Ideas

Stellar customer service is key to patron loyalty. In fact, 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company.

This statistic was gathered in a pre-pandemic world - now, our box office and visitor services staff are in the thick of the COVID-19 crisis. From ticket exchanges, to refunds, and questions about reopening, they’re dealing with a barrage of questions in a rapidly evolving situation.

Robert Phillips is a customer experience expert specializing in arts, culture, and events. He virtually sat down with us to answer some customer service questions to help arts organizations learn from and empower their customer service staff. 

Perhaps you were among the many thousands gathered around a YouTube livestream on March 22 for a one-night-only return of The Rosie O’Donnell Show. It was a live benefit for The Actors Fund and was billed as “Broadway’s Biggest Stars...At Home!” You’re reading this on our website so you’re likely an industry insider and familiar with the wonderful work of The Actors Fund. If not, go here – maybe make a donation – and then come back and read on.

The Performing Arts Ticket Buyer Media Usage Study is back to provide you with the data you need as an arts marketer in 2020. We created this study as a resource for arts marketers in organizations of all shapes and sizes to navigate this rapidly changing media environment and the 2019 report breaks new ground as the follow up to the study we debuted in 2017.

In honor of the new year, I am sharing the non-fiction books that resonated the most with me in 2019. I recommend all of these books if you are looking to become a better leader, marketer, professional, and human. I think these books can be grouped into three large buckets: Understanding the World, Understanding Yourself, and Understanding Your Workplace.

You probably have firsthand knowledge of the power of social media advertising tools to engage your audiences and sell tickets. Lately, we’ve been exploring cost-effective ways to harness these same digital tools to support the mission-centric programs that are important to all of the organizations we work with (and we’re guessing yours, too!)

Read on to learn how we did this with Anchorage Concert Association (Anchorage Concerts) and how you, too, can cultivate audiences and awareness for outreach activities and public performances through the Facebook tools you already may be using. With a solid targeting strategy as a foundation and engaging creative as your framework, you’ll see measurable results as your programs grow.

There’s quite a bit of nerdery happening in the blog post. If you’re new to the conference, you’ll want to read the whole thing. If you’re a vet, you may want to skip toward the end of the post. I hope you find some of my ideas helpful.

If you’ve never been to Digital Marketing Boot Camp for the Arts, let me just say this: you will find your people.

I’m the Director of Marketing, Sales, and Communications at BalletMet, and this will be my fifth year attending, and my first year presenting! Every year, I always find someone new to connect and nerd out with. Want to talk AI? Go for it. Want to chat about strategy for building new audiences? Yes, please! Want to give me a ridiculous amount of amazing information that I can use to do my job better, cheaper and more efficiently? Glory to the marketing geeks and gods.

It has never been easy to run an arts organization. Since our dreams are always larger than our budgets, arts organizations almost always grow to the point where it is uncomfortable. I have never met an arts leader who believes they have enough resources to meet their needs.

We have always fretted about box office revenue and fundraising success. We have always looked to attract new audiences and donors. We have always prayed that an angel donor would fall in love with our work and allow us to make a quantum leap in artistic ambition and budget.

As arts marketers, we invest a lot of time learning the tools of the trade and staying up to speed on the ever-changing technological landscape. But what if one of the ways we can enhance our performance at work is by doing something for ourselves? Namely, getting our financial house in order.

Just like eating a balanced diet, exercising and getting enough sleep, maintaining healthy financial habits is fundamental to achieving and sustaining career success. One reason for this is that financial stress has a direct impact on productivity, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Not surprisingly, about 70% of Americans say that financial stress is their most common source of stress.

Podcasts are a powerful way to connect with your patrons and attract new ones. Like arts buyers, the podcast-listening audience is intellectually curious and active. With 90 million people listening podcasts monthly, the landscape is ripe for more arts institutions to offer podcasts. But is it right for your organization?

Arts administrators from Seattle Opera, The Joyce Theater, and The Rubin Museum of Art answer frequently asked questions about launching a podcast including branding and artwork inspiration, equipment recommendations, and how their podcast ideas came to fruition.