January is a notoriously quiet month in the arts. Audiences are recovering from the excitement of the holidays but are still deciding whether to dive into plans for the new year. If you’re a performing arts center with a packed programming lineup, though, you can’t take a breather.
We helped the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts beat the January doldrums with a wide-reaching Meta campaign that drove an outstanding return on investment (ROI) and built audiences for future programming.
STATS AT A GLANCE
AN EXPANSIVE STRATEGY FOR EXPANSIVE PROGRAMMING
Located on the UC Davis campus, the Mondavi Center presents a range of programming with an eye toward diverse cultures and disciplines. The organization offers an average of 100 performances annually and welcomes more than 100,000 audience members from across the region. With such a packed calendar, marketing has no time to slow down.
At the start of the new year, Mondavi needed to promote a slew of January and February events that ranged wildly in artistic genres. Guests included comedian Tig Notaro, jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant, and author and journalist Nina Totenberg.
As Mondavi’s digital partners since 2016, we understood the best social tactics to support their expansive programming. In partnership with their marketing team, we devised a wide-reaching Meta campaign with three key tenets:
Cast a wide net. Since the programming covered many genres, we tapped into Mondavi’s first-party data and used Meta’s behavioral and interest-based options. We promoted content to a range of interests, from “classical music” to “folk and bluegrass” to “humor.”
Utilized first-party data. We kicked off the campaign with a carousel post ideated by Mondavi’s marketing team, and worked with them to serve only to their email list, keeping costs low while targeting the people most likely to buy. We timed this post to coincide with a direct mail piece, which helped keep Mondavi top of mind for this audience.
Worked with the algorithm. We served audiences outside of Mondavi’s email list a similar post that turned the still images from the carousel into a slideshow. This tactic provided two benefits:
First, Meta treats slideshows as videos, so we received all the advantages of video content on the platform even though we didn’t have video assets.
Second, audiences quickly saw upcoming programming and could self-select what they found most interesting.
THE RESULTS
With a smart social strategy, Mondavi was able to squash the winter blahs and start the new year off with a bang. The campaign drove a 461% ROI and almost $21,000 in revenue. The average cost per page view across all audiences was a mere $0.41.
Because of the campaign’s breadth, it also built up pools of interested audiences for future programming, which we can continue to communicate with in the coming months.
READY TO REVAMP YOUR SOCIAL STRATEGY?
Let’s work together to bring your programming into the spotlight and craft campaigns that drive revenue.
