The Mission Paradox Blog

Arts Marketing 101 - Measure Up

Real marketers love data.

They may not always be able to get a lot of it.  But what they get, they use.

The ability to get and analyze data is actually one of the few really strong reasons to engage in social marketing, web based marketing, etc.

This tools have the ability to be tracked and measure.  This can make all the difference when it comes to using them effectively.

Let me share an example of how a bit of data can help you make a good decision.

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At my day job we have created a lot of content to support an upcoming production.

The problem was that not a lot of people were reading the content.

How did we know?  A member of my team broke out the Google analytics and checked what parts of the website were getting hits.  The special content page wasn't one of them.

Now that we had some data the question became, "what to do?"

Someone else came up with the answer.  Take a look at the website.  Notice that button that says "Look Inside".

That button wasn't there before. 

Before, the only way you could get to the special content we created was by clicking a link on the left side of a different page.

Someone suggested we create another way to get to the content.  That became the button on the main page.

It worked.  The number of hits to our special content immediately increased.

If someone hadn't been tracking the hits we would have had no idea our content wasn't being notice.

That's just one small way a measurement and tracking tool like analytics can help you make good choices.

 

 

Quote of the Day

"As a result of the tsunami of pretty good (and the persistence of really lousy) the market for truly exceptional is better then ever."

- Seth Godin "Linchpin"

Haters

Here's the important thing to remember about the internet.

It's . . . the internet.  A place where negativity thrives.

You see this often in the arts.  We love to talk about what sucks and who sucks.

Do a blog post or video about how everyone (except you and your friends) are money hungry, artistically deprive sellouts and you can almost see people racing in to add their two pennies.

Here's something I noticed:

I have rarely seen an artist or arts administrator who constantly criticizes others that has had  any real success in their own career.

Have you noticed that?

Have you noticed that those who judge others the harshest also do the crappiest art or run the most lackluster arts organizations?

I'm pretty sure those things are correlated.

This is a tough world that we operate in.  Let's be gentle with each other.

 

 

Tools of Destruction

Marketers are very good at taking useful tools and breaking them.

Let's look at email marketing for example.  When it started it was an effective way for almost any organization to reach people quickly and cheaply.

Then people started spamming, engaging in all sorts of deceptive practices, sending out repetitive and self serving emails, etc.

After a while, email marketing was essentially broken.

Can you still do email marketing?  Of course.  It just takes more skill, dedication and thought then it used too.

The good news is that if you are willing to put a bit of extra effort in it, the benefits can be tremendous.

Effective use of any communication tool makes you stand out.  Mostly this is because a LOT of people use them very poorly.

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It looks like marketers have broken social media as well.

A respected research company just published a survey with some fascinating results:

Since 2008, the number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of consumer and business information has dropped by half, from 45% to 25%.

Remember how people said that all you needed for effective marketing was a Facebook page and bunch of "friends" who raved about your work? 

That may have been true a while back, but it isn't now.

In our rush to exploit another cheap and effective marketing tool, we begged people who knew nothing about us to become our "fans".  Companies started paying people to brag about them on Twitter.

And now social media runs the risk of being broken.

This creates opportunity for you.

If you decide to be thoughtful and strategic in your use of social media . . .

If you go for having true friends instead of the stupid grab for digital "bodies" that so many groups engage in . . .

If you use the tools for authentic, two way communication instead of the all too common PLEASE LOOK AT ME approach that we see online . . .

Then you have a real opportunity to stand out.

Sometimes, great marketing comes just by taking advantage of other people's mistakes.

Looks like now is one of those times.

Authentic Arts Marketing: Preview #1

For the next several weeks I'll be sharing some of the ideas that are the core of my upcoming e-book, Authentic Arts Marketing.  Even those of you too cheap to buy the book should find these posts helpful.

Just kidding.

Alright, let's get to it.

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Ideas that spread, win.

That's the thought that helped me to see marketing in a different way.  When I read it in one of Seth Godin's books, I was forever changed.

Our job is to spread ideas . . . not art.

To understand why that's important it's good to remember what we are up against.

When I talk to art organizations about their competition, then mention other organizations.

That's not really our competition.

Our competition is the status quo.

It's entertainment that is, in many cases . . . cheaper to access, more convienent and easier to customize then what we offer.

When an individual play, or painting, or dance routine goes up against the status quo it typically loses. 

There are exceptions to this of course.  When a particular piece of art is really exceptional and remarkable it can overcome the status quo through sheer force of creativity.

This is, by definition, a rare thing.

What's more common is very good, even great art, created by very passionate people, that gets washed out by the status quo.

Your art probably need something more.  It needs a sense of purpose.  It needs to be rooted in a set of core values  . . . and it needs to the world to know about that purpose and those values.

That's what authentic arts marketing is all about.

 

 

 

 

Arts Marketing 101 - Social Media Selection

My four presentations or workshops, including the one I'm doing in a few weeks, have all been about social media.

This reflects the level of interest people have on the topic, so I'm going to spend a few Friday's talking about it.

One question I often get is about selection.

There are so many social media outlet and a lot of confusion about what people should or shouldn't use.

The starting point for making selection decisions should always be this one:

What do you like?

To be more specific, what social media tools do you (or the person in charge of such things) actually enjoy doing?

The enjoyment factor is key because any media tool takes a lot of time, work and dedication.

So do what's fun for you and leave the rest behind.

Don't think you have to have a large presence on Facebook if you don't enjoy the process of getting that presence.

Don't jump on Twitter because you think everyone else is.  If doing a fairly large string of short messages doesn't appeal to you, then let it go.

Start with what's fun for you or your organization.

Small and Talented

One of the frustrating parts about writing a blog is that it's difficult to show how the various ideas I present over time fit together.  That's one of the reasons I'm writing a book.

But I have an opportunity now to put two ideas together, so let me go ahead and do it.

In this post I talked about how artists have to actively make a decision to either be a small organization or a big one.

In this post, I talked about the importance of building a work environment that can attract and maintain great talent. 

If you put those ideas together here's a reasonable conclusion:

The smaller you are, the more talented each individual member of the organization needs to be.

If you've got an administrative and artistic staff of only a handful of people, you can't afford to have any slackers.  You need strong people at every spot.

I mention this because I work with so many small arts organization that think all this "work environment" stuff is something they can deal with later . . . once they have a little money and experience under their belt.

Nope.  It's something you need to deal with right now.

That arts organization with 60 paid full time staff can afford to have a few people, maybe more then a few people, who are riding the coattails of others.

You don't have that luxury.

Being small and being talented has to go hand-in-hand.

 

Left Out

Good marketing includes and excludes.

It makes it clear that a particular artistic event is for certain types of people and ISN'T for others.

I know we hate the idea of excluding people.  We believe art is supposed to be an inclusive thing.  It's supposed to be for everybody.

But nothing is for everybody.

Every effective mission, whether it the battle to elect a President or the quest to sell soda pop, is based on gathering certain people.  That implies that others must be left out.

The question is, are you clear about the audience you want and the audience you don't want?

Trust me, the only thing worse then having no audience is having the wrong type of audience.

Messing up the Narrative

I was thrilled to see that Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago was honored by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Top Small Workforces in America.  They are the first nonprofit arts organization to receive such an honor.

I hope Steppenwolf talks a lot about how they won that award because if they do, they may help to reveal one of the deepest, darkest secrets of the arts world:

Many arts organizations are bad places to work for.

And if you think I'm just talking about not paying people much money, you're wrong.

When researcher Richard Florida asked 20,000 creative professionals what motivated them to give their best at work, here were the Top 10 factors (in order)

1.  Challenge and responsibility

2.  Flexibility

3.  A stable work environment

4.  Money

5.  Professional development

6.  Peer recognition

7.  Stimulating colleagues and bosses

8.  Exciting job content

9.  Organizational culture

10.  Location and community

(h/t to Seth for providing this list in his book Linchpin)

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Money is fourth on the list and there are plenty of non-monetary factors that organizations of any size could use to keep people motivated and attract top talent, both administrative and artistic.

Organizations that can create an environment which provides those 10 things (in varying degrees of course) are more profitable, able to effectively accomplish their mission, have less employee turnover and can sustain themselves much longer . . . then organizations that fail at providing those things.

Yet we continue to operate under this myth that artistic talent is all that matters.

We continue to believe that just because a person can direct a play, or choreograph an exciting dance routine . . . they are automatically qualified to build and lead an organization.

No matter how times we see great artists come together and then fall apart before their time we continue to believe that all we ned is "better art" and everything will be fine.

It's time for us to elevate our conversation.

It's time for us to understand that without organization, infrastructure and all those other words that upset immature artists . . . it's virtually impossible to do your best work over the long haul.

Go back and look at that list of 10 motivators.

Then really look at your organization and think about how your coworkers would rank each of those factors.  It may be the most important discovery you make.

You can't separate the art from the environment it is created in. 

Build a supportive environment for your artists and administrators.  The art you seek will be soon to follow.

 

Stronger then ever

This isn't the time for half measures.

Right now your focus has to be on making the strongest artistic choice possible.

Not the most expensive or least expensive.

Not the riskiest or the safest.

Not the choice that's going to allow you to move on to the next choice.

Now is the time to do the work that you believe you are the best at.

Now is the time to do the work that's going to make people think, cry and feel.

Anything less is a waste of your time and a waste of the audience's time.