier, but since so many people here enjoyed it and told me to go, I did go and enjoyed it a lot.

Classic marketing like posters on the tube, ads in papers or flyers don't really do it for me. Though I appreciate the flyers - I've been collecting them for about 25 years now, so someday I can hopefully use them as wallpaper.

When it comes to tourists, I guess they will base their choices mostly on what they vaguely know/heard about. I've talked to two people from two different countries recently, both typical one-off-tourists in London, and both had gone to see Lion King (and one of them also saw Evita).

Word of mouth, definitely. Forum, friends, but also if my celebrity crush (OK, one of many) tweets about a show he particularly enjoyed... What also draws my attention is casting, of course, but often I'm simply interested in the subject of a play. And oh, the visual side of the production - I went to see "The Nether" simply because I loved the photos (there was also this nice little game on the website of this production, which, albeit rather simple, was quite interesting and different than the usual theatre marketing). Actually, I booked for "The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" for the very same reason... well, almost. The photo of Jack O'Connell in his birthday suit made me grab a ticket. Sorry, I am a very shallow and weak woman.

Least effective by far for me are those video trailers - self-indulgent pap from wannabe movie directors. I have a soft spot for the Finborough's thousand word closely-typed emails, artfully amateurish.

My decision to buy tickets or not tends to be based on casting, my knowledge of the play/playwright, and theatre website's blurbs. For London venues I need to book in advance because of arranging transport, so it tends to be booked before reviews come out. So things I've booked recently have been Follies (based on me liking the other Sondheim I've seen and loving how fab Imelda Staunton is and how fab Alex Young is), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (based on liking the other Tennessee Williams I've seen and how good Jack O'Connell was in The Nap), Twelfth Night at the RSC (based on the fact that I really like the play, and LOVED the Luscombe/Hess LLL/LLW plays). An exception was Girl from the North Country which I'd been interested in but hadn't booked til I'd seen the clip of Sheila Atim singing, which I fell in love with.

They are awful! And it's so surprising, given that the London Underground is such a potentially great showcase for poster art. Photoshop did a good job killing it off for a generation, as digital music killed off record sleeve art, but there are some really interesting young illustrators doing their own posters on Etsy and things, so the talent is out there. The RSC posters from the 80s are fantastic: I've got Ralph Steadman's Mother Courage and great one for Mephisto by a Polish poster artist in my collection.

I generally book based on:

1. Who is in it? Is it someone I like from the telly?
2. Is there a hottie in the cast?
3. Is there nudity from the mens?
4. Is there a tap routine?

Quite frankly, I'm easily pleased so if the marketing ticks at least one of those boxes then I'm likely to be sucked in. Oh and there we are, back to number 2 again. Fnar.