Before I discuss one of the worst things to see when magicians review or advertise magic tricks, I want to warn you about this post. The advice is geared towards magicians who want to perform for the general public. If you prefer to learn magic tricks for fun, perhaps to your family and friends, then this advice may not be for you. I just though I would save you some time reading the rest of the post.
Still with me? Good, lets get stuck in…
The Merchant of Magic hates this advertising line in magic trick reviews:
There’s a common sentence found in a LOT of magic trick reviews and adverts for props:
‘A real magician fooler‘
Let’s look at why this sentence has very little benefit in helping you decide if the magic trick is going to be worth learning. Why would this line be helpful in any magic trick reviews?
The Customer Persona.
I recommend that you spend time putting yourself into the shoes of their spectators. You need to understand exactly whom your magic is targeted towards. Are you performing for magicians or for a lay audience? They both have different expectations, knowledge, and appreciation of magic.
Performing magic isn’t just about you or me, or the things we enjoy. You create the magic FOR your spectators. The fun you get from it isn’t the most significant thing. If it were, there would be no reason to perform it in public, we could just sit at home and practice all day in front of a mirror.
Understanding how your audience feels, acts, and communicates is so critical. Identifying the type of person that your magic targets, allows you to choose exactly the right kinds of tricks, and the most effective presentations for them.
A ‘magicians customer persona’ is a brief outline of a typical spectator. It goes into detail about the spectator and their interests and behavior. By defining these typical spectators, you can create magic that is geared towards them.
Identifying your Customer Persona.
Take a moment to write down your typical spectators. Answer these questions:
- Who is your typical spectator?
- Where do they watch your magic?
- What are their other interests?
- What is their typical education level?
- Which other forms of entertainment do their enjoy?
- What cultural references will most resonate with them?
- How do they dress?
- What other events do they like to attend?
Why do we need to build a customer Persona?
There may not be much point developing a deep and meaningful mentalist act if your audience tends to be the nightclub and party scene. Mastering dark spiritual magic might not give you the best ‘reach’ if your plan is to perform at corporate cocktail parties.
That’s not to say you should be limited only by the audience you have access to. Magic is all about exploring and developing your skills. But, if you want to put in the effort to create a full commercial act, it’s wise to define exactly whom your audience is most likely to be, and create a ‘product’ to cater to them.
There’s no reason why you can’t create individual acts, each one designed for a different type of customer persona:
- The city center bar crowd.
- The local pub.
- The family restaurant.
- The society wedding.
- The central London crowd.
- Fellow magicians.
Each act should be designed for one customer persona. You can market yourself individually for each persona that you want to serve. This may be a unique section of your website, or even distinctly different websites for each customer persona.
A common mistake magicians make with customer personas in their marketing adverts online.
In just the same way, we see magicians making the mistake of using the wrong customer personas when marketing their performing websites. This happens most often when they write blogs or film themselves on Youtube. Many magicians write about performing magic, create magic trick reviews, discuss how to learn magic, and developing as a magician. They teach some magic tricks, or talk about the latest magic tricks they like. This content is targeting the wrong customer persona. It’s aimed at other magicians!
Magicians don’t hire magicians.
For example, The Merchant of Magic blog has a set of customer personas that dictate the type of subjects we write about. There aren’t any posts aimed at people wanting to hire a magician, or tips for clients on using a magician, these are not the kind of adverts we push out. We selected our customer persona’s to be different types of magicians wanting to improve their magic. Because of this, we write magic trick reviews, tips and performing advice to help our target audience: magicians.
If you want to get more work as a magician, make sure that you identify which customers you should try to attract, and direct the content of your marketing towards those people, rather than producing content directed to only interest your competitors.
Why ‘Magician Fooler’ is a terrible line in magic trick reviews and adverts.
Take a moment to watch this video recorded for me by professional magician Luca Volpe:
Wise words as usual from Luca. Unless you only perform for other magicians as a hobby, or you are constructing an act for the ‘magic club’ lecture circuit, it’s not much use building your magic to entertain other magicians. Adverts and reviews that promote magic, just for entertaining other magicians, it promoting you to target the wrong customer persona.
Seeing this ‘line’ in magic trick reviews and adverts means nothing. Magicians have a working knowledge of the technical aspects of magic. They look at magic tricks from a more analytical point of view. They are impressed by how unusual or unique a technique may be, the tricks value for THEM, and the creativity that took place in the development of the effect. These are of little concern to a typical lay audience.
Understand who you want to perform magic to, and forget about any magic that is designed for any other group. By doing this, you will be way ahead of most casual performers, and much more likely to find the audiences that you have designed your magic to delight.
One of the best selling DVD’s ever to be released, outselling many titles that have been constantly in stock in the magic shop for many years. Produced by Big Blind Media (An magic excellent production company) Ultimate Self working Card tricks features strong easy magic tricks, that step away from the tired mathematical tricks often found in collections of this nature. This is a first choice recommendation for beginners looking to learn some card magic tricks they can perform easily and gain experience performing.
iCandy was a highlight of 2012. Gary Jones and Lee Smith collaborated on this project and brought us a DVD that contained 15 effects, and every one was a winner. What made this DVD stand out above the rest is that you can instantly tell each routine had been worked in the trenches. An excellent DVD with so much variety. The tough part was choosing which tricks to put into my act as each and every one was commercial, killer, and practical stuff any spectator would be floored by.
Over the last few years there has loads of mobile phone magic tricks released, but none quite like itwist. The beauty of this was its impromptu appearance, and the organic nature of it. Admittedly, a clever take on the classic Paul Harris effect ‘The screwed deck’, yet itwist was easier to perform, immensely visual, and ready to perform with a borrowed iPhone, meaning it could be performed in practically any scenario.
This day and age it is very rare that a new utility item is introduced to the magic world that can enhance almost everything you perform tenfold. TKO2 did exactly that. Ultra clean coin vanishes, coin changes, ditches, switches, card loads, the list is endless. We often hear the phrase ‘the possibilities are limited only by your imagination’. In the TKO2’s case, this is absolutely correct. The impossible card to envelope routine itself is a work of wonder, but its so much more than that. Those that own and use the TKO2 know its potential. Those that don’t will be fooled by it. An essential to any working pro, and a product that we know will be in most working repertoires for a long time.
Every magician is likely to have used a bill change at some point of their career, and for good reason. It’s a classic plot, the ability to change a notes value at the fingertips. So, what made First Hand so different? Well, firstly, the change happened in the spectators outstretched hand. Secondly it was instant, and thirdly, the money could be examined immediately. For a spectator it doesn’t get much stronger than that.
Sick and Saw were hits in recent years with magicians looking to add a little shock magic into their acts. Sickness added a trick called Excise, which is an outstanding piece of horror magic. Granted, it’s not every persons cup of tea, but updating the classic needle illusion, so the needle is produced from your throat, is fascinating and horrific for spectators at the same time. It simply gets spectators screaming. For magicians that perform tricks of this nature it proved to be a must have.
Lets face it, we all know enough card tricks to keep us going for a lifetime. Stitched allows a magician to instantly heal a rip in their jeans or trousers. The spectator can even take part in the process if they want. The trick turned out to be incredibly popular. Best done with jeans, it captured the interest of magicians looking for ‘street magic’ style effects they could perform for friends socially. Many working magicians also adapted the gimmick to work well with suit trousers.
Created by Keiron Johnson and released by RSVP Magic this year. The ability to produce a block of ice on the spectators hands, instantly appealed to the working pro’s. You can tell right from the outset, that Kieron has been performing this effect commerically for a long time, and has perfected the presentation. The gimmick included is very simple and makes you band your hand on your forehead and say ‘why didn’t I think of that!’ The truth is, you didn’t and Kieron did. Hat’s off to him for a great trick. One of best features of To The Max is the range of tricks you can do with a single concept. From simply producing a block of ice as a suprise climax, to revealing a prediction or even a coin inside an ice cube. It’s as much a utility device as a complete trick.
Using invisible thread is very much like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. Thread effects can be amazing, but the prospect of fiddling around with thread puts off so many magicians, The Spider Pen Pro gets in the list because it helps bridge this gap, between effect and method. It opens up so many new ways to use thread, that watching the DVD that comes with it, is as eye opening as actually using the item. The magic shop gets more thank you emails and letters about recommending this item than any other thread device. Yigal is the king of thread-work worldwide, and his spider pen delivers on all it’s promises. It’s still not self working, and requires practice to use smoothly, but it’s a just about the most trouble free way to hook up your thread and reset when performing.