The Mission Paradox Blog

More on Good Public Relations

My last post on PR sparked some questions, so let's tackle them.

How do you determine what the value of a particular piece of PR is?  For example, if I get an article in the newspaper can I put a dollar value on that sort of exposure?

You can, but that doesn't mean it is the right value.  Let's take an example.  Take a look at this article that covers Court Theatre's gala.  The article is from Crain's Business, a periodical targeted toward Chicago's business professionals.

Let's stipulate that Court wouldn't have got the article without some excellent PR work.  Let's also assume the article took up about 1/3 of a printed page.

How do we value that?  We could look up what it would cost to put in a 1/3 of a page ad in Crain's and use that value.

We could say that the value of the article is much higher because the people reading it are the type of people who could afford to spend $10,000 purchasing a table at the next Court theatre gala.

When I think about the value of PR I also think about it in the terms of the narrative we are telling the public about a particular show we are doing and whether the PR helped that narrative or hurt it.

For example, when we produced Carousel at Court Theatre, part of what we wanted to tell the public was how different the show would be from other versions of the show we had seen in the past.

From that perspective, every piece of PR we got that helped that narrative along worked.  If the PR didn't help that narrative, or hurt it, then it was less effective. 

It is also important to understand that there is only so much control you will ever have on PR that is created by reporters, bloggers, etc.  So no matter how hard you may try to get one story out there, you still may end up with another.

My stance, further explained

There are no good or bad places to place arts organizations.  None. 

There are only places, all of which provide unique challenges and opportunities.

If you are going to open a theatre in Chicago then you need to ask a set of questions:

Why here?

Why now?

What's my strategy for success?

If you open a theatre in the Providence, RI you have to address the same set of questions:

Why here?

Why now?

What's my strategy for success?

The issue I have with many arts organization is that:

1.  Never ask themselves those questions or

2.  Don't continually ask themselves those questions.

The environment your organization was in 5 years ago is probably dramatically different then it is now so you need to constantly re-thinking your strategy.

Never too many

There has been some discussion in the arts blog world about whether a city can have too many arts organization.

Here's my stance, there can never be too many arts organizations that are doing unique, innovate work.

There can never be too many arts organizations that are trying to develop new models of doing business.

Daniel Pink Lecture Online

In a previous post I mentioned how great Daniel Pink's lecture as when I saw it in D.C. 

Well the good news is that the audio of the lecture is now online.  Take 45 minutes out your day and click this link to listen.

If the link doesn't open you can find it at the Americans for the Arts homepage.

The "Who's Next" Theory

A lot of the organizations I coach are small to midsized arts groups.  They often are having serious challenges building a Board of Directors.  I always start the conversation about a Board by asking them . . .

"What type of people do you want on your Board?"

Sometimes this questions stops them dead in their tracks.

This is a bad sign.

Other times they start mentioning the names of all the heavy hitters in their town, civic leaders, CEO's etc.

My next question is always . . .

"Why would any of those people want to join your Board?"

You can imagine how well that question goes over. 

I can remember one person who said that even asking that question was an insult because it implied that their art was less worthy then others.

I understand that sort of reaction, but I think it misses the point a bit.  There is a ton of good, worthy, quality art out there.  Really, there is.

Having good art is the starting point, not the end point, particularly when it comes to attracting Board members.

Those "high powered" Board members many arts organizations crave are probably already taken by other nonprofit orgs and it is normally incredibly difficult to get them to leave groups they are already supporting to join yours.

(Note:  This doesn't mean that you shouldn't ask these folks to donate money to your group . . . just that you shouldn't necessarily count on them joining your Board.)

So if you can't get those folks, who can you get to join the Board?

Enter the "Who's Next" theory.  Let me use an example to explain it . .

------------------------

Your arts org wants to put a lawyer on the Board.  You go to the website of the biggest firm in your town and start researching.

Your search immediately takes you to the big time lawyers in the firm, the equity partners.

Stop searching.  Re-think your strategy.  Instead of looking at the top of the food chain ask yourself this one question:

"Who's next?"

Don't worry about who the current top dogs at the firm are.  Look around and take a guess about who the NEXT top dogs at the firm are.

Those are the people you want.

So you start looking at the other lawyers.  You read some bios and you see a target:

She's maybe 35 years old, her bio lists interest in arts (maybe she played cello in college).  Her body of work at the firm suggests that she may be upwardly mobile . . .

And even better, her bio lists that she is only on one nonprofit Board.  Which means she could have room for another.

There's your Board prospect.

Here's the beauty of this approach.  It allows both the organization and the Board to grow together.

You're just hitting your growth cycle . . . and so are they.

5 years from now your arts group is much stronger.

And that lower level associate is now on track to become that equity partner that you couldn't reach 5 years ago. 

So next time you are looking for Board members, remember the Who's Next theory.

More Effective Public Relations

Here's a few thoughts on how to make your public relations efforts more effective, this is particularly for those that can't afford to outsource their PR.

1.  PR is about more then press - Most people think PR is just about getting your story in the local TV or newspaper.  It can be much more then that if you want it to be.  PR is about having good relationships with anyone who can help spread the word about what you are doing, that can be a blogger with a following just as much as a newspaper critic.

2.  Concentrate your efforts - You probably don't have a lot of time to invest in PR, but that's ok.  Before starting your PR campaign you should think of the top 4-5 people that you want to have cover your work, then spend your efforts getting to know them.  Yes, that may mean that you are leaving a lot of good potential PR sources behind, but if you are doing it yourself that may be your only option.

3.  Get to know your PR sources - Before pitching an idea to the media you have to know if it fits that person's interest.  I know some media folks and nothing upsets them more then having someone pitch them a story that has exactly 0% chance of running becase it either:

• Isn't news
• Doesn't fit that reports interest
• Is happening too soon for the reporter to cover

It's about Orchestra . . . but it's still useful!

Click here for a very interesting article about how orchestra's are working to increase their attendance.  The thoughts and lessons from it are useful no matter what your chosen art form is.

Marketing and Emotion

Changing a brand. 

Redesigning a logo.

Those can often be deeply emotional decisions.  Particularly in the arts. 

Sometimes I forget this.  Then I get a reminder like the one I got a few days ago.  I was helping someone to rethink their marketing strategy and she started to tear up a little bit.

My coaching isn't designed to make people cry so I asked what was wrong. 

She said that the emotion came from two things:

The first was the feeling that she had been doing the marketing (of the company she founded) incorrectly for such a long time.

She felt like she had wasted a lot of time.

The second reason was because even though her old marketing strategies were a bit off, they were still HER strategies and she couldn't help but cling to them a little.

Marketing is about (among other things) transferring emotion from the organization to the consumer.

Sometimes you have to overcome your own emotions to get that done.                                                                                                                                                               

Hello to my new readers from the Creative Chicago Expo

I hope you guys enjoyed my presentation on Word of Mouth marketing and I'm glad you decided to swing by the blog.  Here's the basics:

This blog is updated pretty much daily with thoughts related to marketing the arts.  Because I work in theatre, some of the post may seem a little theatre centric but I really work hard to make sure my thoughts apply to any art form.

If you like what you see feel free to subscribe to the blog using the link on the left side of the page, or just bookmark it and come on by whenever you have a little time to kill.

Here are some posts to get you started:

All Art is Local

Buying Arts Advertising - Because advertising isn't bad, it just doesn't sell, it reminds.

Is an artist with no audience still an artist?

The artist of the future

What if it ain't what you think it is

Art As The Hub - The post that inspired the speech

NOTE:  If you attended the workshop, I gave out notes on my presentation.  I have re-did those notes a little bit.  If you want the slightly revised (and I think better) version of the notes, email me at mission.paradox@yahoo.com

Finding Your Way Home Again

I'm pretty sure that there is some sort of rule that all marketing folks must love Starbucks, or at least Starbucks branding. 

In many ways it is a classic story.  Small company becomes big, then becomes HUGE . . . and starts to lose touch with the things that made it successful in the first place.

Is there a parallel in the arts?  Sure.  How many arts organizations can you think of that quickly shot to the top and then started to slowly, but surely, disconnect with what made is special.

There are a thousand reasons why this happens, economics, ego, you name it.

I think what Starbucks can teach us is how to find the path back home.

At it's core, Starbucks was always about two things, quality coffee products and a good environment to drink it in.

The rapid expansion of stores, the journey's into the music and book biz, all of that started to take away from what Starbucks was really about.   

So when push came to shove, Starbucks cut off all the things that took them away from their core focus.

You may want to consider doing the same.