{"id":5212,"date":"2018-02-14T02:00:22","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T07:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=5212"},"modified":"2018-02-12T09:01:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T14:01:53","slug":"know-your-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2018\/02\/know-your-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Your Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This is part of a series, introduced in Baby Steps,<\/a> about arts organizations\u2019 initial efforts in community engagement. For details about the premises upon which these posts are based, see below. The essence is that simple, inexpensive initial steps offer the best way to embark upon community engagement.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Know Your Communities: Community-Aware Marketing
\n<\/b>This is a sneaky post. The emphasis of this series is on the small, simple, inexpensive things that can be done to pursue community engagement in the early days of such efforts. That would be true of what follows if our industry\u2019s marketing were grounded in audience awareness. Unfortunately, it is not. It has, historically, been self-focused, self-referential, and what I love to call artcentric. So, <\/span>while<\/b> what\u2019s needed demands, for many organizations, a seismic shift, that is not the fault of community engagement. It\u2019s the fault of our marketing history and practices.<\/b><\/p>\n

Engaged Promotion
\n<\/span><\/i>What\u2019s necessary <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> simple\u2013organize marketing efforts around the interests of the people you\u2019re trying to reach; and to do this, you need to understand them; and to do that, you need to talk with (not at) them. (OK, if you feel the need to keep a distance, survey them; but make sure it\u2019s a well constructed survey and <\/span>respond<\/span><\/i> to what they say.) Once you know about the people you want to reach, construct your messages in such a way that they might pay attention. Why should they spend their time and money on what you have to offer?<\/span><\/p>\n

Relationship-Based Marketing
\n<\/span><\/i>Phase II of engaged marketing is rooted in the relationships you have with the people you are trying to reach. (This is why the \u201csurvey only\u201d can only take you so far. Surveys don\u2019t build relationships.) When communities trust and value an organization they will pay more attention to communication from it. And, of course, the communication will be far better targeted so that it will be more effective. <\/span><\/p>\n

How To
\n<\/span><\/i>Granted, the practicalities of this go far beyond the scope of this blog post. So, I\u2019m calling upon a couple of experts (and providing links) for readers to follow.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last August, <\/span>Aubrey Bergauer, Executive Director of the California Symphony, published four articles that explained how the CS had, in three years, reversed the national trend in orchestral audiences by increasing ticket revenue (by 71%), audience size (by 70%), new subscriber renewal rates (by 69%), and a host of other indicators by changing the way they did their marketing. Her concern is with what is called audience development, but the principles easily apply to community engagement. In essence, she advocates focus on \u201cpatron retention,\u201d a concept that sounds a whole lot like relationship building (<\/span>aka<\/span><\/i> engagement) to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are the links to her overview and subsequent implementation articles:<\/span><\/p>\n