presenting 101: the fundamentals of marketing and promotion -- developing and engaging audiences

Presenting 101 • PAE ‘12

Presenting 101Saturday 22 September 2012Performing Arts Exchange

H. Perry Mixter, Lead Faculty

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Session 3• Today’s Topics:

• Developing and Engaging Audiences

• Outreach Programs

• Marketing and Promotion

• Today’s Faculty

• Perry Mixter, Mixter Consulting

• Kevin Spencer, Spencers Theatre of Illusion

• Ashley Dinges, Merrimack Hall Performing Arts Center, Huntsville, Alabama

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Let’s Go!• Introduction of Faculty

• Anyone new in the room today?

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Today’s Course Outline

• Audience Engagement/Development

• Understanding Your Audiences

• Types of Outreach Programs and Service

• Marketing & Promotion

• Selling your Artistic Product

• Marketing and Promotion Plans

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Audience Engagement/Development

• Understanding your Audience

• Understanding Audience Motivation. What do you know about your audiences? What do you need to learn?

• What audience experience(s) do you want to offer?

• Entertainment

• Education

• Deep experiences (pre show/post show events)

• Esoterica or tried and true?

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• Understanding your Audience

• Research/Analysis

• Assessing your Audience – Core, Connected and Unconnected

• formal and informal conversations; baseline surveys; audience surveys; focus groups; engaging knowledgeable community leaders; box office and donor analysis; Base demographics of local community and region

• Basic Audience Demographic Segmentation

• Sex

• Zip code demographics

• Income levels42

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• Engaging Audiences

• The Wallace Foundation

• April 2009

• www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/

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• Environmental Analysis

• Looking at the community, mission and programming together

• Finding your niche

• What programs are NOT being presented? Why? Is there a market?

• General patterns of live arts event purchasers

• Competitive Analysis - artistic and non-artistic

• Roadblocks: What – specifically – are keeping people from attending?

• Money, Other entertainment/event options, Lack of awareness

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• Easy and cheap ways to learn about your audiences:

• Email/online surveys (Zoomerang)

• In person audience surveys (volunteers with clipboards)

• Local newspaper annual reader survey

• Talking with other similar organizations

• Americans for the Arts – Local and National Arts Index WEBSITE

• Local College/University – economic impact studies, market research, etc.

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Outreach/Education Programs

• Discussion: Choosing whether or not to undertake educational programming. What are the benefits? Responsibilities?

• Identify a niche in your community that is not being addressed by other arts organizations, school systems or educational groups.

• Allows for additional opportunities for fundraising with less competition.

• Example: The Johnny Stallings Arts Program at Merrimack Hall, arts education for people with special needs.

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• Structure:

• Integrated with main programming and part of the overall mission

• Standalone series or series of events

• Separate entity with its own mission for educational, training and class opportunities outside the performance /presenting mission of the organization

• Hybrid of all three

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• Look for artists who have residencies or outreach programs that fit within your mission and allow for grant funding.

• The Johnny Stallings Arts Program:

• Nine weekly classes (dance, music, visual arts education)

• Three weeks of summer camps

• Pre-set number of cultural events/workshops annually with visiting artists. Ex: Justin Willman, Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience, School Sculptures with Kevin Reese, Spencers: Theatre of Illusion, Popovich Comedy Pet Theater.

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We created a two-day residency for Kevin in addition to three public performances. Day 1:

Off-site visit to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Day 2: In-house Hocus Focus workshop continuing

education program. This created three streams of revenue to support the project: sponsorships,

grants, and ticket sales.49

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• Types of Services

• Master classes

• Residency or Extended Residency

• Lecture / Demos

• Outreach – extended

• Site specific or specialized programs

• PR events

• Key Strategies

• Planning visits/conversations with artist/company

• Invest in strong and effective partnerships

• Create a toolkit/practice for education programs

• Think creatively and holistically about educational outreach

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Sales

• Season Campaign vs. Event Marketing

• Season promos are more cost effective but do not meet the societal trends of last-minute purchases. Fewer and fewer orgs are putting much emphasis in subscription sales (except for Broadway shows, headliners, etc.)

• Ideas on how to convince audiences to buy early? Perception of scarcity, perception of value (ex: tiers of tickets). Ex: Member pre-sale. More patrons become members to purchase one week early, which in turn increases donations.

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Sales

• Season Subscription Programs

• Membership Programs: Offer benefits to loyal patrons in exchange for a tax-deductible donation, like discounts that can be used year-round, reserved seating, artist meet-and-greets, conversations with.

• Example: Merrimack Hall had very low season subscription rates and very high single-sales rates. We modeled our membership program after another similar PAC. In 2012, we saw a 20% growth in ticket sales, however single sales decreased. More patrons became members/donors.

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Marketing on a Small Budget

• Budgets are tight, invest dollars wisely.

• Survey patrons at every ticket purchase, and place advertising buys accordingly.

Advertising:Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show

Patron Survey

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• A Study in Using Your Resources:

• A desire to save money resulted in a cheap product in our first year of operation:

Black and white, stapled brochure with order form on back page.

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• By the third year, we were getting better but still not producing anything highly impressive:

Color tri-fold with order form on back page.

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• The 2011-12 season was the first year we conducted an in-depth patron study. We found that nearly half of our ticket sales were coming from our season brochure. So, we found a printer who could deliver us a 40-plus page product for the same price as the tri-fold.

Color tri-fold with order form on back page.

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• Grassroots Marketing Ideas:

• Distribute posters/flyers

• E-mail blasts

• Cross-promotion with other local businesses

• Civic club announcements

• Regular interview spots on local TV shows

• In-kind media tradeouts

• Facebook/Twitter trivia giveaways

• Event-listings websites57

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• Utilize artists if they are willing to make appearances.

• Sample Media Schedule (Justin Willman):

• Thursday 9/6

• 9:00am: Live on-air with Star 99.1. Taped recording with afternoon host to air during afternoon drive-time.

• 11:45am: Live on-air with WHNT-19 (CBS) and Gigi’s Cupcakes to push cross-promotion (ticket/cupcake discount).

• Friday 9/7

• 2:30pm: Live in-store appearance at Gigi’s Cupcakes and autograph signing. Remote broadcast by Star 991. Tickets for sale by a staff member on a laptop.

• 4:00pm: Live on-air appearance with WAAY-31 (ABC).58

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Public/Media Relations• Public Relations: Make sure your organization and staff is

visible in the community

• Host quarterly chats with your ED about programming/outreach.

• Speak to civic organizations, clubs, senior centers, etc. on an ongoing basis throughout the year.

• Get artists into the community as often as possible.

• Media Relations

• Establish friendships with local media.

• Keep in touch when you don’t need coverage. Offer extra tickets to shows, or incentives that they can accept without conflict of interest.

• Respect their schedules. Send information/press releases early and cleanly so they can be easily reproduced.

• Create a media website for 24 hour access.59

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Public/Media Relations

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Testing/Metrics

• How are your patrons finding you?

• Conduct audience surveys

• Google Analytics: Powerful free tool to figure out exactly who is visiting your website. www.google.com/analytics

• Facebook Advertising: Target your advertising in minute detail - down to a specific keyword, interest, zip code or employer. Set daily advertising budgets as low or high as you desire, pull stats about who clicked on your ad.

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Testing/Metrics• QR Codes

• From time to time, we use these on print advertising, signage (posters/window decals) and flyers to track which work best.

• Free to create, offer metrics like date/time of use and location. http://bit.ly

• Scan It!

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Testing/Metrics• QR Codes

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The Marketing Plan• 1. Introduction and Overview of Plan

• Organizational Background: Mission; Overview of Long Range Goals; Summary of Immediate Objectives.

• Need/Purpose Statement (summary of marketing goals, objectives, and strategies)

• Define Marketing Goals. How do they relate to organizational objectives?

• Define Specific Marketing Objectives and how will meet desired Goals: Include specific action, and/or strategy

• What is the Relationship of Specific Marketing Objectives to Marketing Goals and Mission?

• How do the Specific Marketing Objectives relate to previous marketing strategies and outcomes?

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The Marketing Plan• 2. Situational Analysis

• Organizational SWOT

• Internal Strengths, Weaknesses

• External Opportunities, Threats

• Competition Overview

• Audience AnalysisExisting Audience (maintenance, escalations)Target Audience (new, current, prior)Competition for Target Audience

• Product/Service Description and Analysis (uniqueness, appeal, sales opportunities, history)

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The Marketing Plan• 3. Scheme

Marketing Objectives and Detail of Marketing Strategies:

• How will objectives be met?

• What are the specific actions/strategies you plan to implement?

• What are the target messages, communication methods, and relevant information to implement the action/strategy

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The Marketing Plan• 4. Implementation

• Time Line of Events

• Long Range

• Short Range

• Key dates/times

• Revising and Review dates with built in back up plans

• Resources

• Personnel

• Time Allocations

• Budget

• Materials and Supplies

• Technological resources (databases, project planning software, communications)

• Outsourcing versus in-house analysis

• Sponsors, donors and service trades

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The Marketing Plan

• 5. Evaluation Plan

• Method to assess measurable results

• Evaluation of specific marketing actions

• Assessment of how marketing objectives met goal(s): Quantitative and Qualitative

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Where to Go From here?

• SouthArts Resources

• Touring Grants (support out-of-state performing artists and writers)

• Planning Grants (bring an artistic director into your community to design a residency) and Travel Grants (for presenters to travel for professional development/conferences/see new work)

• ArtsReady (online tool for building your business continuity/readiness plan)

• Research and Publications section of website includes significant new publications including audience development, artist development, etc.

• Twitter and Facebook – we get a lot of funding opportunities, national/regional news etc. out through these

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Where to Go From here?• State Presenter Networks in the Southeast

• Louisiana - http://www.lapresenters.org/

• Tennessee - http://tn-presenters.org/

• North Carolina - http://www.ncpresenters.org/

• Florida - http://www.flapresenters.com/

• Ohio - http://www.oapn.org/

• National Endowment for the Arts - nea.gov

• State Arts Councils – every state has one (for now)!

• Regional Networks - Mid Atlantic, Arts Midwest, etc.70

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Where to Go From here?

• National Service Organizations

• Americans for the Arts - artsusa.org

• NAPAMA – North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents - www.napama.org

• Association of Performing Arts Presenters - artspresenters.org

• Opera, Dance, Orchestras, Chamber Music - one for every discipline!

• How can you keep up to date?

• RSS Feeds – great way to stay informed! Learn how to use them as professional information channel

• Arts Journal – check out their LINKS - www.artsjournal.com

• Blogs: Museum 2.0, Barry’s Blog, Adaptistration, The Artful Manager, so many more

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The End!

• H. Perry Mixter: [email protected]

• Get Personal! Face Time Consultation with Perry:

• Today, 1:30-3:10pm

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presenting 101: the fundamentals of marketing and promotion -- developing and engaging audiences

Documents

audience experiences

audience core

audience researchanalysis

audience motivation

arts local

arts education

arts organizations

arts center