I’m often struck by the complexity of communications and marketing in a nonprofit arts organization. Not only are arts marketers speaking to multiple audiences with radically different expectations and knowledge of the art form, but they are also doing so with limited budget, staff, and time in an increasingly noisy and cluttered environment.<\/p>\n
A core problem of marketing the arts is in the balance between clarity and comprehensiveness. For example, do you offer a laundry list of your entire season to all prospective patrons? Do you provide filtered versions of that season based on different purchase types (rock, theater, contemporary, traditional, sculpture, oils, and so on)? Or do you segment your audience and your message by the style<\/i> of interaction rather than the form of the art (casual, formal, learning-intensive, hands-on, dress-up, dress-down, etc.)?<\/p>\n
Worse yet, how do you accommodate consumers that may take multiple<\/i> approaches to their decisions over the course of a year — sometimes based on a specific artist, sometimes based on a mood, sometimes based on a sudden interest in trying something new?<\/p>\n
It turns out there’s another<\/i> industry that faces a similar communications challenge — balancing a large volume of information against a consumer preference for simplicity and customization. That industry is software development.<\/p>\n
Consider the challenge, for example, of constructing a software program (word processor, spreadsheet, or even a web site) in which some users will demand deep and nuanced control, while others will only need a few basic functions, and many will cycle between the two. How do you serve all of them at once, without creating entirely different software packages?<\/p>\n