Marketing and Communications - Featured Content · 2018-10-22 · Visitors to your website can find...

Marketing and Communications

Our Presenter: Anne Longmore

• 25+ years of experience in marketing and public relations for cultural organizations

• MA in Arts Administration • Director of Marketing for Toronto

Mendelssohn Choir since 2009 • Developed TMC’s webcasting initiative • Sessional professor in the post-graduate

Public Relations program at Humber College

What we’ll cover

• The 4 Ps of marketing and your choir’s brand

• Audiences / Stakeholders

• Strategic Communications planning

• Online communication tools and techniques

WHAT IS MARKETING?

American Marketing Association Definition

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and

processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

• Marketing is all about CREATING RELATIONSHIPS

• It’s not an add-on. It is part of the thinking and decision-making of the organization.

YOUR BRAND AND PRODUCT

Your brand

• Your logo, colours and imaging in your print material and online

BUT more than that • the promise of a certain type of experience

and level of quality. • the emotional and psychological connection

you have with your stakeholders and audiences.

The 4 Ps

Products: You can own it. You can save it for later.

Services: Experiential, ephemeral. It’s gone.

Does everything you do -- and your patrons’ experience with your

organization -- support your brand?

Product

• The repertoire you are performing

• Chorister dress

• Other concert elements – Pre-concert chat – Refreshments at intermission – Post-concert reception

Price

• Ticket prices – Different seating categories – Seniors or Youth pricing – Discounting

• How do your prices compare to other choirs in your area or other concert and entertainment options?

Place

• Where are you performing?

• Is the venue convenient, comfortable, suited to the repertoire?

• Church venues?

Promotion

• Is your message consistent and clear?

• Does it create accurate expectations?

• Are your messages relevant to your audiences?

People

• Patrons make judgments about service provision and delivery based on the people representing your organization. – Box Office – Greeters

Process

• The systems used to deliver the service

• Audition process?

• Box Office process? – Is it easy for your patrons / is it intuitive / does it

match with their experiences elsewhere?

Physical Evidence

• your concert programs

• a video of the performance

TSO listening guide to Mozart’s Symphony #41 created by Hannah Chan-Hartley.

Consumer Journey

WHO ARE YOUR AUDIENCES AND STAKEHOLDERS?

Community

Choral community

Potential singers, donors and patrons

Current patrons

Donors / Funders

Board and Singers

What defines them?

– Age or life stage – Education or knowledge – Interests – Previous experiences or behaviours – Income – Where they live or work – What media they consume

Who is your audience?

• Identify for your choirs – who are your key audiences? – why? – what do you know about them?

• Discuss at tables - similarities and differences in your audiences

Key audiences Why is the audience important?

Key facts about the audience

What else would you like to know?

1.

2.

3.

4.

How do you learn about your stakeholders?

• Observe them

• Ask them / Conduct research

• Read other research – Published by your region’s arts council – Chorus America’s Intrinsic Impact Research

• Test your tactics

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLANNING

1. Situation Analysis

SWOT Analysis

Factors you can control

Factors you CAN’T control

Strength Positive concert reviews

2900 email addresses

Weakness Emails for 1/3 of

audience No online seat selection

Opportunity Large TSO audience

Canada 150 Celebrations

Threat Few reviewers

2 other choirs doing Elijah Nov 5

Strength

Weakness

Opportunity

Threat

1. Situation Analysis

2. Identify your communication objectives

What do you want your audiences to DO or THINK?

• Become more aware of the Choir and its activities • Become more aware of the Choir’s need for

financial or volunteer support • Listen to Choir’s music / buy a CD • Purchase tickets to a concert • Donate • Read program notes or watch a video • Share what the Choir is doing with their networks • Become an advocate for the Choir

1. Situation Analysis

2. Identify your communication objectives

3. Identify your audiences and key messages

Identifying TMC’s circle of connections

1. Situation Analysis

2. Identify your communication objectives

3. Identify your audiences and key messages

4. Develop communication strategies and tactics

5. Outline budget and critical path

6. Evaluate

Your Strategic Communications Tools

Integrated Communic

ations

Media Relations

Advertising

Print Materials

Direct Marketing

Internal Events

Website

Social Media

Word of mouth

Different tools for different audiences TMC survey: “How did you learn about this concert?”

Communication tool Under 45 45-64 65 and over

Invitation from chorister 36% 20% 9%

Email 26% 22% 28%

Website 13% 22% 9%

Social media 10% 5% 1%

Season brochure 5% 23% 43%

Multiple channels needed

Priorities on a small budget

• Build community

• Choristers and Board as advocates – Provide info and tools to help them be advocates

• Online

– cost-effective and large reach and ability to target – share information / promote concerts and events

77,000 website visits

40,000 video views (webcasts and YouTube)

25,000 orchestral concert patrons

5600 Social Media followers & email addresses

3700 Concert patrons

400 Workshop participants

350 Choristers Subscribers Board Donors

USE YOUR WEBSITE AS THE HUB OF YOUR ONLINE COMMUNICATION

• Concerts • Choir concerts • Singing workshop • Classical music • Choral concerts • Choral music videos • Church music videos • Rent music • Borrow choir music

• Programme notes • Local choir • Choir workshop • Bach • Mozart • Carmina Burana • Youth choir • Music education • Volunteer

Tell your story and further your mission Visitors to your website can find out: • More about your organization and its people • Concert details • What other people think of your concerts or recordings • What the choir sounds like • More about your repertoire • How to

– Audition – Donate – Buy tickets – Buy CDs or download music tracks

Create & maintain a content-rich website that reflects you and furthers your mission Get people to visit your website Make it easy for them to stay engaged with you to build your online community

Step #1

What content are you creating for your patrons, the media, local

students, or your own choristers?

• Taking video or photos of rehearsals or concerts

• Writing programme notes for your concerts • Issuing media releases • Being reviewed in the media or on blogs

What content is created by others that might be of interest to

your followers?

Looking for Programme Notes?

• British Choirs on the Net has an extensive library of programme notes that you can use

http://www.choirs.org.uk/prognotes/index.htm

Keep it current

Add Multi-media

You Gotta Sing, Halifax

Pro Coro, Edmonton

Chorus Niagara, St. Catharines

Make it mobile friendly!

TARGETED CONTENT FOR TARGETED AUDIENCES

Step #2: Drive visitors to your website

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Google Ad Grant

Email Marketing

Referrals from other

websites

Print materials

Social Media

Step 3: Make it easy to stay connected with you

• Give web visitors different ways that they can get the information they want from you – Email – Social media – Postal mailing

• Get people’s email addresses and their permission to use them – Email sign up on your website – Collect email addresses

from ticket purchasers or event attendees

– Ballots for entry into a draw

• Include links to your social media handles – on your website – In your emails – list them on your print materials

Email Best Practices - Content

• Easy to scan

• Keep it brief and focused

• Clear call to action

• Link to more information

Email Best Practices - Lists

• Keep CASL in mind

• Segment your lists – send people information on the things they are

interested in

• Unsubscribe option

Measure your Email efforts

• Is your list growing?

• Are unsubscribes increasing or decreasing?

• Open rate of emails

• Click through rate of emails

Email Benchmarks

Provider of stats

Industry Open Rate

Clicks Unsubscribe

MailChimp Music and Musicians 23% 3%

Constant Contact

Art, Culture and Entertainment 16% 8% 0.1%

Marketing Profs.com

Entertainment 20% 12% 0.1%

BUILD COMMUNITY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media helps build community around your organization because of a shared love of

choral music

Help your community to be advocates

• Social media posts and links make it easy for

your choristers, your guest artists, your supporters, and your patrons to share your info with their networks

1. Follow and engage with others in the community

2. Post interesting material

3. Link – to your website from your posts – to your social media sites from your website & emails

4. Share content from others

– acknowledge them using @ and #

Share content that will be of interest in your community – be a thought leader. Connect your followers with other interesting content.

Curate content. Provide context and amplify content. Become

‘the choral music source’ for your audience

Don’t forget cats

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

What tools does your choir use? What do you use them for?

Share info & promote Photos Video/Audio

Facebook Instagram YouTube

Twitter Pinterest Vimeo

LinkedIn Soundcloud

Hootsuite

Forum Research on Canadian Internet Users

80-20 Rule

70-20-10 Rule

Social Media Posts

Add valueSharePromote

WHAT TO SHARE FROM OTHERS?

Some ideas on what to share

• Relevant articles – Psychological benefits of singing – Challenges to arts education in your region or nationally – Profiles of choral composers

• Videos

– Flash mobs – Humour – Repertoire you will be performing – Soloists who will be part of your concert

• Other ways to enjoy choral music

– DSO Live Stream concerts – Minnesota Public Radio Choral streaming – CBC choral music streaming

Use content from others to tell YOUR story.

Pinterest Boards

YouTube Playlists

More ideas?

• Share your social media successes

• What types of social media posts have you

used that engaged your audience, attracted new followers, etc.

Facebook, Twitter & Instagram Ads

• Boost posts • Create ads • Target recipients • Low budget

ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS PLANNING – IN SUMMARY

Identify Choir’s objectives that can be supported through online communications

Create and share rich online content

Actively drive visits to your website and social media accounts

Create opportunities for people to easily stay engaged with you online – creating community

Monitor clicks, engagement and activity to refine your plan

Monitoring Results

• Which roads are getting people to your website? –Google Analytics

• How many people are opening your emails and clicking on links?

–Stats from your Email program

• Which social media posts are being seen, liked and shared?

–Social media insights

Anne Longmore

marketing@tmchoir.org @TMChoir

Host Sponsor:

Major Sponsors:

Supporting Sponsor:

Resources for CMI – Marketing & Communications

• Practical guide to creating and maintaining a content-rich choir website and social media streams: http://choirwebsitetips.weebly.com/

• Article on Canada’s Anti Spam Legislation http://www.creativetrust.ca/2014/07/anti-spam-spam/

• Google Ad Grants (free Google text ads for non profits) www.google.ca/intl/en/grants/

• Test that your website is mobile-friendly https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

• How to improve your email marketing (from Ceci Dadisman’s Chorus America Conference presentation) www.slideshare.net/cecidadisman

• An online communication plan template https://upleaf.com/nonprofit-resources/strategy-design/communication-plan-template

• Article on improving your SEO https://www.classy.org/blog/7-seo-tips-nonprofit-cant-afford-ignore/