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Most Important Marketing Questions Your Arts Organization Should be Asking
- 1. The Most Important Questions Your Organization Should be Asking Kevin Patterson Senior Account Executive
- 2. The Big Concept Attract Retain Upgrade Revenue Success
- 3. Attract Customers How many first-time single-ticket buyers did your organization attract last year?
- 4. Attract Retention < 44% Majority of Marketing Dollars are spent here.
- 5. The Start of a Patron Journey Attract • Welcome emails and phone calls • Special Information about the event space and surrounding environment • Complimentary items – Parking, Beverages • Performance mentors • Ask for post-event feedback • Special offers to return
- 6. Retain Patrons What is your conversion rate from single- ticket buyer to multi-ticket buyer?
- 7. Talking Conversion Retain 184 – Returning Buyers* 500 – First-time Buyers 36.8% *Returning buyers equal those who have returned to another performance or event within a specific timeframe. How many first-time ticket-buyers are you converting?
- 8. Moving from Patron Obscurity to Clarity Retain Characteristics of a Patron • Demographics • Interests • Behaviors • Resources
- 9. Upgrade Patrons What percentage of your ticket-buyers are also donors?
- 11. Key Takeaways • Understand your current metrics • Set realistic progress goals • Map out your patron engagement processes • Develop reports and dashboards to track progress
- 12. Kevin Patterson Senior Account Executive Kevin@PatronManager.com Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- Hello, I'm Kevin Patterson, a senior account executive with PatronManager. However, prior to joining PatronManager I worked for 27 years as an arts administrator in the performing arts, the last nine as an executive director. Like many of you despite the best intentions sometimes you get caught up in the day-to-day reactive world of managing your organization or your department. Its easy to respond to the alligator that is biting your ankle on any given day and lose sight of the big picture. I want to spend the next few minutes and talk about the most important questions your organization should be focused on for long-term success.
- The Big Concept is this, At the heart of the operations of every organization is a basic formula. Whether you are in the marketing or development department at the end of the day its all about attracting, retaining and upgrading your patrons. Do this consistently and your organization will be financially successful. But what questions should you be asking in each of these areaa?
- Let's begin with Attracting your customers. How many first-time single-ticket buyers did your organization attract last year? It is critical that you know this number. To get this number all you need to do is run a report of first-ticket buyers from your last completed season. Additionally, if you run this report on an annual basis you will be able to measure the change in this number over time.
- Once you know this number you can gauge how effectively your marketing dollars are being spent to acquire new ticket buyers. The sad part is that according to a recent performing arts study by the folks at TRG, 66% of first-time ticket-buyers don't come back for a second performance. Why? This answer more than often is that organizations don't ask them. By not engaging with first-time ticket-buyers Organization not only waste the marketing dollars spent to get them in the theater in the first place, they also waste an opportunity for future ticket sales and potential donations.
- To attract patrons organizations need to be proactive in engaging new ticket-buyer. Remember, first-time single-ticket buyers are responding to your initial marketing and advertising. At this point they are trying your product. From here the patron journey has just begun. To engage further consider:
- So you know how many first-time single ticket buyers attend your events in a season. Now let's move further down the pipeline. If you are proactively engaging with them now answer this question:
- Do you know this number? Again within a season take the number of first-time single ticket buyers and run a report on the number of times they came back. While there is no magic number you should be aiming for as it will be different for each organization depending on length of season and number of events, you are wanting to convert at as high a rate as possible.
- It is at this point in the retention process that it pays to drill down and understand the characteristic of your patrons. By breaking down patrons in these key areas you now have the tools to prepare cultivation plans that turn ticket-buyers into donors. Remember there are no one-size fits all solutions or short-cuts here. Gather the data and do the analysis. Do this work prepares you for the last question,
- For this last question, I purposely avoided asking how many of your subscribers are also your donors. This would have been a traditional question to ask, but since not every organization has a subscription program and single-ticket buyers are becoming donors it is important to widen the scope of the question. From the time your first-time single ticket buyers walked through your door your organization should have crafted a strategy that involves every department.
- In a collaborative cultivation every department and every patron has a shared responsibility for a patron. Too often organization try and hand-off patrons from the marketing department to the executive director or the development department. This can be a huge turn off for the patron as they know they are being blatantly targeted without really being engaged. The result is organization lose many more patrons than they keep because they lack a strategy for putting the patron at the center of the organization. Knowing the percentage of ticket-buyers that are also donors is a critical performance benchmark for your organiation.
- So the key takeaways today are to know your metrics. You can't hope to know where you want to go if you don't know where you are starting. With those benchmark metrics in mind make sure to set realistic goals for improvement. If this is new for your organization start small and let success drive future goals. Do your homework and understand your patron. Map out your engagement strategies. It is important to not set these in stone. You should be constantly analyzing your results and making changes. Finally, just like knowing where you are beginning you must develop reports and dashboards that all departments can use to measure your performance to goal. Don't go through an entire season only to run a report at the end and see that you could have done better if only you would had information sooner. By keeping these important questions, the metrics and processes in mind for your organization you can chart a more successful future that leads to greater patron engagement and financial sustainability.