TRG at Arts Industry Conferences

Issues that can profoundly affect revenue growth are a hot topic at this year’s round of arts conferences. TRG Arts will be contributing to the dialog on how an organization strategizes around loyalty and the way pricing maximizes revenue—or not. Watch this blog for further posts on what we present and observe.

The Broadway League Conference, New York, NY: CEO Rick Lester co-moderates a panel May 17 at The Broadway League Conference on dynamic pricing. The decision to implement this now ubiquitous tactic affects every single person within an organization. In this session, Rick and colleagues from organizations that have embraced dynamic pricing compare results and debate the merits.

The League of American Orchestras Conference, Dallas, TX: TRG President Jill Robinson and VP of Client Services Keri Mesropov will be in attendance. Jill will lead a presentation June 7 in conjunction with Chicago Symphony Orchestra for Group 1 and 2 marketing directors on “loyalty mapping”, a technique for leveraging the incredible asset available in performing organizations’ loyalty arsenal…the seat.

Americans for the Arts Convention, San Antonio, TX: Vice President Will Lester will bring TRG’s latest findings from 19 U.S. community data networks to exchange ideas on arts advocacy, market penetration, and patronage trends.

Opera America Conference, Philadelphia, PA: On June 15 Rick and Jim DeGood, Director of Marketing at TRG client Lyric Opera of Kansas City, talk dynamic pricing, its place in demand strategy and results that LOKC manifested.

Performing Arts Centers Conference Marketing Consortium, Charlotte, NC: Will Lester asks “So you think you really know your audience?” and will examine who’s really in arts audiences, using data from TRG’s nationwide data networks in his session on June 21.

Theatre Communications Group National Conference, Boston, MA: Jill and Keri will also attend the TCG National Conference in June. Jill is presenting a session entitled “Stick With Us! The Loyalty Business Model” about how to identify the patrons that an organization should value most (surprise—it’s not just major donors) and map out strategies to keep them loyal.

If you are heading to any of these conferences and want to meet up with us, email info@trgarts.com and we’ll set something up.

The Arts Community Greenhouse

Picture yourself as a master gardener in the arts and entertainment flower mart. Imagine a place where you can go to do what you do so well – even better.

Our friends at the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council this week provided a five-minute realization of this imagery. It comes in a delightful, insightful video by David Seals and Monica Meinert of the Council’s Loud and Clear Productions.



It’s the story of a community database – a greenhouse –where a participating gardener has the ability to:

Know the households that populate one’s own garden of arts offerings as well as those of other cultural endeavors in the neighborhood.

Then grow one’s own garden by voluntarily swapping seeds other community gardeners who are willing to share.

We’ve seen and studied the blooms. Cross-pollinated seeds grow into multi-organization patrons that spring up in gardens--neighboring arts and culture organizations--all across America in 19 community database networks. It’s more than a sweet image. It’s life-sustaining patronage for arts and culture. We highly recommend you take a little time to smell this rose. Bravo to the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council.

A “major donor” has many faces

Photo: Wooden tops, Tate Modern by Howard Lake

What are you passionate about? How could we tell?

Those questions kicked off a TRG webinar April 18th that addressed the issue of patron loyalty -- how we as arts managers can drive revenue from audiences’ love of the arts. Sean Kelly, VP of Marketing and Communications at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre led the webinar with Laura Willumsen, TRG’s Senior Consultant and told the story of how patron passion for The 5th is driving the company’s loyalty program.

Clearly, it’s difficult to see an individual’s passion for the arts when you are looking at patrons only through the lens of individual campaigns. Most arts managers see their season as a string of performances with seats to fill, or days of an exhibition with a visitor goal to hit, or an annual fund effort to bring in donations. “Audience engagement” and “donor cultivation”, when viewed as campaigns, are just a large number of indeterminable and unending tasks.

Life imitates art: Subscription models still going strong

This post was originally published this week on artsmarketing.org and in the National Arts Marketing Project newsletter.

How many times have you heard that the arts need a new business model, or that subscriptions are dead? There’s not a lot of people out there advocating for subscriptions. In fact most speak of abandoning it, or make conclusions or assumptions based on reports that the number of arts subscribers in America is down.

But, is the subscription model really dead? Really? The fact is, subscriptions are thriving in industries outside of the arts. In the past few months, there have been a slew of articles about entrepreneurs latching on to this model. These businesses, each of which offer a product along a specific vertical or family of products (from artisan coffee to cosmetics to books) each month for a set fee, see the subscription model as the ticket to sustaining revenue. And it’s making them successful. Entrepreneur declared subscription service startups “the hot new thing”. Now it seems more businesses than ever are imitating what has made arts organizations successful for decades—and what some in our field are preparing to throw away.

Upcoming Webinar: The Loyalty Business Model

Update: Thanks to everyone who signed up for the webinar. If you missed it, you can still view the recording here.

Announcing TRG's latest webinar...

The Loyalty Business Model:
How to use passion for the arts to drive revenue           

Date: Wednesday, April 18
Time: 2-3:15 p.m. EDT/11-12:15 PDT
Cost: Free--register here.

While some debate the feasibility of the current arts business model and look to new audiences to fill the gap, the fact remains: only 1 out of 5 new patrons come back a second time. Our problem is not new audiences; it’s keeping the patrons we have--and increasing their loyalty to our organizations.

Loyalty can be achieved when a patrons’ passion for the arts is activated. Strategies that promote loyalty involve common-sense measures to draw in "newbies" and deepen relationships among first- and long-time patrons.  Best practices focus on increasing patron satisfaction and, in turn, ongoing revenue. The 5th Avenue Theatre, in collaboration with TRG Arts, is building a wholly new model of audience engagement, centered on this view of patron loyalty. 

5^th Avenue Theatre’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications Sean Kelly and TRG’s Senior Consultant Laura Willumsen lead this webinar, which focuses on the benefits of viewing patron interactions through the lens of their lifetime loyalty to your organizations. You’ll learn:

●     why loyalty is the only sustainable model for revenue growth
●     what makes a targeted, purposeful loyalty strategy different from more general audience engagement programs
●     about the specific techniques Kelly and Willumsen used to drive retention, as well as increase engagement and revenue at 5th Avenue Theatre

To Register:
1. Go to Webex: http://bit.ly/H95IXO

2. Click on "register" (free).

3. Fill in the short form and SUBMIT.

You will receive log-in information for the webinar in the confirmation email.

Note: To participate fully, you will call in for sound and log on to the online presentation and virtual dialog.

Mark your calendar; mind your time zone:
Wednesday, April 18
11 a.m. Pacific
Noon Mountain
1 p.m. Central
2 p.m. Eastern

Questions? Comments? Contact us, or comment below.

How blockbusters can increase loyalty

Line to get in to Hirshhorn After Hours.
Photo by Joe Loong via Flickr.

Recently I came across an excellent article entitled “Death by Curation” on how museums have developed an over-reliance on programming special exhibits, as opposed to trusting their permanent collections to make revenue goals. Author Colleen Dilenschneider makes the point that blockbusters can increase annual revenue expectations to often unreasonable levels. The blockbuster-addicted museum then sinks more money into further special exhibits that may not be as successful as the first blockbuster, or even break even.

Over two decades, we’ve seen this pattern play out in performing arts organizations, as well as museums and other membership-based attractions. Of course, the blockbusters themselves are usually not the problem. The way that an arts organization handles a blockbuster can be. As the curation article corroborates, blockbusters have the potential to leave the organization in the lurch afterwards when 1) the previous spike in revenue leaves staff hungry for more and 2) patrons acquired from a blockbuster don’t come back. TRG and other research bears this out; just one in five patrons returns to an arts organization after their first visit.

3 Principles for Increasing Patron Loyalty

Patron Loyalty Week continues through March 24th. We’re engaging in dialogue about developing longer, stronger patron relationships on the blog, at industry conferences, and on Twitter at #LoyaltyWeek

We love loyal patrons. Why? Simply put, they make money for arts organizations, and they make arts managers’ jobs easier. Patron loyalty means developing stronger, longer relationships with your audience. It's all about finding new buyers, converting them into frequent buyers, subscriber/members, donors and, ultimately, lifelong patrons.

Making those conversions has far-reaching implications for arts organizations. TRG research shows that the more loyal a patron is, the greater their lifetime value will be to an arts organization. 

But how does that translate into your day-to-day tasks? We all know that marketing and fundraising are about patron relationships, but that reality gets lost when managers are trying make revenue goals week after week. We forget that a loyalty strategy works like a booster shot for marketing and development efforts. It means less work to promote a production or exhibit, or garner donors for development campaigns.

Here are 3 simple principles to help arts managers integrate loyalty into everyday tasks:

1. Loyalty is everyone’s job.  Leadership must be engaged and lead the kind of transformational change required to really orient around the patron.  Marketing and development departments each have major responsibility for loyalty. And so does everyone else in the organization – from the folks who plan the campaigns to the person who sells the ticket.