Marketing in a digital age

This month I will be leading several training sessions on Marketing Planning. The sessions are aimed at people who don’t have much experience of marketing, but who find themselves being asked to write a marketing strategy.  I try to cover all the basic building blocks of marketing planning, provide a few references to other resources and give delegates confidence in using some marketing terminology.

Sometimes in these session we get to discuss digital marketing techniques, but usually only on a tactical level and as part of a broader discussion. Yet it is clear that successful arts organisations need to engage with the potential of digital for not only communicating with audiences, but developing relationships with audiences – in other words – they need to take a strategic approach.

AmbITion is a ground-breaking national project that is helping arts organisations be strategic with their use of digital technology, planning it into every area of their activity. They recognised that people concerned with marketing and audience development needed some help with digitial development and ran a tailored training course, not only this but, being a digital organisation, they produced a film Successful Digital Marketing for the Arts which is available online.

If you visit the site, do also take a look at their Case Studies which include stories of how large and small arts organisations across the country have taken advantage of the new opportunities offered by digital technology.

 

Reaching Out to New Audiences

VAN briefing sheet

Earlier this year I wrote a briefing sheet on Audience Development for the Voluntary Arts Network. It has just been published and you can find it on VAN’s website.  Do take a look and let me know what you think. There are lots of useful briefing sheets in this series, all aimed at voluntary sector organisations. They are written in jargon-free language and give lots of references to other places to go for help or more information. It’s a brilliant resource so do take a look.

I was commissioned to write the sheet by Audiences Northern Ireland who are committed to providing support to the arts sector in Northern Ireland, including the Voluntary Arts Sector. The library on their website is well worth looking at as they have gathered together a range of useful resources.

On a different subject . . . . ACE have recently launched a dance mapping project, it aims to pull together existing research and generate new research that will help us make the case for dance. There is already a useful bibliography on ACE’s website, and they are calling for people involved in dance to get involved in the online consultation. If you are interested in dance audiences I suggest reading new research done for the East Midlands by Heather Maitland and Rachel Gibson, which as some useful insights and is available on Deda‘s website.

 

Is what I’m doing right?

Benchmarking has become a common tool, used by organizations to work out whether their audience achievements are better, as good as, or falling behind, their peers. But have you ever thought of benchmarking your marketing practice, to see whether you are leading the field, or missing a trick?

Amh has published the results of their Cultural Organisations Marketing Practice Survey which shows how arts and cultural organizations approach marketing. You can look specifically at the South East, or refer to the useful breakdown by art-form (summarised as performing arts, visual arts and other). Not only is the information interesting in itself, it might be useful evidence to support your arguments for developments int he marketing practices of your organisation.