Ideas

The digital landscape evolves at a rapid pace—so what should you focus on in 2023? 

Over the next few weeks, we’ll dive into seven major areas that you should actually prioritize, starting with one of the most important keys to digital marketing success: a first-party data strategy. 

As the weather gets colder and windows get frosty, arts organizations are gearing up for their annual holiday shows. But in the flurry of the season, it’s hard to keep up with the competition. 

Your organization is competing with streaming services, ticket brokers, and dozens of other holiday events in your city. Plus, people are inundated with shopping ads that clutter the digital landscape. Revenue from holiday shows or end-of-year fundraising campaigns are crucial for many organizations, which means it’s time to level up your digital advertising game.

So, how do you cut through the noise, so you don't get iced out this winter? Read on to find out!

At CI, we often talk about the importance of creating timely, relevant, and authentic content. It’s created at the intersection of what’s going on at your organization and what is going on in your audience's lives. This is a huge reason we create the Social Content Calendar for Arts Marketers as a resource.

Warm weather is just around the corner, which means it’s time for spring cleaning! Now’s the moment to tidy up your CRM, spruce up your emails, and say goodbye to the marketing efforts that haven’t been “sparking joy.” With limited resources at your disposal, though, which projects should you tackle first?

Earlier this month, we released the 2021 Performing Arts Ticket Buyer Usage Study, based on survey responses from over 17,000 ticket buyers at 48 performing arts organizations. Be sure to read the full report when you’ve got the time—and check out the Key Findings Summary for a quick overview—but here, we’ve distilled the findings down to identify the top four investments worth prioritizing, based on ticket buyer behavior today. With this to-do list in hand, you’re on your way to a squeaky-clean digital foundation!

The past two years have brought turmoil to us as individuals, digital marketers, and arts supporters. Our industry has faced an incredible amount of uncertainty and financial strain, while the happenings of the world around us have taken an emotional toll on our hearts. And yet, we’ve stuck to it. We’ve persevered. Why? Because we know the power of our industry. We know that the arts have the ability to change the way people see the world and their place in it, and that is undeniably worth it.

The arts help us heal from our history, even beyond the past two years. The arts help us remember the importance of connection and regain inspiration amidst the turmoil. The arts make this world a better place. So, we push—the world needs us to.

As we rebuild and reimagine the possibilities of our extraordinary sector, abundance is ripe to think big and beyond what we’ve been able to before, to disrupt the status quo, and to see new potential in our digital strategies.

In 2021, Apple and its CEO Tim Cook have spent a lot of time and energy espousing their dedication to protecting their users’ privacy and giving people more control over the data tracked about them by third parties. Other companies (*ahem* Facebook) attempted to make Apple’s push seem more about hurting other tech companies rather than about protecting users’ privacy. I think both are right.

Designing for email is both a skill and a mindset. In the past few years at CI, we have gone on a journey with our email templates—officially redesigning twice with iterative optimizations. 

Email marketing and search engine marketing (SEM). As marketers, you know them both as vital digital marketing channels, and at first glance, one could argue that they don’t have a lot in common. But as you dig deeper, you’ll find these two channels have a lot more in common than you’d think.

March 2020 feels like decades ago, but it was just one year ago the U.S. went into lockdown. We released a blog post to help arts marketers navigate these uncharted waters, but it was uncertain where this pandemic would lead us.

Throughout the course of a year, we saw the sheer resilience of arts administrators in the face of crisis. We pivoted to digital programming to bring art into our audiences' homes. We officially want to discard the word ‘pivot’ from our vocabulary. We explored new ways to keep our audiences engaged. But most of all, we were consistently reminded just how passionate and inventive the arts and cultural community can be.

What is the impact of the pandemic on arts marketing? Capacity Interactive conducted a survey of 53 diverse arts and cultural organizations, collecting data from FY2019 and calendar year 2020, with WolfBrown as research consultants advising on the methodology, survey design, data visualization, and analysis.

We’ve outlined key takeaways to help you understand the data, and posed key questions to help you build stronger foundations for your organization. If you like this blog post, be sure to check out this livestream recording with more insights and in-depth strategic recommendations for the months ahead.

Before you start reading, though, treat yourself to a deep breath: we are a year into this pandemic and it has had a profound impact on all of our lives. All of the data we are about to explore is inextricably tied to the loss and trauma we’ve endured to varying degrees. Give yourself some grace, snuggle a nearby furry friend if you have one, and get ready to dive into the data.