Marketing/PR

Looking back to Artsmarketing.com today, I noticed they had a link to a FAQ about marketing outreach programs to schools. It is pretty informative for folks who want to do such things. It talks about who the decision makers and gatekeepers for schools are, what times of the year are bad to contact schools to set up outreach, how high school is different from elementary school.

The FAQ also discusses how to position your outreach so it will be more likely to be viewed as valuable to the educational process. It also directs groups to resources if they want to synch their offerings with teacher’s lesson plans, how to create good study guides and generally strengthen a relationship with the schools.

One of the things I was most impressed about was that the FAQ also addressed the perception by the students that the outreach was a free period where they didn’t have to learn or behave. Having gone on a number of school outreaches, I am familiar with this situation. The article encourages outreach groups to establish a protocol with the teacher prior to their arrival and also suggests finding a way to engage and involve the teacher in the process so they don’t give the impression it is an opportunity for escape themselves.

Okay, so I am in the middle of writing calendar listings and season brochure material trying to avoid falling into a boring writing style as pointed out by Greg Sandow and which I later commented on

I think I am doing fairly well, but time will tell and I may be too close to my own stuff. One of my other rules besides trying to avoid being boring is to also keep from quoting reviewers. I have seen so many people quoted saying “Fantastic”, “A must see”, “Best show of the season”, etc, etc, that I doubt the persuasive power of such quotes. Besides, it seems like inserting such quotes means you can’t think of enough interesting things to say about it on your own. Since I am trying to get into the practice of generating interesting things out of my own feeble brain, that is just another reason to avoid quoting folks.

On the other hand I was tempted to include a quote from a Pittsburgh paper that called a Dayton Dance Company’s performance “rollicking, lyrical, athletic and emotionally generous quartet of African-American dances” It was the emotionally generous part that caught my eye. I don’t frequently see that applied to people in reviews.

One thing I want to know though–when did being human become a selling point for a show? I constantly see (and I was guilty of it many times myself) people describe shows in terms of things that make us human or remind us of the human condition or celebrate what it is to be human. Andrew Taylor recently commented that people seldom go to the theatre simply because it will raise the SAT scores of kids in the neighborhood. Considering some pregnant women put headphones on their stomachs so that their forming child can be exposed to Mozart, I think there is a greater likelihood of folks deciding to support the arts for that reason than because they have lost touch with what it means to be human.

Now granted there are plenty of people out there who probably need to be reminded what it means to be human. However, I doubt anyone admits they need to be exposed to such stuff.

Again, I think this is a nebulous catch-all term people use out of laziness. It sounds impressive, but it really doesn’t mean much. I have seen it applied to some shows to refer to poignant moments, applied to others in connection with joy and familal bonds of love, and I have seen it applied to shows with incredible violence, hatred, pain and sorrow. You never know what you are going to get if you go to a “what it means to be human” show.

Yes, all these things are part of human existence, but it is much better to say poignant or violent. The problem is, using the term doesn’t help audiences understand art any better than they did when they arrived. It strikes me that this phrase is part of the alienating language the arts tend to use. I am not saying that language should be dumbed down–I am a big believer in people picking up dictionaries and teaching themselves. I am using phrases like “transient state” in my season brochure. Except in this case, the phrase very specifically describes a transformation which is occuring. (and I didn’t want to repeat the word transformation in the description.)

I won’t lie. This is hard. Even with all the practice I have writing about different issues, it is difficult to write something that accurately depicts a performance without falling back on newspaper quotes and important sounding, but empty phrases. This being my first weeks at a new job, there are plenty of other things I could really be spending my time on. But trying to do this well, even if I am not entirely successful, is important to developing my ability to communicate well with audiences.

To continue the discussion about Peter Drucker’s thoughts on Non-profit management that I started yesterday, I thought I would look at his view of marketing.

There are a number of interviews included in Managing the Nonprofit Organization where Drucker asks different people their views on a set topic. One of the interviews associated with marketing features Philip Kotler who teaches at Northwestern University. One of the things he says is that many people confuse marketing with hard selling and advertising.

He says “The most important tasks in marketing have to do with studying the market, segmenting it, targeting the groups you want to serve, positioning yourself in the market and creating a service that meets the needs out there. Advertising and selling are afterthoughts.” The difference is a function of how you start out. Do you look at who you want to serve or do you start with a product and then look for markets to push it into. The former is marketing, the latter is selling.

I will be the first to admit, I am guilty of selling under the guise of marketing. Part of this is due to pressure from above to fill seats and lacking the time, staff and environment to be asking if my actions properly served a market. Actually, pretty much all of it is due to those influences. I learned what marketing was supposed to be in school, much as Kotler defines. When I got out in the real world, I was never in a position to work under the proper definition.

Still, it is easy to market incorrectly even if you are acting in accordance with the definition. You may be clear about the needs you want to serve, “but don’t understand the needs from the perspective of the customers. They [organizations] make assumptions based on their own interpretation of the needs out there.”

I have been seeing this idea cropping up a lot recently in the articles I am reading. Arts organizations have been accused of not being cognizant of the changing needs and expectations of its audience. One of the things Mr. Kotler says is marketing can “help us understand why customers chose to be with us in the first place and why they’re not choosing to be with us any more.”

A couple ideas I came away from the reading with was that arts organizations could do a better job marketing by assessing their strengths. Even if there are a couple other theatres, orchestras, ballet companies, etc in the area, they can certain examine the market, see what there might be a demand for and fulfill it. This can range from things arts organizations already do like positioning themselves to the Shakespeare or modern dance niche or offering classes to adults and children and providing outreach programs free of charge to underserved schools.

It can also be new programs that recognize the different needs of all the segments you wish to serve. Instead of only having one format for an audience education program, you might pitch different ones for different segments. Older audiences might like a formal lecture/talk back after a Thursday performance that started at 7pm. Younger audiences might prefer a coffee house format discussion after a Saturday night performance that started at 8pm. Churches have different ministries under one roof to suit different segments of their congregations. This is a structure that arts organizations can adapt to their needs.

The methods that Drucker and Kotler discuss for making sure your organization is market rather than selling driven are fairly obvious but perhaps difficult to implement because it can require fighting institutional inertia. The first is to do market research to understand the market and its needs, the second is to develop segmentation and be aware of the different groups you want to serve, the third is to develop policies and programs that are structured to the meet needs of the groups. Everyone in the organization has to be invested in these programs over the long haul because the desired result won’t be attained immediately.

More Drucker to come.

In his entry today, Drew McManus labels me a “theatre management guru” for an entry I made last week. I tell ya, this puts a lot of pressure on me to make today’s entry (which is actually my 50th) significant.

I think I will play it safe and direct my devoted readers to ArtsMarketing.org. I honestly don’t recall how I came across the webpage, but it has some interesting resources. The web page is a project of the New York City based Arts & Business Council, but provides valuable information for people on an international basis. (Some of the questions on their forums are posed by people from Hong Kong and Singapore.)

Some of the sections are a little outdated and the information presented is a little more general than I would have liked. If you are starting out doing arts marketing or are more experienced and seek some new ideas, it is worth a look. If nothing else, it will supplement what one already knows.

One section of the website deals entirely with creating a marketing plan from pre-planning to situational analysis to developing strategies and tactics. There is also a Hot Topics section that features articles on various aspects of marketing like audience development, communication, web marketing and research.

There is also a case study section which unfortunately only contains one study. Despite the note that you will have to pay to view it at this point, it is actually free to read. Perhaps as they build a library they will begin charging.

The portion of the website I found most interesting was their resource link page. Some of the links went to consultants, but others went to information sources of which I was not aware. Among them was BoardSource which deals with non-profit boards. (It seems like it would be a very interesting resource at first look.) Also included as a resource was a link to a Free Management Library which deals with 75 management topics in some depth. For example, it doesn’t only talk about the role of a CEO, but also talks about combating “Founder’s Syndrome” where the identity of an organization is so closely tied to the personality and energy of the founder.

It would be interesting to see if the Arts & Business Council continues to develop the arts marketing page. Since one of my goals for this blog was to eventually become a resource for non-profit organizations, I might defer to them if they do a good job. (They are underwritten by American Express and I ain’t)