Understanding audiences means more than being able to call up their booking history

Morris Hargreaves McIntyre consultant and AMA Chair Jo Taylor says we need to rid ourselves of the notion that everything we need to know can be found in our box office systems.

Photo by Martin Laine used under Creative Commons

This week the first of a number of our clients (92nd Street Y in New York) are going live with an app we’ve developed to capture and integrate qualitative factors into individual box office records (including their Culture Segment). The second will be The Place here in the UK. It’s really satisfying to see 18 months’ work come to fruition. But more than that, I’m excited about how it will help them understand and develop meaningful relationships with audiences.

For 18 years I worked in marketing, mostly in performing arts. I began in the days when our box offices used to basically sell raffle tickets for concerts, put the cash in a box and write it down in a book. For those who don’t go back this far, I’m not joking.

I remember in technicolour my first computerised box office system.

I’d been banging on about the need for it for an age, so when it finally arrived, I was delirious, and agreed to shut up for the rest of my life. After all, all the information we needed was now there, at the push of a button.

Previously we’d had to rely on people scanning leaflet racks and reading listings in the local paper to find out about our shows, which was at best hit and miss. It sounds unbelievably basic now, but simply having at our fingertips details of people who’d previously booked, so we could contact them to see if they wanted more, was huge.

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A new home for great arts marketing resources

Testingout
Photo by Dominika Karpowicz

On 23 April, over 800 arts and cultural professionals joined us to celebrate the launch of CultureHive, a new website to discover and share best practice in cultural marketing. Developed in partnership with The Audience Agency and supported by Arts Council England, the site gives you access to free content and tools on good practice in arts marketing and audience development.

You can watch the intro video below – we’ll be posting a video of the keynotes and discussion from the launch event shortly, too.

CultureHive is now live, and packed with over 600 resources – and we’ll be adding more all the time. Don’t forget you can also submit your own resources and help this hub of sector knowledge to grow. We’ll be developing the site further over the coming years, so if you have any feedback or questions, please let us know by email or on Twitter.

Outsourcing social media management

In this special two-part blog post from two creative digital agencies, Sarah Morris, Marketing Manager at Sequence, makes the case for arts organisations to outsource their social media management, while Tom Beardshaw, Partner at Native HQ, says organisations can only retain their voice by keeping social media in-house.

Horn
Photo used under Creative Commons from marriedwithluggage

Why consider outsourcing your organisation’s social media management?

When you want to grow or when social media is eating up too much time: The size of your arts organisation is a key factor when considering your online strategy and whether you want to keep online communications internal or external. If you have a large company with many strands to your digital strategy, it may well need a number of people on the campaign at specific, busy times – for example, during the launch of a new show or after a big announcement. Alternatively, keeping up with the constant distraction of having to check all your social media platforms and responding in a timely way can be particularly difficult for a small team who are already maxed-out with work.

When you need to formalise the process: This brings us to the major drawback with regards to keeping social media in house. It’s on a par with your own website. Client and essential production work takes precedence every time over spending time representing yourself online. Social media gets relegated to the bottom of the pile for too long; it gets neglected. If you commit to a contract with external support providers, it raises the level of respect for the task. You are also committing to providing the credentials they need to do the job properly and on time – otherwise it’s your own money you’re wasting.

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Advertising ticket prices the right way

As of 6 April 2013, the ASA defines ‘advertising’ to include venue brochures, flyers, newsletters, websites and social media. Does the way you communicate ticket prices comply with legal requirements?

Leading ticketing consultant Roger Tomlinson explains the ins and outs of advertising ticket prices.

Tickets
Photo used under Creative Commons from Fifth World Art

What price that ticket? Are we making sure we are advertising ticket prices to comply with UK law and codes of advertising practice?

The Theatrical Management Association has issued new guidance to its members in the UK on the advertising of ticket prices. Essentially, ticket prices when advertised must be inclusive of the booking fees and service charges imposed on the purchase. Advertising, in a common misunderstanding, extends to a venue or producer’s own print and posters, websites, social media and other distributed information and not just paid-for advertising.

The TMA has acted after the Ambassadors Theatre Group chain of theatres, the Old Vic in London and the Cheltenham Everyman Theatre were approached by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the Committee on Advertising Practice (CAP) following on many public complaints about imposed booking fees which cannot be avoided. There is considerable argument about the right way to present this, but Jonathan Brown of S.T.A.R. confirms: “If you advertise a ticket price, you have to be able to buy it for that price, somewhere.”

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