ARTSblog

written by Ron Evans

At the recent NAMP Conference in Providence, a lot of focus was put onto Twitter, and what use it could be to connect with patrons and have them join in on the conversation. Those of you who use Twitter already know how quickly life flies by tweet by tweet (if you’re new to the idea of Twitter, read up on an excellent article on what Twitter is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter). A few days ago, a female blogger who goes by the name “Broadway Girl NYC” wrote a post called “The BroadwayGirlNYC Dating Service: Let Love Shine on Broadway.” Her blog and her original post can be found here and her twitter page is: http://twitter.com/broadwaygirlnyc

On a whim, she designed a contest of sorts — she challenged her single Twitter followers to write a tweet and add the hashtag “#SingleOnBway” (a hashtag is a way for Twitter people using the same term in their post to find other people who want to talk about the same topic) as a way for single folks to find each other and potentially make a connection via public messages on Twitter. If there was a spark, they were told to send a tweet back to BroadwayGirlNYC, and she would choose two winners to give two free tickets to MCC Theater’s “The Pride” for a “blind date.”

The response has been amazing. Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 5:10 — 4.7MB)

In this audio podcast, Bob Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, discusses the recent National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Providence, Rhode Island. He argues that because most arts organizations rely heavily on earned income, innovative marketing techniques are even more critical in today’s tough economic climate.

Five hundred arts professionals, artists, and others attended CollaborAction: Arts Marketing, Sponsorship and Fundraising Strategies that Work to gain crucial training for their organizations. You can find tweets, videos, and pictures from NAMP Conference on our website.

 It has been inspirational to be in a room full of people who are so passionate about the arts that they’ve committed their weekends (when I prefer sleeping to doing) to learning about and discussing how they can do more for their organizations, their cities, and the policies that are shaping our future. As a side note, I have been to many other marketing conferences that were not arts focused and the energy wasn’t even a quarter of what it has been at NAMP. We definitely rocked it, but don’t laugh at me for saying that.
 
What has excited me most is the number of questions asked.  Most have been brilliantly answered and many have been left unanswered, but the questions raised and discussions started are what have made this conference for me.  I can’t wait to go back to Chicago with the new tools I’ve learned under my belt, but my anticipation lies mostly in posing these questions to my colleagues–oh the heated discussions we’ll have.
 
Thank you to the Joyce Foundation, American’s for the Arts, the incredibly fun city of Providence, and of course NAMP for allowing me this unique experience.  I’ll be returning to my organization energized and ready to really think.  Watch out Hyde Park Art Center…my enthusiasm might get annoying.

At Sunday’s Plenary Luncheon David McIntosh inspired us with his dynamic presentation on Arts in Business. The greatest take-away for me was his recommendation to “think of yourself as an artist and work as if you are making a work of art.”

David observes that everyone wants something to point to and be proud of in their lives. To keep your creative juices flowing, because you can’t wait around for inspiration to hit, David recommends:

• Carrying a notebook with you at all times and making notes
• Continuing to work, following your daily routines and staying alert in the every-day
• Keeping a portfolio of your achievements

Graphic Facilitator Kelvy Bird accompanied David in his presentation by visually capturing his discussion. Her techniques are similar to mind-mapping, the process of visually documenting your thoughts on paper. This is a great way of getting the clutter of ideas out of your head and onto the paper. Kelvy called this “walking in the landscape of your ideas by putting them into form.”

There’s been a lot of discussion here on how to find new and creative ways to reach audiences. As we’ve all heard, social media and the new consumer-driven marketing model have tipped the scales toward expanding your Internet presence (and all that implies) and moving away from print advertising. “You have to find people where they are,” said Brian Reich of little m media at today’s “Why Media Rules” session.

And of course where they are—a lot—is on the Internet. But where do we go to find consumers when they’re not online? That’s the question I’d like to place in my last blog post of the conference. I’m curious: What would you say is your most “creative” non-web marketing campaign this year? Was it in a newspaper or magazine? Was it a television or radio ad? By creative, I don’t mean “artful.” What I mean is “innovative” (i.e., finding consumers through a new, untried medium). Mine is this: Restroom ads at upscale restaurants. Though time will tell how successful the campaign is in terms of ROI, I like how the campaign meets people where they are when they’re not online: eating out, hanging out with friends, being relaxed. That seems to me the moment when you can really reach people—when they’re not really looking.

I could be wrong, of course. But what about you? What’s your most “creative” campaign this year?

I am starting to ask myself some interesting questions as an artist at this conference. This conference is focused on how in this struggling economy can arts organizations take advantage of current marketing trends to engage their patrons in new ways that will allow their patrons to feel like they are more significant than just a source for money. Current arts organizations’ marketing trends are starting to suggest that they start to include the patron in more behind-the-scenes activities to bring more value to the patron’s experience. One of the ways to achieve this is to offer some kind of “meet the artist experience,” i.e. short videos of the artist in their studio, artist interviews,  special events where people meet the artist, etc. The general arts public seem to want to have more of an experience than just being thought of as a monetary donor.

Does that mean that the artist themselves is becoming a marketing tool? In the future, how much choice and privacy will the artist be able and expected to keep and still fulfill the organization’s requests? If as an artist you decide that your work is really about the work and not you as a person, how do you keep the artist as a person separate from the artist as her art and process? If you don’t have some separation will the artist start to take on people comments like they are talking about the artist personally? Read the rest of this entry »

As blog submission number one gets posted let me say Providence is a gorgeous backdrop for the work that is being accomplished at this year’s NAMP conference. While sipping on a coke on the flight here I was reading in the in-flight magazine about the top ten locations for observing fall foliage; Vermont was listed, New York, Washington, among other states. Not listed was the state of Rhode Island. During the plane’s descent into Providence’s airport stretched out as far as my eye could see were puffs of green evergreen tree tops and puffy tops in every shade of crimson. These colors are not experienced in Minnesota. The charm of New England has not been lost on me.

The theme for the first day of the conference for me was ACTION!

David Court’s opening plenary was a great way to kick-off or raise the curtain on this year’s conference. David’s remarks reminded me that to be successful there is no one size fits most strategy for attracting audiences to participate in our activities. We must be innovative in our communication strategies and tailor our messaging for the new consumer. Our communication channels have to be on stand-by waiting for the patron to begin an interaction with us on the patron’s timeline and in the patron’s language. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a simple equation that Philippe Ravanas of Columbia College in Chicago shared with us at the Every Dolar Counts: Using ROI to Prove Marketing Effectiveness at the NAMP Conference:

ROI % = Return/Investment = Sales Income – Marketing Investment/Marketing Investment x 100

Lara Goetsch of TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago brought the equation to life in her examples of how she is now coding her marketing and able to track ROI – allowing her to make informed decisions and marketing investments.

Overwhelmed? The best advice both had to offer was to take it in steps. Measure one marketing investment at a time.

Once again I find myself at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, which is being held this year in Providence, RI. This is my fifth conference, and instead of presenting like I have done in the past, I really wanted to listen in on other sessions to hear what is being discussed. I have been asked to blog about my experiences for Americans for the Arts.

This morning I was lucky enough to sit in on the Every Dollar Counts: Using ROI to Prove Marketing Effectiveness session. I decided to go to the session because one of my favorite arts marketing experts was presenting–Philippe Ravanas, marketing professor at Columbia College and former VP of Corporate Communications for EuroDisney. I have seen him speak at several conferences and he is always extraordinary.

This morning he discussed a situation he found himself in when he was the Manager of Client Development at Christie’s in London. Each year, they would produce a beautiful catalog of auction items that they would send to most of their database. These catalogs were highly coveted, and cost the organization $20 a piece to produce, however Philippe noticed that his ROI (return on investment) for these catalogs was poor. Read the rest of this entry »

Rich Mintz, online fundraising guru from Blue State Digital, discusses the NAMP Conference in his video interview from yesterday.

Also find interviews on Vimeo with others at NAMP including: Daniel Kertzner of the Rhode Island Foundation; Mayor David N. Cicilline of Providence; David Court of McKinsey & Company’s Global Marketing practice; and Deborah Obalil, of Obalil & Associates and leader of the Marketing for the Independent Artist Preconference.

“Art strengthens communities,” David N. Cicilline, Providence’s mayor, told us at Saturday morning’s keynote address, “and helps build civil societies.” While this may sound like a cliché, my mind keeps returning to this phrase.

Because it’s true.

We talk about the struggling economy. We talk about ways to market our products and raise revenue for our programs—that is, after all, why we’re here at NAMP. But lost in the mad dash after attention and cash is, sometimes, the very reason our organizations came into being in the first place: the arts we cultivate.

Of course, we don’t lose track of the art our organizations cultivate; we’re neck-deep in it every day. We’ve even given up our weekend to travel to Providence to ply our trade. (Not just any weekend, either. Halloween weekend! How many of you had to check sorry, can’t make it on at least one friend’s Halloween party Evite? I did on two.) Read the rest of this entry »

Just got back from the opening ceremony held at the RISD museum of art. Their art collection was very impressive. The evening started off  at the museum by being lead up to a narrow escalator when I got off  the escalator I was hit by a cerulean blue wall  with 3 high school  students playing in a quartet. I entered the contemporary gallery and  right away I knew I was in for a treat. They had a Calder, Twonmbly,  Catlett, Pollock, Hoffman, Agnes Martin, and Philip Guston just to name a few. It was wonderful and it was only the first room.  I went  on to see a wonderful print exhibition with a few Albect Durer what an  amazing artist he was so before his time. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was asked to blog at the NAMP conference, I thought, Great. Easy. No problemo. But now, after nearly a full day here, I’m kind of stumped. It’s 7:30am and I’m sitting in a Starbucks up the street from the hotel and the Providence Convention Center. My problem is that I’d like to avoid writing about the obvious: how good my preconference sponsorship bootcamp was, how important it has already been meeting marketing colleagues from throughout the U.S. (and even Canada), and how much I’m looking forward to today’s program.

Whew, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I can talk about something really important.
Bob Dylan led the bootcamp! Actually, it was Alice Sachs Zimet. But go with me here. Imagine a female version of Bob Dylan: thick, curly hair and thin wise-looking face. Those among you who’ve seen Dylan perform, as I have a gazillion times, will even recognize her self-confident, loosey-goosey movements as those of Dylan on stage. I mean the comparison as a compliment. A big one. Sachs Zimet has a great resume for arts marketing—having worked in the field for many years—but her presentation, her “performance,” was impressive.

She has a strong ability to process information quickly and make connections between comments, and her “stage” presence is kind of mind blowing (though you have to write fast to keep up with her pace). After leaving the bootcamp yesterday, my clean notebook was half-filled with dashed-off scratchings I hope I can read later, and my brain hurt (in a good way) from absorbing so much stuff.

The National Arts Marketing Project Conference is in full swing in Providence, Rhode Island. We’ve just posted two video interviews from preconference presenters Tim Baker and Steven Roth of The Pricing Institue.

Visit that same Vimeo video channel throughout the next few days to see updated interviews and videos.