Americans for the Arts

It's been interesting to read various marketing experts and pundits over the past year or so declare the death of marketing as we know it in various forums. And, of course, we've all heard the platitudes of social media experts regarding the “customer being in control” and “it's all about them, not you.”

It is true that the traditional interpretation of the Marketing Ps (product, price, place, promotion) may feel outdated in a world where people engage as often virtually as they do physically. And social media has definitely been a game changer in regards to customer relationships and communications strategy.

While I often find little to argue with in the details of these various exhortations, the conclusion that all of this means marketing is dead or vastly different at its core from what it was ten or more years ago confounds me.

I have always understood marketing to be “the process by which you come to understand the relationship between the product and the customer.” I don't think this definition has become false because of all the changes in the platforms we use to connect with our customers, or even because the needs of our customers may be vastly different from what they were a decade ago.

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Social media is an important piece of the event marketing puzzle. Unlike most nonprofits that are marketing one product all year long (a charitable cause), a performing arts organization markets multiple different products (performances and events) throughout each season. It can be challenging to market diverse offerings whilst still under the umbrella of one organization. Let me share my top-5 tips to marketing events that will generate buzz and improve conversions: 1. Don’t forget about the 80/20 rule. This is a rule that I live by regarding social media marketing, whether it is when I’m marketing an event or not. I find that the best ratio to keep people engaged but not tick them off is to have 80% engagement and 20% broadcasting. Even when you have an event to market, talking 100% about that event is just going to turn people off and they aren’t going to listen to one word that you are saying. 2. Engage creatively. This one goes together with tip #1 about the 80/20 rule. You may ask, why should I waste time tweeting or posting about stuff that has nothing to do with my event when I’m trying to sell tickets? Well, that is pretty simple to answer. If you are engaging with people, you will be top of mind so that when they do hear something about you or your event, they will remember the interaction and be much more likely to check it out.

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As we all have no doubt heard by now, Facebook is launching some major updates to the site.

Some of these changes are already being implemented; the others were previewed at the recent f8 conference and will be released in the coming weeks.

Many arts organizations have come to integrate Facebook and other social media channels as important parts of their overall communications plans.

While it’s too early at this point to accurately comment on the impact, if any, these Facebook updates will have for arts communicators (marketers, advocates, thought leaders, and the like), it’s worth at least some preliminary thoughts.

1. The new ticker feed could be a double-edged sword.

One of the hurdles for arts communicators to overcome when using Facebook is the algorithm which powers the news feed on the homepage. Facebook only displays updates from individuals and organizations that the user has interacted with recently or frequently. Thus, while an arts organization’s Facebook page may have several hundred fans, it’s possible that only a fraction of them are actually seeing the content that is posted.

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Sybarite5 has a dream—to change the face of chamber music across the globe. They want to be the first string quintet to perform in all 50 states.

They have a strategy to make it real. Like many artists across the country, they are seeking potential investors around the world by launching their  "play in 50 states" campaign on Kickstarter.

Sybarite5—Sami Merdinian and Sarah Whitney, violin; Angela Pickett, viola; Laura Metcalf, cello, and Louis Levitt, bass—recently shared what it is like to be emerging artists seeking support through innovative ways, with the 20+ philanthropic leaders at the Americans for the Arts Seminar for Leadership in the Arts at the Aspen Institute last week.

The concept is simple: they create a short video about the project; people watch it; if they like it, a couple of clicks and they can pledge their support. If pledges reach $9,000 or more within 30 days, the project is funded—if not, $0.

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Arrive early. Be Prepared. Wear something memorable. Have a firm handshake.

Recognize these phrases?

These are just some of the common practices that we all know and memorize when trying to get the most out of any in-person networking event.

Each year at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, I am reminded that networking is both a powerful tool and advantageous activity; some of the most exciting activities the conference offers are the stellar networking events. And the activities in Louisville this year are sure to follow suit.

The conference’s networking events provide attendees with a platform to constantly engage and share fresh ideas while getting to know their colleagues from different sides of the country.

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So, I’ve gone through the entire stream of tweets using the hashtag #AFTA11 (all 2389 of them!) cut out all fat, and filtered them down to my picks for the top 50 most-useful tweets to me from this year's Americans for the Arts Annual Convention. I say most useful because I wanted to separate out things that can be acted on, resources/measurements that can be explored, impactful facts and figures, and new “lightbulb ideas.”

Here are the second half of my picks for the 50 top tweets from AFTA 2011:

26. @GordonJayFrost The #afta11 sessions on #philanthropy will be available on-demand: http://t.co/id3vwYc

27. @SheWhoTravels Go Marcus! RT“@artfulmanager Sidewalk Poetry project in St. Paul. Turning concrete into canvas. Wow. #afta11 http://t.co/b6mcrgK”

28. @trishamead oooh. Direct link to mobil-ready video trailer? I’m thinking how to maximize QR code on coffee s hop poster, i.e. #2amt #afta11

29. @crystalewallis oooh! RT @wkradio: #AFTA11 DO NOT be fooled into using QR Codes >>> Excellent design will always transmit more information. #techfads

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I wasn’t able to attend the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention this year, but I did get to participate in the next best thing: following the conversation on Twitter.

There were lots of great discussion and opinions. But unless you were following 24/7, you may have missed some gems.

So, I’ve gone through the entire stream of tweets using the hashtag #AFTA11 (all 2389 of them!) cut out all fat, and filtered them down to my picks for the top 50 most-useful tweets to me from AFTA 2011.

I say most useful because I wanted to separate out things that can be acted on, resources/measurements that can be explored, impactful facts and figures, and new “lightbulb ideas.”

A big thank you to these great posters for posting meaty tweets – If you like something you see, follow the author on Twitter.

So here goes, from oldest (public art pre-conference) to newest (end of conference) order…

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Open talk about new business models in the arts is a cultural signal. It’s a watermark that tells us the tides are shifting. Digital culture is eroding some of art’s traditional value proposition.

That’s not what worries me.

This does: Even if the arts can come to occupy a new role in people’s lives, will they will be able to communicate this role to attract new users—especially younger audiences?

Cultivating younger audiences will be important. They are the future. But using marketing messages and tactics from the past to reach them might mean that your organization—no matter what its business model, will not be around to see them join your ranks. 

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The good people at Hyundai have generously offered to help Americans for the Arts in curing our nation’s Crampomitosis problem. Never heard of it?

Here’s how Hyundai describes the condition:

"Millions of compact car drivers are fighting against leg-buckling Crampomitosis, caused by a chronic lack of leg room. These choice-starved people have knees riddled with teeth marks, toes pointing in impossible directions, and seemingly no choice when it comes to a comfortable car to drive."

Still wondering what in the world Crampomitosis has to do with Americans for the Arts? Let me explain. Clearly, Crampomitosis isn't really a medical condition. It’s actually Hyundai's way of giving back.

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On January 31, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman posted a blog about (1) the issue of supply and demand in the arts and (2) the ratio of arts administrators to artists.  I had the opportunity to augment the first point using additional data as well as clarify the second in my posting.  Because these are two issues that may arise for you, we thought it worth posting here so you have the facts at your fingertips.

An examination of years of trend data indicate that demand for the arts is indeed lagging supply. The good news is that it also indicates that audiences are not walking away from the arts, but rather broadening how they choose to engage in the arts.

There is also one noteworthy correction to be made in the Chairman’s numbers and thus, one of his points.

On the supply side:

In our annual National Arts Index report, released just two weeks ago, we track the Urban Institute’s count of registered nonprofit arts organizations as one of our 81 national-level indicators. In the past decade, the number of nonprofit arts organizations in the United States has grown 45 percent (75,000 to 109,000), a greater rate than all nonprofit organizations, which grew 32 percent (1,203,000 to 1,581,000). Or to take the more startling look, between 2003 and 2009, a new nonprofit arts organization was created every three hours in the U.S.

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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:

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From irreverent/provocative videos to sincere/humanizing videos, arts organizations are experimenting across the map with online video. NAMPC '10 video playlist is a collections of video campaigns from NAMPC '10 participants.Read More

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Whenever my mother or some other evolved being tells me "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" I have to stop myself from shaking them by the shoulders and saying,

"OK fine! You sit next to a screaming child on a plane.  And you're right, my journey is going to begin with one big fat single step - noise canceling headphones!"

Goodbye San Jose

For all of you who will be leaving the National Arts Marketing Project  Conference in San Joseand flying home and might find yourself in the unfortunate position of being seated next to a very loud little person, spend the two bucks for a headset and pump up the volume.

Here are some other travel tips:

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Like many before me and many to come, I came to Silicon Valley for the Chips -- specifically, Chip Heath, co-author of Made to Stick and Switch, and one of my heroes Chip Conley, owner of Joie de Vivre hotels (who I actually admitted to having a brain crush on via Twitter). Both Chips were keynotes at the 2010 National Arts Marketing Project Conference held in San Jose this weekend.

The first time I listened to Chip Conley (who tweeters at the conference have immortalized with the hash tag hotchip) and as I read Peak, I thought a lot about how Arts Alliance Illinois, primarily an arts advocacy organization, could “refresh the identity” of Illinois arts practitioners and leaders through advocacy.

But this time, maybe because I’m still thinking about Election Day, I was thinking about a Hierarchy of Needs for elected officials. Specifically, what is transformation for elected officials. If you were an elected official, what would it mean to be all you can be?

Before you begin the snarky comments, let me take a step back – for all of you wondering what the Hierarchy of Needs is, how this is connected to Chip Conley, and what it means to refresh an identity.

You may have heard the term “Hierarchy of Needs” in a psychology class or on your Lincoln-Douglas debate team if you’re a dork like me. Abraham Maslow, a professor of psychology, invented the term when he decided to shift the gaze of psychologists from the “worst case scenarios” in humanity to those living the happiest and most satisfying lives. He discovered a hierarchy of needs – from basic survival to transformation – that defines human existence. Here’s my rendition:

Photo credit: Flickr user Khalid Almasoud.

The bottom layer is all about physiological needs: food, drink, air, and sleep. Next up are your safety needs. Then there are needs related to love and belonging, followed by esteem needs. On top of the pyramid is self-actualizing, being all you can be.

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What's CRM?  And why are we talking about this at an arts marketing conference?

These questions inspired me to attend today's panel discussion: "The Brave New World of Customer Relationship Management Technology" to find out what CRM was all about, and hear how arts organizations are using it.

Illuminating the topic of customer relationship management in relation to the arts was Steven Roth, President of The Pricing Institute; Ruth Davidson, Director of External Affairs for ArtsEmerson: The World On Stage; and moderator Eugene Carr, Founder and President of Patron Technology who gave Brian Sayre, Director of Ticket Services for PlayhouseSquare's presentation (Brian was not able to make it to the conference).

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Let me begin this post by saying: If you're an arts marketer but aren't on Twitter, get an account before next year's conference in Louisville. I promise you that you will have a richer conference experience because of it. Seriously.

Why? Twitter brings people together. It's such a powerful, real-time communication tool that naturally facilitates dialogue. One of my favorite experiences at this conference is actually meeting people in person that I follow on Twitter. In a way, I actually feel more of an affinity towards them because of the fact that I've read their tweets! We're not just tweeting back and forth and never engaging in conversation in real life; if anything, Twitter is an online tool that actually facilitates face-to-face communication at events like conferences.

Twitter's also a great way to experience other parts of the conference, like other sessions or roundtables that you're not able to attend. It's pretty easy to take a general snapshot of how attendees are feeling just by monitoring what's going on with the event hashtag (which is #NAMPC10 for this conference). If there's a strong reaction, positive or negative, to something that's said in a session, you will know about it. You'll know what funny quotes are said, valuable insights are shared and random observations are made. Thanks to Twitter, I know I'm not the only one who was confused by the cricket chirp ringtone in one of the sessions!

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I have always wanted to be a cowgirl.  Never mind that I was a very tall Chinese American kid in a Jewish Italian neighborhood in Queens.  I still longed to be a wild and free cowgirl with great looking boots of course.    OK, there were not a whole lot of role models out there for me so I had to reinvent myself and my reality to fit my dream.
I still do.

Why is this important?
A lot of what I am hearing at this conference has to do with exactly that.  Reimagining, reinventing or experiences that we want to share with our audiences on all levels - marketing, the creative process, technology.  There is one idea that has struck me as something extremely unexpected and surprisingly effective.

Try this, design for failure.
Accept that whatever you do successfully today will be a failure tomorrow.  So plan to fail at strategic intervals where you can learn quicker, reinvent yourself and get a newer product out in the marketplace fast.  Consistently.  That is how you build presence and consumer confidence.  It is counterintuitive on all fronts.

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Chip Heath

I entered my undergrad as a double major in Broadcast Journalism and Public Relations, if only because I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do. During my sophomore year, I was called to film a number of intro segments for a small niche cable channel's series. Excited, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I headed to the studio, sat down in front of the camera and and got ready to film my first intro.

All I have to do is read the teleprompter. That's it. Shouldn't be too difficult, right? Okay, here we go...ugh, messed up. Can we do this again?

My voice was raspy, I was fumbling my words, I was nervous and in all honesty, I just didn't enjoy it. It didn't energize me the way I thought it would. In the end, they had me film one (ONE!) closing segment for the series where I read their website and phone number. I had, for all intents and purposes, failed, at least at reaching the goals both I and others had created for myself.

Succeeding is awesome. Knowing that you met your goals and that other people are happy with your product is amazing. But what happens when you fail? What do you do with those mistakes?

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BY: Terry S. Davis, UNM Center for the Arts

What do you do on a Monday night in Montgomery, Alabama?

If you had been like a lot of locals this week, you would have gone downtown to see the touring production of Fiddler on the Roof. On a Monday night. In Montgomery, Alabama.

I got to the Montgomery Performing Arts Center, pictured above, about 20 minutes before curtain surprised to see a crowd of people in the lobby. So many people were there that I could not make my way to the Will Call window to pick up my ticket.

They had not opened the house yet — some minor technical difficulties with the show that had arrived that morning and would depart after the curtain came down — which meant that all of us were packed into the lobby, which was quite large. A lot of people had come out on a Monday night in Montgomery, Alabama, to see a show.

What brings us out of our homes to the theater?

If I knew that answer, I’d be a featured speaker at the National Arts Marketing Project in San Jose. (It’s been a week of travels.) Several dozen arts marketers are going to gather in a room today to start discussing that very question. As long as I’ve been in this business, I confess I don’t always know the answer. Nor do the others who I will share a room with today, experts though many of them are.

Certainly we understand that people come out for the shared stories of theater, to hear, for example, the tale of a poor Jew in Russia struggling with maintaining balance and traditions in an ever-changing world. But why on a Monday night? Or, more to the point, why not?

In spite of the packed nature of their lobby, the Montgomery Performing Arts Center (MPAC) had not sold out the performance. The question for those of us in San Jose today will be what might we have done, had we been marketers for MPAC, to fill those seats that went empty that night.

Or the seats that went empty on Sunday night in Kansas City’s Music Hall for the performance of Cats I saw. Or the vacant seats in Bass Hall in Fort Worth for Spring Awakening on Tuesday. Or the unsold seats in Popejoy Hall we will have for many of our shows yet this season.

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On behalf of Americans for the Arts, I would like to thank all of our readers for stopping by our first ever arts marketing blog salon.  With almost 6,000 views, 73 comments, 15 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: New. Tech. New Tools. New Times.

I also want to extend a huge thank you to our bloggers:

• Chad Bauman
• Ben Burdick
• David Dombrosky
• Ron Evans
• Susannah Greenwood
• Amy Kweskin
• Clayton Lord
• Ian David Moss
• Amelia Northrup
• Deborah Obalil
• Brian Reich
• Kyle Semmel
• Brian Solis
• Mary Trudel
• Chloe Veltman

All their contributions were thoughtful, smart, relatable, and well presented.  They shared their ideas with ease and honesty, and I can’t wait to hear what they all have to say when they present at the NAMP Conference in San Jose, November 12-15.

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Oh, Chad Bauman you might be my new hero. Your insightful article on A Collection of Worst Practices was in a word, awesome. In another word, brave. Just one more word… awesome. Oh, wait, I already said that. Dammit. But, seriously, we’re brought up all our lives to believe mistakes are bad. You mess up that one term paper and it’s 40% of your grade and your GPA is affected for life, you’ll never get into grad school, you’ll never attract a spouse, you’ll end up miserable living in a ditch, a worthless piece of detritus and probably a total sot (not to be confused with Scale of Trustiness). What, your parents never used that argument? Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration, but so many times the consequences of mistakes are seemingly so monumental that you don’t take any risk at all. You never grow. And let’s be honest, sometimes those BEST practices don’t have the same results for you in your organization.

I’m here to support loud and clear MISTAKES. Boy, do I love sharing the mistakes. Sure they can be a bit of a sucker punch to the pride, but mistakes and sharing them are at the core of collaboration, education, and the continued drive for improvement and ultimate success. Hopefully your mistakes aren’t BP sized, no one wants that, but it’s easier to rise from the ashes if you just approach things with the attitude of practice makes perfect…or maybe not perfect, but very respectable progress and desired outcomes. When people say we are building on our “experience” what they really mean is, “we messed up a lot, but we won’t do that again. Not the same way at least.”

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I'm really enjoying the blog salon discussion by so many smart folks here on ARTSBlog. Technology in the Arts' David Dombrosky and I both decided to pick up the banner of discussing citizen reviewers and trusting online commentary. In his recent post, he talks about the need to educate citizen reviewers so they know how to write an intelligent review. And in my recent post, I talk about training people to trust what people are reviewing right now.

I thought this was a cool way to attack the problem, and people seemed to dig the perspectives via the comments they left. So I emailed David and asked is he wanted to join my on Skype and talk about these two ways of attacking the problem on a deeper level. You can listen in on the recorded convo below:

Ian David Moss (fellow ARTSBlog writer) also chimed in with some thoughts on how he and his friend Daniel Reid had considered some of these issues when it comes to some of the big “vote for your arts group to get a grant” challenges that are happening all over the place. Based on these conversations, I decided to take a crack at a simple rating system, let's call the “scale of trustiness” (or SOT -- let's bring the great word SOT back from its original meaning!) that you can store in your head when you're reading an online review for an arts event. You won't need to remember any number of points or anything -- it's enough that you just consider a particular review on the SOT scale, and if you're weighing two shows to go to, perhaps each review's SOT score can help you decide what to attend.

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Reading over the blog entries this week, particularly David Dombrosky's entry on the rise of the citizen critic and Ron Evans' post on online reviews, I was reminded of an experience I had a few years ago when our local paper cut its classical music and dance critic.  I had a meeting with many of the marketing directors in the city, who were understandably upset about the firing and convinced that their success was inextricably linked with newspaper coverage.

Many of these people had been in marketing for 30 years. When they first started out in the business, the primary marketing channels were TV, radio, and newspaper (and maybe billboard, telemarketing, or fax.) When a new medium was introduced, it might take a while to master, but that was fine.  The learning curve was viewed as an investment because you knew that medium would still be around in five years.

Compare that to now.  We have new, “must-have” technology platforms coming out nearly every 6 months to a year.  Today, we are being pushed toward mobile apps for phones and iPads, geolocation social media like Foursquare, and more.  We are not sure if these technologies will still be popular in three months, let alone five yea

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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.

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Earlier in this blog salon, Mary Trudel advocated connecting with audiences via mobile technology.  CTIA, the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry, recently revealed that mobile phone market penetration in the United States reached 93% for the nation’s total population in June 2010.  With usage numbers like that, there is no doubt that arts organizations should be investing in mobile engagement.

The dilemma lies in whether to invest in a mobile website or a mobile application.  If your organization’s budget allows you to invest in both, then you need not read any further.  Congrats!  However, if your organization’s budget dictates that you choose between investing in a mobile website or a mobile app, then here are some things to consider.

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In my last post, I talked about one reason that arts marketers are becoming increasingly important to the cultural ecosystem. Here, I'm going to talk about another - though I'm warning you, this one is going to be a bit of a downer.

ArtsJournal's Doug McLennan has written and spoken extensively about the implications for arts institutions of the face that we live in an era of infinite choice: suddenly, and within a very short period of time, the quantity and variety of aesthetic experiences that are available to us has exploded beyond all recognition. In their Green Paper on digital infrastructure for the creative economy, Fractured Atlas, Future of Music Coalition, and the National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture pointed to the role of "disintermediation" in making this phenomenon possible, defining it as "the fracturing of the system of bottlenecks and gatekeepers that controlled some of the major means of production, distribution and access to audiences." More than ever before, it is possible for content creators (and their marketers) to have meaningful, direct interaction with consumers dispersed across diverse cultures, geographies, and social networks. For those just seeking to break in for the first time and who don't need a mass market to stay afloat, this change is nothing short of inspiring: an opportunity to reach audiences faster and with less interference from tastemakers than could ever have been possible otherwise. For more established institutions with networks of artists and professional staff to support, however, the ramifications range from mixed to terrifying, as the sudden rush to enter the marketplace brought on by these lowered barriers creates unprecedented competition for consumer attention and dollars.

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