"Adam, we really want to engage our audience."
During my younger days, I would accept this sort of statement without question. Now at the wise old age of 33, I'm a bit more skeptical.
For some artists and arts organizations, "enaging the audience" is just a slang term for "find a way to get more cash out of them."
It's much easier to do effective marketing when you assume that your audience is as least as smart as you, if not smarter.
They recognize legit efforts to learn more about them and serve them better. Of course, they may not recognize those things right away . . . so you need to keep plugging at it for a while.
On the other side, your audience has their BS meter turned up TO THE MAX. They have gotten so used to groups that just want their money (but otherwise could not care less about them) that their impluse is to place almost everything (including your art) into that category.
So if you're interested in true audience engagement you have to do what engagement requires:
Listen to your audience.
Make changes based on what your audience is telling you.
That's what engagement is. You use all the tools available to actively listen to folks and then you make appropriate changes.
Anything less is a lie.
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