Americans for the Arts

Drew McManus

It's great to see how much technology is integrated into this year's National Arts Marketing Project Conference. Out of the three conference categories (audience actions, technology treasures, and eye on income), technology occupies a full third and among the others, many of the session panelists are from technology-focused businesses.

And of all the tools available to arts marketers, technology solutions provide some of the most powerful advancements in recent years to effect positive change.

At the same time, technology providers have a responsibility to resist overselling products and services; something I fear is beginning to get out of control to a point where some arts organizations are beginning to suffer from the pursuit of improved technology solutions.

It's become so commonplace among web and IT professionals in the field that dissolution is fodder for satire. For example, I received the following text from a colleague the other week who had this to say about the onset of a technology implementation project at her arts organization:

"...always fun to watch as people realize [Technology-X] doesn't cause gumdrops and lollipops to fall from the sky..."

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Sherry Truhlar

This post is for you if you’re one of the thousands of arts organizations holding a fundraising gala with a silent auction component.

Statistics show that you’re failing miserably.

National averages of silent auctions show a 50%-60% return. That means for every $100 item on the table, you’re selling it for $50 to $60. Sooooo sad.

And once we figure in the costs to produce the auction – hours spent procuring goods, preparing displays, buying services – your returns fall further.

So should you bag the idea?

For organizations already holding a silent auction, continuing to offer it is likely in your best interest. Here’s why.

1.  With targeted changes, you can improve returns.
An audit of our clients found that when returns are average, it’s most often due to poor marketing. Simple changes can have a profound effect.

For instance, one of our clients raised an additional $44 per item once we employed aggressive onsite marketing tactics. With 82 silent items, they earned an additional $3600!

Incorporate both pre-gala and onsite marketing strategies for the best results. At a minimum rewrite your descriptions, use vertical displays, and incorporate a sensory experience.

As the orchestrator of this year’s blog salon I had to laugh when a colleague forwarded me the cartoon below:

Fitting right? Yes, my job was to blog, tweet, like, comment, and share as much as possible about this blog salon. But you, our readers, made my job super easy.

On behalf of Americans for the Arts, I would like to thank all of you for visiting our 2011 arts marketing blog salon and adding comments, tweets, questions, and opinions to the conversation.

With almost 7,000 views, 20 bloggers, hundreds of tweets and retweets, and hundreds more of Facebook likes, the Salon was a perfect way to jump start the National Arts Marketing Project Conference: Winning Audiences next month.

Kyle Semmel

Ben Burdick’s take on design in arts organizations is apt. As someone who has worked in marketing at such an organization—and as someone who, somewhat grudgingly, has also done some (rather embarrassing) design work out of necessity—I couldn’t agree more. I can’t improve on his suggested steps, especially the part about getting beyond emotional responses, but I can write about just how vital strong design is for an arts organization (or come to think, any organization).

Objectives are important, and good design is essential to fulfilling them. Whether you want it to or not, your graphic design is part of your message. Every time you put marketing materials out into the world, you reflect on who your organization is and what it does. A well thought out design—one that speaks to what you do—becomes the shorthand for how people remember you.

I write the above paragraph while thinking specifically about our own case. Last year we were lucky enough to be selected for a special branding initiative with the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, one of DC’s pre-eminent arts organizations, in its Business Volunteers for the Arts program. That program helps smaller organizations like ours reach objectives in areas like financial planning, marketing, and strategic planning, among others, by connecting them with professional volunteers.

I’ll admit it. I was nervous the night before the start of the National Arts Marketing Project Conference. I was (and still very much am) the new kid on the block, having just joined the NAMP team earlier this fall. My personal expectations for my performance made San Jose seem like a make-or-break moment. I knew from experience that nervousness tends to make me shy, and I was afraid that shyness might be mistaken for lack of interest.

But the truth was, I had a real democratic curiosity for those attending the NAMP conference, whoever they might be and whatever they might do. And exactly one month (to the day) later, I have the NAMP Conference attendees to thank for the ease I felt during my time in San Jose. I found each and every arts marketer in San Jose to be fresh and fascinating with a ready-for-anything posture that proved to be contagious.

Looking back, I knew going into the NAMP Conference that we were providing a creative forum for attendees to experiment and think more strategically when marketing the arts. And I believe that we achieved that. But even though we are responsible for setting the creative energy in motion, it was the attendees who helped catapult this energy to new heights.

Here are some of the things I noticed among attendees that deserve a round of applause:

Clayton Lord

At the place where marcomm* and advocacy meet, discussing our value in the landscape of possible activities is becoming increasingly important. Because at its core, both marcomm and advocacy are about where someone should put dollars, albeit on different scales.

In the most recent edition of WolfBrown’s e-newsletter, On Our Minds, Zach Kemp wrote about a study published in the Journal of Epedemiology & Community Health (abstract here) on the difference between the types of art that seem to generate the most health benefit for men and women. By looking at what the study calls “creative cultural activities” and “receptive cultural activities” (i.e. art that you do, like painting, singing, etc versus art that you watch, like theatre, concerts, exhibitions, etc) in a large-scale community study, the researchers were able to demonstrate, essentially, that women report more physiological benefits from doing and men report more physiological benefits from seeing.

This may seem a bit heady and esoteric, but I’m always interested in the place where hard science intersects with artistic consumption, as that’s often (if you dig) a good place to start thinking about good marketing.