{"id":2676,"date":"2013-03-27T06:31:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T10:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=2676"},"modified":"2013-03-27T06:31:15","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T10:31:15","slug":"engaged-marketing-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/03\/engaged-marketing-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Engaged Marketing: Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bazaar\"In my ongoing effort to imagine arts management structures\/practices\/programs in a community engagement context (what I call mainstreaming engagement), I’m in the midst of several posts attempting to do that with marketing. In the beginning (Engaged Marketing: Introduction<\/a>), I discussed (with myself) what marketing is<\/em>\u2013a task not without its own difficulties. (My conclusions, grossly oversimplified, were that 1) Marketing included but was not limited to sales, er, results (thank you Trevor O’Donnell-see comment following Engaged Marketing: Introduction<\/a>); 2) Marketing has a long-term responsibility for relationship building; and 3) Marketing\u2013like everything in a nonprofit organization\u2013was in the service of mission.) Here, I want to discuss a critical element of marketing\u2013research\u2013and how the research process can become an engagement tool.<\/p>\n

(NB: In posts on mainstreaming engagement, I am addressing only those individuals or organizations that want broader and deeper relationships with their communities but are uncertain how to begin or even whether it is possible to do so without completely reinventing the organization<\/em>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Katya Andresen, a nonprofit marketing guru (her book Robinhood Marketing<\/a> and Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog<\/a> are industry standards), recently wrote about How to research your audience if you have no budget for consultants<\/a>. It has very good suggestions, but it also makes points that are valuable in this context. She says, “If you have no research budget at all, try to glean what you can from those around you in your daily work. . . . ” She goes on to discuss staff and volunteers simply talking to or observing constituents (beneficiaries, donors, other volunteers), often in contexts where they would be doing so anyway. I particularly enjoyed her principal advice, “[W]e should listen as much as we talk.” along with her observation, “Asking ‘why’ will not tell us ‘why.'” We can understand \u201cwhy\u201d by listening to their stories and getting at their feelings. . . . The person who tells the story, in turn, benefits from that attentiveness and may see life in a new way through speaking about it.”<\/p>\n

As I discussed in Focus Group or Story Circle<\/a>, simply adding a new perspective to a marketing research technique can enhance engagement. Following Ms. Andresen’s advice, if pursued with the thought of building relationships as a bonus, provides an efficient engagement tool with little or no extra expenditure of resources. The storyteller she sees as a research subject is also brought into deeper relationship with the organization through the telling (and reflecting). Seeing their observations as valued by the organization (or more specifically the interviewer), they are being “engaged.” A relationship is forming or deepening.<\/p>\n

So, if (some) marketing research can be made an engagement tool, what cannot<\/em> be? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Engage!<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n

Photo:\"Attribution\"\"Noncommercial\"\"Share<\/a> Some rights reserved<\/a> by eldan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my ongoing effort to imagine arts management structures\/practices\/programs in a community engagement context (what I call mainstreaming engagement), I’m in the midst of several posts attempting to do that with marketing. In the beginning (Engaged Marketing: Introduction), I discussed (with myself) what marketing is\u2013a task not without its own difficulties. (My conclusions, grossly oversimplified, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[12,13,31,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-2676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-principles","7":"category-the-practice-of-engagement","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-community-engagement","10":"tag-mainstreaming","11":"tag-marketing","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-Ha","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2683,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/03\/engaged-marketing-sales\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":0},"title":"Engaged Marketing: Sales","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"March 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I am in the process of considering marketing as part of my ongoing series on mainstreaming community engagement\u2013figuring out how to be engaged without adding a lot of new \"stuff\" to do. Here, I want to discuss how the sales process can be \"engaging.\" (NB: In posts on mainstreaming engagement,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bazaar","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Bazaar-300x174.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2761,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/04\/engaged-fundraising-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":1},"title":"Engaged Fundraising: II","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"When last we met, I talked about community engaged fundraising providing the option of gaining us access to more diverse funding sources. [Engaged Fundraising: I (More Pies)] Here, I am revisiting the \"math\" of a former post (Arts 2.0: 40k x $25=$1M) in which I waxed rhapsodic about the potential\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arts 2.0"","block_context":{"text":"Arts 2.0","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/arts-2-0\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/40kx25-300x35.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2755,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/04\/engaged-fundraising-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":2},"title":"Engaged Fundraising: I (More Pies)","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"There is probably no element of the nonprofit arts management structure that better understands the importance of relationships than the development department. Fundraisers spend their life initiating, fostering, and maintaining relationships with individual donors, corporate sponsors, and foundations. Especially with respect to individual donors, they have great clarity about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Pies","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Pies-300x163.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2307,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/01\/mainstreaming-on-my-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":3},"title":"Mainstreaming on My Mind","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"January 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"My basic beliefs about the arts and community engagement are fairly well-known to anyone who reads this blog or who has read my book. 1) Community engagement is vital to a healthy future for the arts; 2) substantive community engagement is relatively rare in the established arts world; and 3)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/OnMyMind.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2785,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/04\/engaged-mission-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":4},"title":"Engaged Mission: I","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"When I first outlined my series of posts on mainstreaming community engagement I had not intended to address mission. I did not want to (nor did I think it necessary) to \u201ctake on\u201d the definition of our core principles in addressing modes of mainstreaming engagement. However, as the posts and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Compass","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Compass-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2575,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/04\/excellence-to-what-end\/","url_meta":{"origin":2676,"position":5},"title":"Excellence\u2013To What End?","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Taking a time out from mainstreaming engagement and questions of diversity (although both really are related to this), I feel a need to revisit (briefly) the \"question of quality.\" This is something that needs to be done with some regularity by anyone advocating for a community-oriented perspective in the arts.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"ExcellenceSign","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/ExcellenceSign-300x148.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}