The Future of the Season Brochure

For decades now, the most revered communications tool of most performing arts organizations has been the season/subscription brochure. We spend weeks if not months toiling over copy, getting images, crafting pitches, working with designers, going to press checks and coordinate with mail houses. Once finished, it is the holy grail of marketing collateral for the rest of the year -- the piece that we take to conferences, show our donors, give away at outreach events and mail to everyone we think has even heard of our organization. And for years, this strategy has been virtually untouched, even while the world around us has changed rapidly. Isn't it time we question whether or not there is a better way?

My biggest problem with season brochures is that we try to pack into one piece messages for all of our separate target audiences: full season buyers, partial season buyers, single ticket buyers, annual fund donors, capital campaign donors, genre specific audiences, etc. For example, a partial season subscriber who prefers musicals and gives at a $50 level each year will receive the same brochure as a full season buyer who prefers serious dramas and gives at the $1,000 level each year. Each target audience looks for different things in our organizations, and we should customize our communications to each group.

Recent advances in printing technology and online communications have made customizable communications much more affordable, but most of us, fearing change to our detriment, still print tens of thousands of one brochure and mail them to all of our target audiences over and over again until those list segments stop producing.

The way we talk to renewing subscribers vs. new subscribers, multi-buyers vs. single buyers, musical lovers vs. drama lovers, and donors vs. non-donors should be different. So why are we addicted to the season brochure? is it our love for crafting one primary brand-driven piece that we can roll out like a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner?

This year Arena Stage has experimented with ordering significantly fewer primary subscription brochures, and then augmenting our direct mail campaigns with five targeted mini acquisition brochures for some of our larger audience segments: musical lovers, drama lovers, locality buyers (we have venues in Virginia and DC), event driven purchasers and our African-American patrons. Each group has a specific relationship with Arena Stage, and should be communicated to in a tailored fashion. I have even heard of colleagues at different organizations creating customizable online brochures for different target audiences.

Communicating to the masses with one overall brochure packed with several different messages is a way of the past. I still foresee the use of a season brochure as a branding piece, but as a sales piece, I believe there are better options out there. The proof will be in the pudding as they say, and as we get the results in for our targeted mailings, I will share them.

Measuring the Impact of Social Media

Every time I speak at a conference, I am generally asked how I track the results of my social media campaigns, and what I consider a success. Everyone seems to be thinking in terms of ticket sales and return on investment. I don't disagree all together, but I also think we have to measure success on how these communications tools strengthen our relationships with our target audiences, and encourage a higher level of participation with our strongest supporters.

Recently at the spring LORT conference, I sat through a well thought out presentation by Sergi Torres, a third year graduate student from the Yale School of Drama, who took on how to track social media campaigns in terms of sales at Yale Repertory Theatre. The results were impressive, and I was glad to see research being done on how social media campaigns could spur sales. However, I was left wondering what type of value we assign to engaging our customer base.

I am a fan of Thomas Cott's You Cott Mail, as are many of my colleagues. On Friday, May 29, "You Cott Mail" featured a blog post by Douglass McClennan entitled "10 ways to think about social networking and the arts." In Mr. McClennan's post, he makes the argument that "using social media as just an opportunity to sell tickets is a bad strategy, the electronic equivalent of junk mail...the idea is to cultivate relationships with an audience that is increasingly online." While many of my peers would argue that the main priority of any Marketing Director should be increasing ticket sales, I would argue that we also have a primary responsibility of "Creating Raving Fans." How many times are we looking for new audiences just to see them leave after the first time they visit? Why don't we focus on deepening the relationships that we have already cultivated?

Side Note -- Although I found Mr. McCleenan's blog post very interesting, I must say that I disagree with some of his primary arguments. He states "Outside of your primary artistic role, don't get into the content-producing business. Video is hard. Magazines are hard (and expensive) to produce and sustain." I must contend that we are in the business of creating content, particularly as mainstream media sources go out of business. And video is not hard. If you can afford a mini Flip camera and some basic video editing software, you are good to go. If the Anaheim Ballet, which has an annual budget of $290,000, can create a video campaign on YouTube that attracted 10.8 million unique views and enabled them to become the #2 All Time Most Viewed Non-Profit, than anyone can do it.

So in the future when I am asked "what kind of sales do you see from your social media campaigns," I am going to reply, we should be asking what types of measurements we are using to track the engagement levels of our online communities. That is the primary objective, and sales are secondary. As Arena Stage moves toward becoming a national center for the production, presentation, development and study of American Theater with the opening of The Mead Center for American Theater, I consider it a success when people all over the world are watching our videos and interacting with our content online, even if they don't have the means to travel to Washington, DC and purchase a ticket.

On Transparency (Long Post)

Most of those who know me know that I am an avid reader, generally consuming a book a week, mostly on topics related to my work. A couple of weeks ago someone left a copy of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online by Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss on my desk. To this day, I have no clue who left it on my desk, and when I left the office to attend a Strategic Marketing conference by National Arts Strategies, I threw it in my bag thinking it would keep me company on my trip. I have just finished reading the book, and I found it fascinating, particularly for those of us who were trained in the old school of public relations. I have known for some time that with the proliferation of new technologies, "spin" is no longer an accepted practice, as information travels too fast, and some of the most interesting stories are broken online by citizen bloggers. In this new world, being transparent seems to be of prime importance, and that is an argument made beautifully in this book.

The authors encourage every organization to become "radically transparent," which means "being open and honest online, admitting mistakes, engaging stakeholders in discussion about you and your brands, and even revealing your internal processes." They go on to say that "there is little censorship in the world of online social media--the community values raw truth. The internet community immediately comes down hard on those who employ conversation spin, control, manipulation or spam."

Recently when I was giving a presentation at the Leagure of Resident Theatres (LORT) conference entitled "Theaters as Media Outlets," I made the argument that traditional media relations would no longer work and a new system would have to be created. I discussed how our artistic staff have direct lines of communication to our audiences via blogging and twittering, and that we were taking the next step of purchasing FLIP cameras for senior artistic staff so that they could capture their own video. As a communications department, we are still responsible for crafting messaging and monitoring all of our external communications, but we are trying to make those communications as authentic and transparent as possible.

In a recent article for Wired Magazine, "The See-Through CEO" Clive Thompson states "in the new world of radical transparency, the path to business success is clear. Show what you are doing, reveal your processes, acknowledge mistakes, and participate fully in conversation that concerns you."

Many media relations professionals have been following the relationship between the Guthrie Theater and the press, which has turned into an apparent feud during the past couple of months. It is always easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, and believe me I have my own issues, but I have to believe that if the Guthrie embraced the idea of radical transparency more, all of this might have been avoided. Below are a couple of articles concerning the relationship between the Guthrie and the press:

January 6, 2009: "Compensation in the Arts: Some Salaries Raise Eyebrows," The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Rohan Preston reports that Joe Dowling, Director of the Guthrie Theater, received a pay package of $682,229 in 2007, and then makes the argument that Dowling is paid much more than his peers at other theaters. I found it interesting that there wasn't an official response from the Guthrie, except an identified board member who sits on the compensation committee and a board member who spoke on anonymity. The article received 163 comments online, many of which weren't pretty.

February 2, 2009: "Don't Review This," Minnesota Playlist. A little less than a month after the article on Joe Dowling's salary, Melodie Bahan, Director of Communications (assuming that would be equivalent to Arena's Director of Media Relations) writes an article criticizing the state of arts journalism, particularly that found in daily newspapers and takes some swipes at the reviews found in her hometown papers (including the Star Tribune). Even if you agree with the arguments she makes (and elegantly so), the timing of her article could be construed as sour grapes over the Dowling piece.

This article prompted responses from the local critics and reporters:

Graydon Royce, Star Tribune

"Star Tribune's Peck responds to Guthrie staffer's rip" by David Brauer covering Senior Arts Editor Claude Peck's response. In response to Ms. Bahan's request for better arts journalism, Mr. Peck states it is "very difficult, for example, in the case of the Guthrie, which has had a long reputation of giving the barest minimum of cooperation for our newsgathering efforts."

Garnered responses from bloggers:

Minnesota Mist: To Ms. Bahan: "Oh, honey! Surely you at least thought twice about such a position after the Star Tribune newspaper reported last month about the $682,300 salary and benefits that were paid to Guthrie Director Joe Dowling in 2007. (That is less than 3% of the Guthrie's budget, by the way.)...I would bet that you and your colleagues did not welcome the writing of such news. Nor the discussion that has reverberated since...You read it here first: I can and will run any company into the ground for $500,000 a year. I will bring along my own cronies to help me do it. Where do I sign my contract?"

Secrets of the City: Theater Publicist vs. Newspaper Editor

Butts in Seats: When you Grab that Cute Ball of Fur, You Also Get the Teeth: "I just thought the whole situation was a great reminder to us all that when we bemoan the lack of good arts coverage, we should be mindful that what we wish for is a double edged sword situation and not entirely the ideal we envision."

Seems like this has been an ongoing issue...

February 3, 2008: Tynan's Anger Blog: The Guthrie Theater gets Childish. "In the latest case of critical reactionary drama queenery, a full page ad by the Guthrie was placed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune after the paper gave their most recent production a negative review. While the ad had been "planned for months," the content, decided upon after the reviews came in, feature a near-exact copy of the positive review from the alternative weekly CityPages."

Which continues...

March 26, 2009: "Guthrie Theater to Trim Budget by $4 million," Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Trish Santini, director of external affairs, said she was not authorized by board president Randall Hogan to release Dowling's salary. The Star Tribune reported in January that Dowling's 2007 compensation was $682,229 (which included a $100,000 bonus). Dowling disputed that Wednesday, but did not offer specifics. "The focus on me and my salary, which has been inaccurately reported, and I would say somewhat with ill-informed research, has led to a considerable amount of discussion in the community," Dowling said. "Let's take the heat off that and talk about the fact that here's an organization where people are willing all through the organization to make sacrifices."

Following this situation has reinforced a couple of things for me:

1. Be proactive rather than reactive as it involves the press. If it is controversial, break the story yourself through your own distribution channels, and provide the information that your stakeholders are looking for.

2. Transparency is king. The days of "no comment" and "not authorized to release information" are long gone. If you don't participate, it looks like you have something to hide. I am sure that funders read these articles and wondered why the Guthrie wouldn't comment and why the board wouldn't release information on Mr. Dowling's salary, particularly in the wake of Enron, ING, Madoff, etc.

3. You can't possibly win in a public slug fest with the press

Capture Information

First off, I am amazed at the number of organizations that don't want to invest in data hygiene. Most likely, your database is the most valuable thing in the office. If my building was on fire, it would be the first thing I would try to protect. If your database gets corrupted or is out of date, it will compromise your ability to hit both earned and contributed revenue goals. So invest in data hygiene so that your database is as clean and up-to-date as possible. Send out your data for in-depth hygiene services and appending at least once a year, and go through the NCOA process quarterly.

That being said, don't let opportunities to capture information go by. I just got back the data hygiene reports for Arena Stage this past week, and we had roughly 20,000 bad addresses (which isn't surprising since we have such a large database). However, when I looked at the report closer, almost half of those bad addresses were due to missing contact information. So I did some investigating, and realized that when we were processing complimentary ticket requests, we were not asking for contact information. If we are going to give away a free ticket, I would like to be able to at least contact the recipient for a donation later in the year. So we now have a new policy -- to process a complimentary ticket request, we must have your contact information. This goes for contest winners, promos and donations as well.

We have also recently engaged Target Resource Group as consultants, and in our initial meetings with them, they encouraged us to find ways to collect contact information for all members of group bookings. Group bookings can be a very large source of revenue for Arena Stage. For example, 34% of our revenue on single tickets for Crowns came from groups, which means that most likely 20% of our houses were group bookings (when taking into consideration our subscriber base). But we only have the contact information for the group leader. Knowing that the best prospects for subscriptions and donations are individuals who have been to the theater before, not capturing contact information for all group attendees is a costly mistake. So now we are devising incentives for group leaders to provide contact information for every person in their group.

Quick Idea from LORT -- VereVox

I just got back from my trip to the League of Resident Theatres conference in Los Angeles, where I co-presented a session called "Theater Institutions as Media Outlets" with Jim Royce, Director of Marketing, Communications and Sales at Center Theatre Group. The presentation went well, and I learned a lot during the conference. However, I am still surprised at how a three hour time difference can cause so much jet lag. I am exhausted.

I promise I have a ton to share from the conference, but to tide you over for just a couple of more days, I will share an interesting "success story" from Trisha Kirk, Director of Marketing at the Guthrie Theater.

In the past, Trish has used a company called VereVox to record a targeted phone message which was sent to subscribers who hadn't renewed for the upcoming season. She used a well-known actor in her community to record a message with a soft sales pitch, reminding current subscribers that their subscription deadline was approaching and thanking them for their support. Reported results were very positive, and it seems like she isn't the only one using VereVox as Rodi Franko, Director of Marketing and Communications at the Alley Theatre, reported positive results as well.

It's cheap and works well -- what isn't to like about that?

To Tweat or Not to Tweat

Twitter is the newest communications tool in the Arena Stage arsenal, and the more we use it, the more I am convinced it should be treated in the same manner as a blog, or perhaps a little more delicately. At its core, Twitter was created to send micro-blog messages to followers on a regular basis throughout the day, explaining what you are up to and your thoughts on current surroundings. Those who are avid users send several tweats per day, and the tweats of those that you follow aggregate on your homepage, or they are sent directly to a mobile device. Many organizations have created Twitter accounts but few have figured out how to successfully use this communications tool.

As a web 2.o application, the central idea behind Twitter is interaction, so it amazes me how many organizations use Twitter to simply push information, such as reviews, headlines and marketing promos. Remember, as I like to say, no one is interested in what a marketing director has to say. So keep it interesting, and try to make it as interactive as possible.

An alternate way of using Twitter could be having a senior member of your artistic staff set up a Twitter account, and have them twitter on their activities. Therefore, you won't have to worry about having a boring organizational voice, and the application can be used for what it was invented for -- to report on the activities of a single person. David Dower, Arena Stage's Associate Artistic Director, recently set up a Twitter account of his own where he twitters about his travels and his work on our productions. It has been embedded in the Arena Stage blog, and at any given moment, a patron can see what he is up to. Since he leads the artistic development team, his days are pretty interesting...much more so than mine. Really, who wants to know we just bought another ad in the newspaper?

Institutions as Media Outlets

In this moment of substantial change, most companies are looking inward to determine what adjustments need to be made to their business models to flourish in today's new economic climate. Significant shifts need to be made to address the new reality, and that new reality includes taking a hard look at how consumers get information about the arts.

Since the mid-1980s, newspaper circulation has been declining in the United States, but the current economic crisis has thrown gasoline on the fire, causing huge losses for newspapers nationally. Just recently we have seen four major newspapers cease print publication: the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Tucson Citizen and the Christian Science Monitor. Additionally, four newspaper companies including the owners of the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Philadelphia Inquirer, have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Even before the rapid failure of many printed newspapers, arts coverage in many daily newspapers was shrinking, going from 912 column inches on average in 1998 to 702 column inches in 2003 according to Reporting the Arts II, a study conducted by the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University.

A huge shift in communications is about to occur away from organizations pitching stories to mainstream media for coverage and toward setting up institutional distribution channels to cover stories themselves. We have seen this in the past decade as the ways we communicate with our customers have become cheaper, quicker and more segmented. We now have e-mail lists, websites, direct mail, telemarketing, social networking, online video distribution, podcasts, photo streams, and blogs. Some large organizations can currently reach more than one million people using these distribution channels. Considering the New York Times has a circulation of 1.6 million, these distribution channels which used to be considered on the fringes of communications have become almost as powerful for some companies as their local newspaper.

Barack Obama learned in his presidential campaign that if he invested wisely in cultivating his own method of communicating with his supporters, he would be able to use that method to speak directly to the American people when in office. Now President Obama has an e-mail list of 13 million Americans that he uses to garner support for political initiatives. This list is five time larger that the daily circulation of USA Today, the newspaper with the largest circulation in the United States.

Just as we have invested in media relations over the past decades, we now need to heavily invest in developing our own distribution channels and our own content. This is a two pronged approach--we need to develop the infrastructure to distribute content and the ability to create content that our customers will want to consume. It is a significant change in strategy that is now upon us.