Presenting 101: The Fundamentals of Marketing and Promotion -- Developing and Engaging Audiences
1. Presenting 101
Saturday 22 September 2012
Performing Arts Exchange
H. Perry Mixter, Lead Faculty
Presenting 101 • PAE ‘12 37
2. Session 3
• Today’s Topics: • Today’s Faculty
• Developing and Engaging • Perry Mixter, Mixter
Audiences Consulting
• Outreach Programs • Kevin Spencer, Spencers
Theatre of Illusion
• Marketing and Promotion
• Ashley Dinges,
Merrimack Hall
Performing Arts Center,
Huntsville, Alabama
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3. Let’s Go!
• Introduction of Faculty
• Anyone new in the room today?
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4. Today’s Course Outline
• Audience Engagement/ • Marketing &
Development Promotion
• Understanding Your • Selling your Artistic
Audiences Product
• Types of Outreach • Marketing and
Programs and Service Promotion Plans
•
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5. 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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6. Audience Engagement/
Development
• 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 levels
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7. Audience Engagement/
Development
• Engaging Audiences
• The Wallace
Foundation
• April 2009
• www.wallacefoundation
.org/knowledge-
center/
1
•
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8. Audience Engagement/
Development
• 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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9. Audience Engagement/
Development
• 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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10. 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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11. Outreach/Education
Programs
• 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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12. Outreach/
Education
Programs
• 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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13. Outreach/Education
Programs
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.
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14. Outreach/Education
Programs
• Types of Services • Key Strategies
• Master classes • Planning visits/
conversations with
• Residency or Extended artist/company
Residency
• Invest in strong and
• Lecture / Demos effective partnerships
• Outreach – extended • Create a toolkit/practice
for education programs
• Site specific or
specialized programs • Think creatively and
holistically about
• PR events educational outreach
•
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15. 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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16. 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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17. Marketing on a Small
Budget
• Budgets are tight, invest dollars wisely.
• Survey patrons at every ticket purchase, and place advertising buys
accordingly.
Advertising: Patron Survey
Sandy Hackett’s
Rat Pack Show
•
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18. Marketing on a Small
Budget
• 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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19. Marketing on a Small
Budget
• 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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20. Marketing on a Small
Budget
• 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- Color tri-
plus page product for fold with
the same price as the order form
on back
• tri-fold. page.
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21. Marketing on a Small
Budget
• 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 websites
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22. Marketing on a
Small Budget
• 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).
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23. 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.
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25. 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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26. 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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28. 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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30. 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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31. The Marketing Plan
• 4. Implementation • Time Allocations
• Time Line of Events • Budget
• Long Range • Materials and Supplies
• Short Range • Technological resources
(databases, project
• Key dates/times
planning software,
• Revising and Review communications)
dates with built in back
up plans
• Outsourcing versus in-
house analysis
• Resources
• Sponsors, donors and
• Personnel service trades
•
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32. 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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33. 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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34. 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.
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35. 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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36. The End!
• H. Perry Mixter: perry@mixterconsulting.com
• Get Personal! Face Time Consultation with
Perry:
• Today, 1:30-3:10pm
•
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