The Mission Paradox Blog

An oath of loyalty

At the day job, I just executed the single most effective marketing tactic that I'll use all year.

It wasn't a brilliant visual rebranding (even though that may be coming)

It wasn't a innovative viral marketing campaign

It was a letter.

To be exact, it was a letter to our subscribers asking them to renew their subscriptions for the upcoming season.

That letter is responsible for generating somewhere between 30% and 40% of all the earned revenue we will make this year.

Of course you are smart enough to know that it wasn't the letter itself that generated the response, it was the relationship we have built with the audience over the past 50 years.

There's really only one way to accomplish that sort of loyalty in the arts.  You have to define what your promise to the consumer is and then deliver on that promise over and over agaim.

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You do remember that is what a brand is, right?  A brand is a promise. 

So in that sense we all have a brand.  We all have something that we promise to people, for better or worse.

And one of the biggest reasons a lot of emerging (and established) arts orgs are struggling is because either they haven't made a promise with their audience, or they don't deliver on that promise anymore, or no one really likes the promise they made in the first place.

I see it all the time.  The young theatre that comes out with the five paragraph mission statement that raves about artistic quality and such, then they program a season that becomes one massive ego stroke for the people in the theatre.  Their programming is so all over the place that no one has a clue what to expect.

I can hear you out there though, "what about artistic freedom?" you cry, "what about risk taking?"

Thus, a reminder . . . you can be risky, once people trust you.

You can take people to an unexpectated artistic place, once people trust you.

And building that trust can take a little while.

Night and Day Responses . . .

To the post below (Power Play).

First from The Director:

I think it's the title of the workshop, "Board Governance as Leadership".

A) That sounds boring
B) It sounds like something the head admin/owner/producer of the theatre should attend, not the individual artists.

If it were titled "Making an Organization Work" or something, that might encourage artists to attend. Everyone, artist included, has an interest in making the organization work, but only admins care about "board governance".

Make sense?

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And Then From Scott Walters

The fear of "boredom" -- of anything that might require patience and concentration -- is what keeps so many theatre artists from really taking control of their work, not to mention their art. They don't read reports, or much that is difficult to understand. As a result, we end up with superficial plays performed by superficial actors directed by superficial directors. And then we wonder why nobody is in the audience.

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And people wonder why I love Scott. :)

Couple of thoughts from me:

1.  The Director's point is well taken.  They could have done a better job of making the workshop sound interesting and useful enough to attract a wider audience.

2.  But here's the problem (and this goes into Scott's point) . . . Board Governance just isn't that interesting.  It is however, a VITAL part of most arts organizations and any artists that doesn't attempt to understand those dynamics is probably at a disadvantage.  This is true whether you are running a nonprofit with a Board, or just looking to work as a performer with a nonprofit that has a Board.

The most successful artists I know (in terms of career success, artistic success, etc.) are people who deeply understand how a nonprofit arts org works.  Whether they see the Board as a necessary evil, or a key part of the team, they understand the Board Governance process, fundraising process, etc.

Power Play

I think we I found most interesting at my weekend at the Americans for the Arts Conference was a thought that occured to me during on of the workshops.

The topic was Board Governance as Leadership and the presenter was having the audience introduce themselves.  The audience was all arts administrators, not a single artist in the room.

This struck me as odd.  Why wouldn't artists be interested in learning about new models of Board Governance?

Alright, I know why they wouldn't . . . but shouldn't more artists be interested in that sort of thing?  Even assuming these artists plan on hiring arts administrators to actual run the Board, shouldn't they have at least a general (and hopefully deeper) knowledge of how Board's run and how they may run in the future?

I look at it this way, I work in theatre and thus I must have a basic understand of the artistic process in theatre or else I will do things under my role as an admin that messes everything up.  I wonder if artists feel that same sense of commitment on understanding the role of admins?  I know some of them do.  I just wonder how why spread it is?

See you in Philly . . . .

Between this week's workshop with the Univ. of Chicago and my trip to Philly for the Americans for the Arts Conference, there will be no posts this week.  See you next Tuesday with a new post.

Being a Pro

One of my favorite books is the War of Art.  And one of my favorite chapters in the book is when author Steven Pressfield talks about "turning pro". 

I got to admit, I love professionals.  And when I say that, I don't mean doctors, lawyers, etc.  As Steven points out those are "professions" but the people in them aren't necessarily professionals.

To me a professional is someone in any field willing to put in the effort and learn the skills necessary to be really good at whatever they do.

I have been thinking about that as I finalize next week's workshop.  Whenever I do this sort of thing, I'm always looking at the audience and trying to separate the professionals from the amateurs.

One of the ways I do that is by seeing how they cope with some of the complex and challenging issues that inevitably come up when I do these types of programs.

The pros take a complex issue and do their best to work through the issues and (with help from me and everyone in the room) try to come up with their own answers.

The amateurs want the answers to be given to them.

They just want to be told in which two newspapers to place their print ads . .  they have no interest in understand the logic behind those decisions.

Now on one level I understand those feelings.  If my kitchen sink breaks, I don't want the plumber to go in-depth to explain the problem . . . I just want it fixed.

But you would be amazed at how many people who are in charge of marketing who just want answers.  That approach works for a while . . . until they come up against a problem that goes beyond a simple answers . . . then they are screwed.

Mutual Exclusivity?

It's ironic that during a week when someone else mentions a postI did about audience development that I would come across an interesting challenge in that area.

Alright, so here's the story.

One of the cool parts about my day job is that I have access to plenty of data that I can use to both make marketing decisions and figure why some decisions I made worked or didn't work.

So as we enter the final week of a show, I decide to check to see how many first time ticket buyers we had for the show.

Turns out that for this particular show almost 60% of the ticket buyers were first time ticket buyers, meaning they had never seen a show there before.

When you work at an arts institution that has been around for over 50 years, having any sort of success at building new audience is cause for celebration . . . when over half your audience is new . . .that's pretty damn cool.

So that's the good news, our goal for this show was to build a relationship with a new audience and we did.

But there's a flip side to that.  The theatre's regular patrons didn't support the show as much as we expected.

So to put it simply, we got new folks but couldn't convince regular patrons to take a chance on the show.

This helps to demonstrate the tricky balance many arts organizations have between building new relationships and strengthening existing ones. 

It's like a rock band.  They start up by building a core following, then they get popular and the core leaves because they aren't the "band they remember".

It doesn't allows happen that way.  But sometimes it does.

So what am I going to do about balancing new and existing audiences?  Don't know yet.  I need to see if this is an actual problem, or just an one time event but it something I'll be watching closely (and something you should think about in your own organizations)

The limits of the Internet

Just a quick reminder that while the Internet is a fantastic way to get feedback and thoughts from the public, there are clearly some limits to how helpful those thoughts can be.

Need an example?  Got just the thing.

Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre just announced that one of their ensemble members, David Schwimmer, a guy some of you may know . . . is being featured in an upcoming production of Our Town.

Chicago Tribune theatre guru Chris Jones posted the news on his blog.  A blog that accepts public comments.  And you can check out those comments here.

Or I can save you the trouble and say that 70% of the comments at the time I posted the link were just folks hatin' on Lookingglass, or Schwimmer, or both.

This is the dark side of the Internet and it is part of the reason why sites like Amazon.com that rate the reviewers are so trusted.

So just remember to take things you read, or hear about on the Net with the appropriate grain o' salt.

 

Workshop reminder . . . and a few questions answered

We are less then two weeks away from the marketing workshop in Chicago.  It sounds like a chessy informercial to say spots are filling up fast, but they are, so if you want in click the link and sign up.

Couple of folks have asked me about the workshop so let me give those answers here:

Q:  Will you be the notes from the workshop be available online?

I'm going to try and create some sort of notes that can be helpful to people who can't make the workshop, but since this thing is happening over 3 days, it's going to be difficult for me to keep track of it all.  Also, I'm going to be tailoring the presentation to the groups that attend, so the notes may not even be that helpful. 

Q:  I don't live in Chicago but I still want to be help with marketing, what can I do?

I do offer both private and group coaching on marketing that can be done via conference call.  Typically the program lasts for 2 hours a week and goes about 4-6 weeks depending on what your needs are.  I keep the price for that type of coaching pretty reasonable.  So if you are in Texas, for example, and you and three of your artist friends need some marketing coaching we can set it up pretty easily.

If you need more info, contact me at mission.paradox@yahoo.com

How much should I spend on marketing?

As I finalize the marketing budget for my day job, it gives me a chance to discuss the question that troubles many artists, how much should I spend on marketing?

If you have been following the blog for a while, you know that the most honest answer I can give you is "it depends", but I know that isn't helpful so let me provide a few specific things for you to consider while you are making your decision:

1.  What are you trying to accomplish with your marketing?

Of course you are trying to reach a certain sales goal but what else are you trying to do?  For example, with the current show we are producing we want to hit our sales goal AND diversify our audience.  That helps to inform not only how much money we want to spend but also where we should spend it.

2.  What's your return on investment (ROI) for marketing?

People make determing ROI more complex then it needs to be.  The calculation can be very simple.

For example, I can look at our numbers and determine that for every $1 we spend on marketing (which includes marketing salaries, printing, etc.) we get about $2 back in the form of subscriptions or single ticket sales.  Again that number isn't perfect but it's good enough for our analysis.

Your number may be closer to getting $1.10 back for every $1 spent.  It might even be negative, so for every $1 spent you are getting 0.85 back.

The key is that you determine what your number is . . . BUT DON'T JUDGE THE NUMBER.

So if it turns out that you are spending $1 to get 0.85 that doesn't automatically mean your marketing is not working.

It may just mean that your goal for the next year is to spend $1 to get 0.90.  Remember, most arts organizations are nonprofit so losing money is technically ok.  If you're a for profit artist then you should absolutely be more concerned if your marketing is losing money.

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The key when it comes to spending money on marketing is that you should never, EVER, spend a dollar on marketing without knowing why you are doing it.

If you decide to put a print ad in Newspaper X versus Newspaper Y you have got to know why you are doing that.

I'd wager that 60-70% of people doing arts marketing are doing it unconsciously, meaning they are spending money without knowing why.

They spend money this year because that's what they did last year.

They spend money one way because that's what every other group in their industry does.

That's unconscious marketing.  And it is costing you time and money.  Avoid it at all times.