Ideas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…annual holiday programming! Whether it’s The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol, nearly every arts organization has a yearly tradition that their audience anticipates year after year. And while traditional events are a great way to engage your patrons, you know that using the same digital marketing tactics each year should not be a tradition—iteration is everything!

When you hear the word “blog,” it may evoke the late 90s or early 2000s. In those heady days of the internet, it seemed like everyone, and their dog had a blog they used to change the world.

But what if we told you that blogs are not only still relevant but are also often underutilized? What if we told you a blog could be more than just the centerpiece of the 2009 Meryl Streep and Amy Adams foodie feature, Julie & Julia? What if we told you that blogs could supercharge your SEO efforts and powerfully drive organic traffic?

Creating blog posts focused on what people are searching for will drive users directly to the blog article in question, straight from the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). These types of blogs will introduce new users to your organization. So, how do you get started? We're here to help you!

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.

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.

Pop quiz: what do you think is the second biggest search engine? Obviously, the top spot is taken by the behemoth that is Google, and for a good reason. Its search engine is strong, and it makes a ton of money by selling ads at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

The second biggest search engine isn’t Bing or Yahoo—it’s YouTube. You read that correctly—it’s YouTube! 

You might not think of YouTube as a search engine since it’s primarily a video/social platform. But anything that uses an algorithm to search a database for a query and display relevant listings can be considered a “search engine.” Any time a search engine is used, we can optimize our content so that it performs well.

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.

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 all things ballet and dance, has a newfound passion and talent for pottery, and brings her invaluable teaching skills to work every single day.

CI to Eye is a podcast for arts leaders who want to reach their full potential. Each episode is created to help you become better at your job so you can help the arts move forward.

Ask the Industry features advice from arts marketers in their own words. We hope you that it will spark new ideas for your organization.

This month, we’re asking, “What’s your advice for an organization looking to start and maintain a blog?”

Calvin Dotsey (Houston Symphony), Jeff Fickes (Seattle Shakespeare Company), and Krystina Tran (Stanford Live) discuss everything from how to feasibly create blog content on a regular basis, to the different types of audiences they write for, and the tools they use to keep everything in line.