The Mission Paradox Blog

The Power of Small Words

Decades ago, a shampoo marketer doubled the sales of shampoo by adding a single world to the bottle.

Before the instructions on the bottle said:  Lather, rinse.

After the marketer got to it the bottle said:  Lather, rinse, REPEAT.

Sometimes a few small words can make all the difference.

Here's another example, this time in the arts

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Like any good marketer, I send out emails to our list, promoting upcoming shows.

When we would design the emails, I would list the dates and times of upcoming shows.

So the email would say something like:

UPCOMING SHOWS

Sept 11 - 7:30pm

Sept 12 - 8:00pm

Sept 13 - 8:00pm

Simple right?

Now let's remember that the purpose of the email is to get people to call and buy tickets.  That's the action we want them to take after reading the email. 

I was thinking about ways to do that.  Then I remembered the power of a few small words.

My next email I sent out looked like this

UPCOMING SHOWS

Sept 11 - 7:30pm   LIMITED AVAILABILITY

Sept 12 - 8:00pm  ALMOST SOLD OUT!

Just adding a few words to create a sense of urgency around the email led to a significant increase in sales.

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Sometimes effective marketing is about big changes.

Sometimes it is about small changes.

And one of the quickest changes you can make to your marketing is changing the way you talk about a particular artistic event/product.

So here's something you can do today.  Find one piece of copy that you use.  Maybe it's a blurb you use on your website to discuss an upcoming arts exhibition.  Maybe it's a tag line you use in a print ad.

Then change the copy.  If it was formal, make it informal.  If it was designed to be funny, make it serious.

Don't worry, you can always change it back if it isn't working for you.

But you may be surprised at the impact a few words can have.

 

 

Beware the empty house: Part 1

An empty seat.

As an arts marketer, I hate those damn things.

Every time I see an empty seat I think of money lost . . . of opportunity lost.

So while I except that empty seats are a fact of life for 99.5% of the artists and arts orgs our there, I still don't like them.

But I have an additional, slightly different, reason for hating empty seats.

You'll hear people often talk about the negative psychological effect an empty house has on the artists on stage . . . and you'll certainly hear about the effect it has on the bottom line.

But what I have noticed over the years is that an empty house has it's biggest negative impact on the few people who decided to see your show that night.

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I think back to my Executive Director days.  It was a bad night for us.  We had maybe 20-30 people in a venue that held 220.  To me, that's empty.

The Chairmen of our Board showed up that night (isn't that always how it works?) and he pulled me to the side.

I expected a lecture about the low attendance and I got it, but not the way I expected.

He said "Adam, you've got to get more people in here, because if you don't, the few people that DO show up will think they made a bad decision by coming here."

That statement is actually deeper then it appears. 

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Let's say you are watching TV.  You turn to a basketball game.  When you turn to the game you see a TON of empty seats.  Yeah, there are a few people there . . . but mostly you see empty seats.

What's your first impression of the home basketball team?

That they aren't very good.  Otherwise more people would be there.

So if someone buys a ticket to your dance recital and they walk in the venue and only see a few people in the seats, what's going to be the first impression of your work?

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The point I'm making here is that people are influenced by numbers. 

Small numbers influence them to think one way.

Larger numbers influence them to think another way.

So one of the best skills any artists or arts org needs to develop is the ability to fill up a house.

And let's be clear here . . . the house doesn't need to be full, it just can't EVER, EVER, be empty.

Tomorrow I'll offer some tips on how to fill up your house, even on short notice.

Promise and Proof

A few days ago I participated in a fantastic branding workshop done for a number of arts groups on the University of Chicago campus.  It reminded me of the relationship between promise and proof.

We have talked about this before, but as a reminder, a brand is essentially a promise that you are making between your organization and the consumer.

If you make an attractive promise and consistently deliver on that promise then you will have a strong brand.

It's that simple and that complex.

What the branding workshop reminded me was the importance of being able to prove your promise.

If you are promising your patrons high quality art, then what proof do have of that quality?

So what if you're a new (or emerging) arts organization that doesn't have the sort of objective proof of quality (reviews, awards) that other arts orgs do?

Then don't promise quality. 

Maybe you can promise cutting edge work.

Maybe you can promise an interactive night of entertainment.

My point is, don't promise things you can't prove.

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)

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.

 

 

My new motto . . .

Advertisement is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.

-  Robert Stephens, Founder of The Geek Squad

Another Money Quote

This one from from the Nonprofiteer:

The answer to “Why are we a nonprofit?” can’t be “Because we couldn’t afford to operate if we weren’t.” If that’s the case, it just means you’re a badly-organized business.

Why you should come . . .

To the workshop in June.  Here are a couple of reasons:

1.  I hate workshops that suck, i.e. give little to no useful information.  The June workshop will not suck.

2.  No matter what field of art you are in, you probably need more earned income.  The workshop will give you some of the ideas and energy yoi need to get going.