Questioning Arts Marketing

Want to immediately improve your arts marketing?

Do this.

When creating your next marketing plan ask yourself, "What question am I trying to answer?"

Here's what I mean:

When I started the season at the day job, my question was:

I see that our audiences like direct mail pieces, if I do two direct mail pieces (instead of one)and designed them in a different way what would that do?

For the next event the question was:

I know that I need to phase out our newspaper advertising, what alternative forms of marketing could I do that wouldn't hurt sales?

For the next two shows my question is:

Can I effectively two shows at once?  If I do that can I make the money stretch further then I could if I marketed the shows one at a time?

You get the idea.

So when I start marketing an artistic event I have two goals in mind:

1.  To reach my financial projection.

2.  To get an answer to my question.

I find this approach effective because it forces me to see my marketing as something more then "sell this show, sell that show."  It turns each show into a mini investigation where I'm trying to find out more about my audience and what works for them.

So give it a try and let me know if it helps

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Tony]

I would love to hear what you've tested as an alternative to newspaper advertising, and how you think that's fared.

[Adam Thurman]

The biggest things we are doing is increasing our online presence with things like banner ads and doing more email advertising. To be specific:

1. Purchasing banner ads on sites like Metromix.com and the Tribune Theatre Loop

2. Doing email list exchanges with groups like the Chicago Humanities Festival and the Chicago Tribune.

It's a bit early to see how those things have fared for The Wild Duck, but I'll post some lessons from the experience as soon as I get them.

[Tony]

That'd be interesting to hear the results.

I talked to Chris Jones a while back ans was struck by something he said. I asked if there was a difference between his online readership and his print readers.

He said yes, the print readers got to the theatre. And his online readership was (at that time) mostly inside folks who didn't go as much.

I wonder how that has changed since then, or if it has?

[Adam]

Tony,

Chris could be right, which is why didn't invest that much of our resources into the banner ad.

I see it like buying a billboard at a high traffic intersection. No one gets business just because of the billboard, but if you mix the billboard with all the other stuff it becomes a bit more effective.