Ideas

Ask the Industry features advice from arts marketers in their own words. We hope you can learn from them and it will spark new ideas at your organization.

This month, we’re asking, “What are some unique ways to highlight the benefits of becoming a subscriber or member?" 

Kerry Ingram (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), Karina Kacala (Opera Philadelphia), Jackie Ortiz (Pasadena Playhouse), and Vanessa Ramirez-Sparrow (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) answer everything from creating unique content for different audiences to keeping subscription and membership campaigns fresh each year. 

Hi, CI! is our monthly series featuring the best team we know - the Capacity Interactive team! You will learn more about the people who help arts organizations market smarter. This month, we're featuring our Associate Creative Director who is a superb baker, found her passion for graphic design early in life, and recently oversaw the redesign CI’s email templates.

Symphony organizations have been given a bad rap over the years for having an aging audience and an inability to attract younger patrons. Perhaps this challenge stems from us “talking at” vs. “with” younger audiences or creating programming that doesn’t appeal to them. If we can successfully create programming and feature benefits that align with what younger audiences want, the doors will stay open.

At the end of 2017, we published the Performing Arts Ticket Buyer Media Usage Study, a collaboration with WolfBrown where we surveyed nearly 27,000 people who purchased a performing arts ticket within the prior two years at one of the 58 organizations that partnered with us on this study. We wanted to take a bird's eye view of what types of media arts buyers were consuming most often, and where they are getting their information about cultural events.

Hi, CI! is our monthly series featuring the best team we know - the Capacity Interactive team! You will learn more about the people who help arts organizations market smarter. This month, we're featuring one of our Senior Search Analysts who loves comic books, is a keyword analysis superhero, and helps arts administrators get excited about search engine marketing.

Ask the Industry features arts marketing practitioners from organizations across genres and budget sizes. This is advice from arts marketers in their own words - we hope you can learn from them and it will spark new ideas at your organization.

This month, we’re asking, “What tools do you use to manage a centralized calendar (for content and/or project management)?”

Ashley Haraburda (National Ballet of Canada), Aly Michaud (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), and Lee Bowen, Jennifer Rensenbrink, Isaac Risseeuw, and Marsha Walker from the Minnesota Orchestra answer everything from choosing the right software for your organization to making the case for them in a world of tight budgets.

When the Olympics are in full swing, I become the Leslie Jones of the CI office. I’m giving daily reports on the previous evening’s Olympic moments, sharing every tearful performance, and running around between desks yelling “USA! USA! USA!” I love the Olympics and because of this caring love (obsession), I try to consume as much Olympic content as I can in those precious weeks when NBC transforms into NBC Olympics, and it’s socially acceptable to live-Tweet about curling. Recently, I was scrolling through NBC Olympics' social media feeds and thought - wow. This is spectacular content. What can art marketers learn from this?

Honestly, we get it...talking about SEO and website tracking can be a bit like talking about the plumbing in a house. We all know it’s necessary- vital! But, who has time when it’s so much fun to pore over Pinterest boards about decor. Here’s a story that will make you turn a loving eye towards your digital plumbing and ensure your marketing designs don’t get soaked by a burst pipe.

Facebook recently rolled out yet another change to the News Feed algorithm, and honestly, we’re left with more questions than answers.

The update demotes individual posts from people and Pages that use engagement bait - a tactic that seeks to take advantage of Facebook's News Feed algorithm by asking for engagement to get more extensive organic reach. While this has long been considered a no-no, Facebook will officially begin demoting these types of posts. Facebook has also made an effort to demote clickbait headlines and low-quality web experiences.