Americans for the Arts

Clayton Lord

For the next few weeks, I have the good fortune to be traveling with researcher Alan Brown to eight cities across the country as we present the findings from Counting New Beans: Intrinsic Impact and the Value of Art, the two year study and resulting book just published by my organization, Theatre Bay Area.

This week, we visited Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul and spoke to nearly 200 artists, arts administrators, and funders about the work. It was energizing, exciting work—as a field, it is clear that we are, many of us, anxious to learn how to talk more effectively and accurately about the power of the art we make, and this research, which attempts to quantify the intellectual and emotional impact of art, was provocative for many in the audiences.

In Chicago, I met an acoustic consultant named Evelyn May who believes that impact assessment (surveying your audiences about how impacted they were by your work) might be an extremely useful way to understand small but important changes you make in the physical space.

While May was particularly talking about things like rattling vents, squeaky floors, etc, I was caught up in thinking about whether you could survey audiences before and after, say, configuring your space in various ways to see what configuration was most impactful.

Jeff Scott

In an earlier blog entry, I made note of the fact that so many theatres were turning to discount sites such as Groupon and Goldstar to sell tickets and help fill the house in the face of audiences who are cutting back on their entertainment budgets.

In that writing, I commented that perhaps tickets were priced too high to begin with, if selling them at half-price had become such a necessity to get people in the door. In the past week, I personally have received almost half a dozen calls or emails from discount sites wanting to feature my company, so it seems worthwhile to explore these discounts in a little more detail.

One of the biggest downfalls that I’ve read about these discount services is that lack of returning customers. The idea is always pitched as, “if you can just get the people in the door with a discount, they’ll see how much they like it and come back at full price.” Maybe, unless they simply can’t afford it. This might be particularly true of younger audiences, whom we seek to fill the place left by our older patrons, but who may not have the disposable income to become regular patrons.

One suggestion would be to continue to incentivize these customers. They first came because of a great discount, so it stands that they may return for another good deal, though perhaps just 25 percent off instead of 50, as a way to ease them into being full-price patrons over time.

A poster for "Radius: A Short Film."

A fascinating new project out of Cincinnati just recently caught my attention.

Filmmakers were inspired by The Arts Ripple Effect: A Research-Based Strategy to Build Shared Responsibility for the Arts, a study conducted by local arts agency ArtsWave in 2008.

The study and report were "designed to develop an inclusive
 community dialogue leading to broadly shared public responsibility 
for arts and culture in the region" and "concluded that [their] work with the community through arts and
 culture must be based on a foundation that incorporates a deeper 
understanding of the best way to communicate with the public in
 order to achieve that shared sense of responsibility."

Calling it "the world’s first game-sourced movie," Radius: A Short Film, created by Possible Worldwide, a WPP Digital company, with multiple Cincinnati-based partners, "the film was shot in and around Cincinnati during MidPoint Music Festival and other arts events."

What makes it especially unique is that the film was created by editing "from more than 2,000 unique pieces of crowd-sourced content" gathered using a smartphone app called SCVNGR.

Tim Mikulski

As I continually seek new information to contribute to our various electronic and print publications, I come across a ton of info that I want to pass along to the field, but they end up sitting on my desk waiting as other topics or projects rise to the top over that information.

In light of that, I thought this blog post can serve as an early spring cleaning (we definitely haven't had a real winter in D.C. this year) of some of the marketing content I've been holding onto.

These two items are from Fast Company, a publication I highly recommend subscribing to if you are looking for different ways to address technology, design, or business issues within your own organization---particularly in the marketing realm.

When it comes to personal branding, an article from early January discusses five steps to building a better personal brand:

1. Have a home base online. While Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are excellent destinations to promote what you do, make sure that you also invest time and energy into your own personal website. Whether you take advantage of easy-to-use tools such as Squarespace or WordPress, a simple and clean online home for all your professional information and social streams is a necessity.

2. Be a better blogger. Although online pundits regularly declare that blogging is dead, such as Jason Calacanis did at a tech conference toward the end of December, blogging has simply become much more diverse. It's no longer necessary to write multi-paragraph posts (but of course, that's why you still come to ARTSblog), but instead services such as Tumblr make it easy for individuals to share shorter entries or snippets of text that often include photos and other multimedia. A weekly blog update (or more frequent if you can afford the time) that includes some shareable content is a useful way to drive traffic back from social channels to your website (and to establish yourself as an expert on a topic).

Tim Mikulski

Late last year, the Wallace Foundation released a series of studies under the banner "Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences."

The series includes four case studies highlighting examples of audience engagement with new and younger audiences without alienating loyal and long-time constituencies.

The four case studies run the arts discipline gamut from the San Francisco Girls Chorus to the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Boston Lyric Opera, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

Each study is available for downloading and three of the four include online extras that help further illustrate the organizations' work.

Here's a quick rundown on the case studies:

More Than Just a Party -- "Senior management gave a team of young middle managers the authority to plan and run an evening event aimed at both attracting more 18-34-year-olds and encourage them to engage with the art. Through a series of inventive steps, from hosting games that enabled exploration of the artworks to using hip, young volunteers, the team created a program that exceeded expectations."

Cultivating the Next Generation of Art Lovers -- "[Boston Lyric Opera] would take its abridged operas used in school programs, and turn them into high-quality productions for families...the family performances would feature not only professionals singers, but also an orchestra and new costumes, props, and sets...Post-show surveys revealed the majority of adult attendees were opera fans who wanted to introduce their children to the art form, thus meeting two of [their] goals---providing children with their first experience of opera and creating opportunities for their busy parents to attend performances."

Laura Kakolewski

As an arts marketer, I made sure to pay particular attention to the commercials during the Super Bowl.

Although a few stood out from the rest, Twitter helped me discover what I believe to be the smartest Super Bowl commercial that (unfortunately) only aired in Canada.

Before reading any further, take a few minutes to watch this matchless Canadian Budweiser commercial that I found straight from the twitter feed of Scott Stratten (@Unmarketing), author of UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging, and keynote speaker at the 2011 National Arts Marketing Project Conference:

In my opinion, Budweiser Canada deserves a standing ovation from the world of marketing and advertising.

Rick Lester

When I worked as an arts manager, the election season----particularly presidential years like 2012----was a time of fear and loathing. Why?

First and foremost, ticket sales and admissions soften or die immediately before and on Election Day. At TRG, we’ve watched this trend play out across the U.S. over the past two decades in client sales results from markets of all sizes.

An inescapable consequence of major election cycles is campaign advertising----a driver of America’s economic engine that is bad for arts and entertainment.

The flood of campaign advertising every other October sucks opportunity out of our promotional campaigns. (Just ask anyone in Florida right now where the Republican primaries alone are having a major impact.)

Campaign advertising drives up the price and limits----in some markets eliminates----the availability of advertising time on radio and TV. Email inboxes, postal mailboxes, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts are stuffed beyond capacity. The normal roar of media clutter hits overload.

It becomes nearly impossible to create a viable marketing message capable of cutting through. No matter the quality of what goes on stage or in the gallery, patrons are less likely to hear about it.

Tim Mikulski

Trying to garner the attention of local media for something happening in the arts can be a daunting task -- particularly if you live in a major media market with only a few newspapers, a handful of TV stations, and one or two radio stations interested in community affairs.

It's even harder to find out how your local school board voted on your district's arts education budget or how your state legislative candidates feel about funding for the arts.

All of that is beginning to change thanks to the world of local blogs and websites that are now becoming what used to be the areas covered by a community newspaper, but with easier access and greater availability to everyone.

Local blog sites are everywhere and should be leveraged for all of the above, particularly the "ist" blogs, as they provide a ton of city/regional coverage for the arts, as well as local government actions, etc.

Large cities like Washington, DC also have neighborhood blogs that serve a smaller niche like Prince of Petworth and Penn Quarter Living.

But, there are two websites (although not quite national yet) that often fill up my inbox when it comes to my numerous Google News Alerts for a variety of arts and arts education news --  Patch.com and Examiner.com.

David Armano of the Harvard Business Review recently published six 2012 predictions for social media.

Although he made some inaccurate predictions about 2011, here is what he is suggesting for 2012 (with links added by me):

"Convergence Emergence. For a glimpse into how social will further integrate with "real life," we can look at what Coca Cola experimented with all the way back in 2010. Coke created an amusement park where participants could "swipe" their RFID-equipped wristbands at kiosks, which posted to their Facebook account what they were doing and where. Also, as part of a marketing campaign, Domino's Pizza posted feedback — unfiltered feedback — on a large billboard in Times Square, bringing together real opinions from real people pulled from a digital source and displayed in the real world. These types of "trans-media" experiences are likely to define "social" in the year to come.

The Cult of Influence. In much the same way that Google has defined a system that rewards those who produce findable content, there is a race on to develop a system that will reward those who wield the most social influence. One particular player has emerged, Klout, determined to establish their platform as the authority of digital influence. Klout's attempt to convert digital influence into business value underscores a much bigger movement which we'll continue to see play out in the next year. 

Jeff Scott

By now, it’s probably a safe bet to assume most arts organizations have at least a Facebook page, and are possibly on Twitter and maybe even Google+, and are using them as part of their marketing approaches.

But do we need these channels, or more to the point, do we understand what these channels can give us?

Here are some points to keep in mind:

#1 Social media is not about selling tickets -- While we are all anxious to get more people in the doors at our shows and events, more and more data is coming out about the ineffectiveness of using social media simply to sell a product. Announcing an added performance or offering a special discount is one thing; that’s news and it’s appealing. But simply reposting your standard ticket offer again and again gets old really fast. Your followers want to know when you have an event, but they aren’t looking for a hard sell.

Wayne Andrews

Competition is hard. In the business world market share, loss leaders, and incentives are used to drive product loyalty. This does not work in the creative economy.

You can’t coupon a radio listener into supporting your local songwriter’s organization, or celebrate that the ballet has gained market share over the orchestra.

The arts are one of the few business models where we don’t celebrate growth by one organization over another. Never have we heard the Opera Generation is involved in an art war with New Ballet.

There are a host of incentives and promotions arts groups utilize to entice people to try the ballet or opera. Every arts group has tried a “pay what you can night” or “free tickets promotions” hoping to expand their audience.

Still I don’t care that a prune is a dried plum because to many people it is still a prune. Just as opera is opera or modern art is confusing. Most products realize once the discounted price, coupon, or gimmick that lured the consumers to buy their brand of soap is gone, and so is the customer.

How will art groups build a new audience? By merging more than marketing efforts, but by merging their programs.

Will Maitland Weiss

Anyone still reading this on a desktop computer?

Even you—along with the smart phone and smarter tablet readers—know that the tsunamic trend of digital communication will continue to roil how we deliver art (and get money to do so) in 2012.

You certainly aren’t reading this in one of the printed “newsletters” of my (distant) youth. Those, and brochures, and posters, and postcards, and print advertising—which used to take up so much of our time and of our paltry budgets--are going, going, gone.

We tell the stories of our art differently now. We sell our tickets differently; our tickets, which will soon be pieces of cardboard as often as our subway fares are paid in metal tokens.

C-R-M! C-R-M!

Variable pricing—which got a passing shout-out in a recent Sunday Times Magazine (page 11), kind of in the context of “Duh? Some people aren’t doing this?!”

Stephanie Spalding

For someone who is employed by an arts organization and considers herself an arts advocate, I sure question my ability to think creatively.

Am I thinking outside of the proverbial box? Do I read enough blogs and take in enough industry research to resourcefully solve problems and suggest new projects or strategies?

In an effort to address this issue -- I am taking a cue from the inspiring presentation of Oliver Uberti, design editor for National Geographic, who I had the pleasure of listening to during the National Arts Marketing Project Conference.

It was time to geek out and make a chart.

I needed to take an inventory of something sort of concrete, sort of reflective and personal and sort of plain fun. And he seemed to have gained insights into an alcoholic beverage consumption chart, so why not?

Question: Who feeds my inspiration and what qualities do they possess?

Goal: By creating a grid to chart out who challenges me and what type of “thinkers” my challengers are, I will better understand where to look for insight and maybe even where I am lacking.

Jarin Hart

Throughout the weekend of the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, several people tweeted about experiencing conference withdrawals, or unmarketing withdrawals, etc.

I didn’t experience this as I felt my head nearly exploding from all the information I was dutifully scribbling down as fast as arm could push my pen. Armed with page after page of notes and new, exciting ideas to share with my co-workers, I left NAMP feeling inspired and empowered.

The messages that resonated the loudest for me were:

1. Remarry your audience -- A simple, albeit brilliant concept, don’t you think? Scott Stratten reminded us all that we must honor and respect our current audience. We must ask, “What can I start doing? What can I stop doing? What can I continue doing?” We must take the time to listen to our current audience member and long-standing supporters, because too often we unwittingly take advantage of them. We abuse their loyalty whether or not that is our intention. “Make new friends, but keep the old, for one is silver and the other gold.”

Jarin Hart

Thirty minutes into the 2011 National Arts Marketing Project Conference and listening to keynote speaker, Scott Stratten talk about unmarketing, I suddenly became aware of 2 things: 1) Scott Stratten is a genius  and 2) I was in the right place at the right time.

Being new to the arts world as well as the nonprofit world, I had no idea what to expect to gain (or lose) from attending the NAMP Conference. I recently landed a job with a small, nonprofit arts organization in Fort Wayne, IN, where I continue to encounter challenges with discovering effective methods of marketing for a unique, niche performing arts organization. Scott’s speech could not have come soon enough!

What Scott said, (though dripping with sarcasm), resonated in me, and judging by the tweets throughout the day, my mind wasn’t the only mind being blown!

I think sometimes we forget that marketing is a verb, and depends on our ability to engage our audience in fresh, new ways. Scott suggested we can maintain a successful relationship if we simply choose to “remarry” our current audience. I believe I heard an audible click in the minds of those around me as Scott nonchalantly suggested the concept of honoring our relationships with our current patrons.

Stephanie Spalding

Day One at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference (NAMPC) and I am drinking coffee “for two” in order to keep up with the flurry of questions and concepts oozing out of the mouths of my fellow attendees during the preconference.

This is my first NAMPC, by the way, but who has time for a learning curve? I am barreling through and keeping my ears open. There were inspiring anecdotes, fascinating case studies and fresh ideas coming in rapid fire during the Marketing Masters Think Tank.

In the interest of word count, there is one concept in particular that resonated with me. During a small group discussion about audience development, many in the group agreed that marketing departments often become the curator for an organization’s programming, often the ones taking enrichment to the next level (or any level). Okay, so people have heard this before. It was when the idea that we (read: the organization) curate an audience too. We do? We do.

Audience development comes in many shapes and sizes, and the commitment level from an organization can run the gamut. But if you or someone you love is considering a serious commitment to audience development  beyond the occasional event or focused ticket deal, then it is time to commit to knowing and serving the community.

Whitney Miller-Brengle

A first-time National Arts Marketing Project Conference attendee can sum up day one of the conference with the following experiences: hearing and sharing new ideas, developing a camaraderie with fellow attendees, diving into the Twitter conversations going on throughout the day (with the appropriate corresponding #hashtags, of course), and—at least for this first-time attendee—ending the day with achy feet and a fresh outlook on arts marketing. I was thrilled to participate in my first NAMP Conference, and honored that my hometown served as host for the conference this year.

I’ll admit that prior to the conference, I was unfamiliar with keynote speaker Scott Stratten and his book, Unmarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging. Therefore I went into his presentation with no expectations, though a little weary of someone who describes his techniques and practices as “unmarketing.” To my delight, Scott went above and beyond the duties of a keynote speaker. Not only was I thoroughly entertained (who doesn’t love to start the day off with several good laughs?), but I left that room with several key take-away ideas.

Perhaps what stood out to me most during the presentation were the points that supported Scott’s suggestion to “stop marketing and start engaging.” Our audiences and potential audiences are already expert engagers. They’re religiously reading their Facebook newsfeeds, tweeting up a storm, checking in, commenting, tagging, blogging…you name it, they’re all over it. And as arts organizations, if we aren’t right there with them—starting conversations, listening and responding to their feedback, sharing photos and videos—we are doing ourselves and our patrons a huge disservice.

David Schillhammer

The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra’s ticket sales are up again this year, shattering local and national sales trends.

With several months left in the year, our box office is already seeing a 10 percent increase in subscriptions over this time last season, and renewal rates for freshman subscribers are over 53 percent and growing. This is the fifth year in a row we’ve had such gains.

Subscriptions to the orchestra’s “Super Series” have been steadily rising over the past five seasons. So far in 2011-2012, the orchestra has sold over 3,432 subscription packages, 300 more than this time last year, and a huge increase over the 1,500 sold in 2006-2007.

Our recipe for success? Marketing, innovative programming and outstanding customer service.

In the fall of 2007, we began working with freelance arts marketing guru Jack McAuliffe, president of Engaged Audiences, LLC, who pushed us to stop devaluing tickets through “buy one, get one” offers, and focus on marketing subscriptions. Specifically, he challenged us to convert one-time concert attendees into two- and three-time attendees, and then into long-term subscribers. So in 2007-2008, we began a targeted effort to grow subscriptions.

Here’s our method:

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.

Andy Rooney

Remember, you’re a lot more interested in what you have to say than anyone else is.” - Andy Rooney

Are you going into a meeting today to introduce an idea, request funding, or propose a program?

Did you know its success depends on whether you get people’s eyebrows up in the first 60 seconds?

People at many meetings are either jockeying to get THEIR idea heard – or they’re bored, distracted or just waiting for the meeting to be over so they can go back to work on the UPO’s (Unidentified Piled Objects) stacking up on their desk.

The good news is, you can test in advance whether your idea is going to get any traction.

Just ask a colleague for 60 seconds of their time.

Explain your idea/proposal/request to them...using the exact same 60 second opening you’ll use in the meeting.

Now, watch their eyebrows.

One of the prompt questions for this blog salon was, “What research is affecting your marketing and fundraising strategies?”

TRG’s research on arts patrons by generation has really given me perspective on where the arts are today and what we need to plan for long-term. Right now—even amidst the recession, organizational bankruptcies, and funding pullbacks, today may be the “good old days” for arts marketing.

There are four generations of arts buyers in the market right now. Each cohort is born roughly between these dates:

Traditionalists, born before 1945
Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964
Generation X, born between 1964 and 1981
Generation Y, born between 1982 and 1995

I am a HUGE proponent of partnerships! There is nothing like getting in front of a group that is loyal to a certain brand, and have that brand state that your organization has value for the group to also support you. Throughout a season, we work with numerous partners to reach new audiences, from arts organizations to corporations and beyond.

Here are some of the more successful partnerships we have had:

Dracula's Night at the Bats

Dracula’s Night at the Bats: A fully integrated campaign with Louisville Slugger Field and our baseball team, the Louisville Bats. Dracula threw out the first pitch (a bit high, but right down the middle), we had a table set up behind home plate, our promotional video was played on the jumbotron in the outfield, we gave away an opportunity to purchase $10 tickets to an entire section and  one lucky person won two season ticket packages (and Dracula handed them out on the third-base dugout).

The benefit: Exposure to a different audience in a fun and interactive way. It showed potential patrons that theatre is not as intimidating as they might think. While there was not much advance promotion of this event, the face time we had with the thousands of people at the event was invaluable.

Ian David Moss

The hardest question to answer in arts research is “what would have happened if we had done things differently?” Researchers call this question the “counterfactual,” since it refers to a scenario that doesn’t actually exist. Generally speaking, it’s hard to measure things that don’t exist; hence the difficulty for arts research. We can’t measure that scenario directly, but we can get close to it through experimental designs that include a control group.

In a marketing-specific context, counterfactual scenarios come into play when considering alternative strategies aimed at driving sales or conversions. One technique that a number of organizations have used is called A/B testing, which is when two different versions of, say, a newsletter or a website get sent to random segments of your target audience.

Internet technology makes A/B testing relatively painless to execute: in the case of a newsletter, for example, all it requires is a random sorting algorithm in Excel to divide the list in two before sending the slightly different newsletter versions to the lists as you normally would. You could test which design results in more clickthroughs to a specific link or which subject line results in a higher open rate.