Sherman Theater Rewrites History With ToneDen
By: Melanie Mabugat-Wagner
Tags: Case Study, Concerts, Venue Marketing, Event Marketing, Facebook Advertising

Time travel to 1929: Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania’s Sherman Theater had just opened its doors to traveling troupes of live entertainers touring through the Poconos. Where decidely mature burlesques and speakeasies had dominated the night life, these new vaudeville shows were designed to be enjoyed by anyone (and at the low price of 5 cents —or just under a buck today).

In the 90s, the Sherman closed its doors; it sat in disrepair until a 2004 remodel restored the Theater to its former glory. And thankfully, not much has changed since its early days. There’s an act for everyone in their programming: Megadeath, Fetty Wap, Gordon Lightfoot, Andrew McMahon. With Stroudsburg just two hours from NYC, it’s not uncommon to find a large swath of fans traveling far and wide to see their favorite acts here.

But it’s more of a local scene than anything. The theater proudly hosts their own festivals such as StroudFest and Summer Stage, showcases local independent movies, and operates as a non-profit venue for community theater organizations. “Needless to say, it’s a versatile place,” says Rob Felicetti, Marketing Director for Sherman Theater.

Rob Felicetti, Marketing Director for Sherman Theater, Guitarist, Bassist

Filling The Room

When he’s not shredding guitar solos or cranking up the amp to 11, Felicetti focuses on concert marketing and getting people to shows. There’s probably no one else better suited for the job. As guitarist for Long Island rock band Patent Pending, and also bass player for pop punk superstars Bowling For Soup, he knows what it takes to fill the room. In fact, he’s done just that time and time again, contributing a lot of Patent Pending’s popularity to playing at the Sherman Theater. “This is always one of the better spots to play for us,” Felicetti tells us.

About a year ago, Felicetti (wearing his marketing hat) was running traditional campaigns directly through Facebook’s Ads Manager. He knew he needed something more efficient, but didn’t think too much of it at the time.

Thankfully, he received a cold call from ToneDen. That cold call then grew into a pretty extensive trial run after “a nice mix of social and professional, which is nice, and also really important. Really, it went from an email to a personal relationship pretty quickly.”

And Felicetti, several campaigns later, wasn’t disappointed: “The way ToneDen works — it was pretty much exactly how it was explained.”

Consistent Success With ToneDen

What Felicetti really appreciated was what the platform accomplished in audience building. Hunting for audiences — especially if you’re looking in all the wrong places — can be time consuming and expensive. With ToneDen’s tools, all that guesswork is a thing of the past. Now, Felicetti can easily segment and customize his audiences based on other data sources outside of Facebook such as their own website, Spotify, Mailchimp, and more.

More efficient targeting along with ToneDen’s budget optimization led Felicetti to consistent success. He runs “multiple ad sets and [lets] ToneDen pick up the audiences that [perform] the best, and then automatically puts money behind those audiences.” Knowing Sherman Theater’s marketing dollars were being spent on highly optimized ads arriving in front of the best performing audiences, Felicetti could rest easy.

“I don’t have to babysit my ads as much to make sure they’re performing well,” says Felicetti.

There was also transparency on how those different segments performed—metrics that he appreciated.