Everything needs to be considered for good arts audience development

There is a tiny little debate happening, although it might have been caused by a misunderstanding.  It has been brought up that sometimes we need to look at the programming, if (and there it is, if) the programming is no longer selling.  We also have to look at the marketing messages and branding, the audience development planning (or perhaps lack of), the pricing, the presentation, the placement (dates), etc., etc.  Everything that is a component of the art and selling of the art needs to be considered if an event/work is not selling.

You can’t simply blame it on bad marketing, although this could be the simple answer if bad marketing is at hand and found to be the only culprit.

You see, the world is changing and has changed.  What was in demand years ago is not what is in demand now.  If the art of old was still in high demand, we wouldn’t be having these conversations.  Arts organizations would not be going bankrupt.  The ones that still seem to be in the game are doing more than simply changing their marketing.  They are also changing other parts of the art, like presentation, programming and adding audience development plans.

When it comes to selling art, it is never so simple because art is subjective, not objective.  If it were that simple, we would be able to do all the right things marketing wise and be guaranteed awesome audiences, but sometimes this is not the case.

Programming seems to be a delicate issue since so many people love the art forms just the way they have been for years.  It also depends on your mission and making sure you do not stray from your mission too far.  However, expanding your horizons in programming can be a smart move.  Programming new plays and music, when considered carefully, could appeal to both current and new audiences, and think about how grateful the composers and playwrights of today would be if we did!   Hosting a new art exhibit by an up-and-coming artist may be just the ticket to attracting a more diverse audience base.  Collaborating in new and wonderful ways can make your programming fresh again.  The best combination is adding amazing marketing and even more awesome audience development planning to your well thought out programming.

Lastly, maybe you need to start with your audience to make sure your programming is what they really want too.  Your audience both current and potential will let you know.  In any case, programming along with marketing and audience development planning needs to be taken into account if your arts business is suffering.  You might find out that your programming is not the problem for obtaining new and broader audiences.  You might find out that your inability to expand may be exactly your problem.

Everything needs to be considered now for good audience development.  Everything should be evaluated to find out which part of the equation is and is not working for you.  Devoting to only one piece of the puzzle will not achieve a full and diverse audience.  It most certainly will not help you to obtain a happy and loyal one either.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Outreach, rinse, repeat for arts audience development

Do you want to get a good lather going for audience development?  I know you have heard me mention outreach before, but I’m not sure everyone has taken action.  There are two ways to develop an audience.  You can throw tons of money into marketing efforts, and if you have the tons of money to advertise everywhere, you might get a big enough percentage to see your audience grow (albeit mostly temporarily if no follow up occurs).  The second way to develop an audience is through sweat equity using audience development programs and outreach efforts.  With outreach efforts, you can put in the time and show up, share, become a part of your community and become recognized to build your audiences.

Many of you do not have the tons of money to throw at a huge enough marketing effort, but you can put in the sweat equity.  It takes time, but you will only need little amounts of money to do outreach properly.  Here is a list of tasks you can take on to help develop your audiences through outreach efforts:

• Find your local community events – evaluate which ones fit with you and your mission – set up a table
  It usually costs $25-150 to table at one of these events.  If you have a program that can provide entertainment, you can get a table for free, and you might get paid as well.  This is the place where you can meet the people that are interested, but are not attending.  I get this question, a lot.  How do we speak with the people that are not attending.  This is one way to do it!
• Retweet valuable information on Twitter – Find out what your followers are interested in, and retweet content that they would enjoy. This will help you go beyond the marketing tweets (which can turn off followers if that’s all you tweet about).  This means that when you see an article your followers would be interested in, retweet!
• Become a creative for your community and help to solve problems – I recently saw a presentation where a light artist created an installation to help make the city safer.  Artists can solve problems in creative ways to help their community.
• Give to others to bring awareness for yourself – People these days admire businesses that also help other people.  Artists and arts organizations can make a huge difference with their art and create positive energy toward awareness and dollars for social causes.  In the process, you will be helping yourself too by bringing in new audiences and energy toward your art.
• Create events that tie into a bigger picture – If there is a national event that is hosted by a bigger entity, find a way to create a local event to invite fans to connect with you.  You will find a regional audience that would be a good fit for you too.
• Develop programs to have your audiences do the outreaching for you – People are sharing! Compelling stories, programs, videos, pictures are share worthy. Develop strong content and incentives to get people wanting to share and outreach for you.

I hope you see that all 4 C’s will be represented when you do outreach properly for audience development (Connect, Collaborate, Community, Care).  It does take some time and hard work, but if you really want an audience – outreach, rinse (evaluate), repeat!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

New eBook! The How of Audience Development for the Arts: Learn the Basics, Create Your Plan

Arts audience development and Twitter reminder

For my Monday Moment, I wanted to remind all of you that using Twitter is not all about “me, me, me.”  I have seen various artists and arts organizations posting a stream of marketing messages to like them on Facebook, or check out our YouTube or repeated tweets about their upcoming show.

Twitter is meant for socializing which means the majority of your stream should either be about “them” or about “us.”  This means that you want to have more two-way communications and also to tweet information that will be beneficial for them as well.  Having a stream that is all about “me” is not going to be as popular, and less people will likely want to follow.  They will get tired of being “sold to” all the time.

The occasional marketing message is okay, but use marketing tweets sparingly!

Use Twitter to build relationships with your audiences and have real conversations with them.  Simply retweeting that they retweeted one of your marketing message does not count.  If you do not have @replies or links to interesting information to deepen your relationships with them, you are missing the point of Twitter.  Twitter can be a valuable experience when you use it correctly.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

New eBook!  The How of  Audience Development for the Arts: Learn the Basics, Create Your Plan

How to go beyond demographics for arts audience development

I had a conversation with an arts center yesterday.  They mentioned that they are working with a marketing company and are busy pulling their target audience information after some research.  I was concerned that they were only going as far as to target demographics, such as age, gender, income, zip code, etc.  It is good to consider demographics, but it is even better to know the psychographics.  From Wikipedia:

Psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. They are also called IAO variables (for Interests, Activities, and Opinions). They can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as usage rate or loyalty), and firmographic variables (such as industry, seniority and functional area).

When we are considering what type of person would be interested in your art, wouldn’t it be best to consider a person’s personality, values, attitudes, interests or lifestyle instead of their age, gender and income?  To me it makes perfect sense to go beyond the demographics to find the right people that will enjoy your art and become loyal audiences. Finding out the psychographics of your audiences will enable you to put more focus on who they are as people instead of simply having the data of a crowd.

In order to take the psychographics into account, I suggest that you get to know your current audiences to form a more complete picture about them.  Use surveys and focus groups and ask questions that will bring to light the personalities and preferences of your audience members.  Once you get to know your audiences, you will have a clue as to what types of people enjoy your art and who in the future you can reach out to using these psychographic variables as your guide.

I have found that psychographics lead to expanding an audience far beyond what pulling demographics can do.  If you want to build the right audience for you, I highly recommend starting to get to know your current and potential audiences as people instead of as numbers you can pull from a census report.  Go beyond the demographics, and instead of targeting the numbers, build relationships with the right people for your art.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

New eBook!  The How of  Audience Development for the Arts: Learn the Basics, Create Your Plan

Audience Development and Open Studios

In my area, it is Open Studios time. These are events where artists open up their home studios to invite visitors to get to know them and to see their art that is for sale.   I go to this event almost every year to visit some of my favorite artists in the area.  I am a consumer of art and have several of my found treasures hanging in my hallways.  The good news is that I received several emails to remind me of the event from a few of the artists that I signed in with.  The bad news, these artists are not emailing me in an audience development way.

I am receiving a group email format, and most of these artists are sending them not in a blind copy email, so I see everyone’s email on the list.  So, this email is not really personal, and it is an invasion of privacy.  I rather not have my email be seen by everyone.

To my visual artist friends out there, this is your challenge.  You have an opportunity with these open studios to build relationships with everyone that comes into your door.  People seek you out because something about your art or description of your art has attracted their attention.  If you want them to become your special patrons, you need to start treating each and every one of these people as special.

What do you need to do to treat them special?  Start sending out personal emails.  One artist had 12 people on their list.  Only 12 people.  You can send out a nice message to each of these people.  For the artists that have more than 12, why not send out messages a little at a time starting two weeks in advance?  I am receiving an email on Thursday, the Thursday before the beginning weekend.  What if I already had plans for the weekend?  The email is a little late and shows the lack of real interest to connect with me as a person.  It shows you are too busy to take the time to email me directly, especially since you are sending the email so late.

I have not received emails from the artists I actually purchased from.  Interesting!  Aren’t you interested in building a relationship with me so I would want to buy more of your art?  I already proved I love what you do.

Visual artists, you have such an amazing opportunity with your open studios events.  The personal touch is needed.  You need to start having individual invitations and conversations with your patrons.  If you want me to buy your art, to continue buying your art, to tell others about your art, you need to start addressing me as an individual person and spend some time with me after I arrive, and then send a thank you follow up after I purchase (or even if I don’t).  People take the time out of their busy lives to visit you.  In this economy, when they purchase, you should make a fuss over them to thank them and get to know them as people.  It’s the least you can do for them.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”

Audience development and pricing

I have been seeing a great deal of discussion on pricing in terms of outreaching to build an audience.  Dynamic pricing has been discussed (think airline pricing with prices being lower with earlier purchase).  Also, Groupons or Living Social, or coupon sales have been discussed.  Both options can build “butts in seats,” but do they build “people in seats” or a loyal audience for your art/organization?  Maybe, maybe not.

I’ve decided to play devil’s advocate in this blog to see the other viewpoint of this conversation:

Here’s the “deal!” Lowering price is  a technique to get people interested.  It is an incentive for them to purchase, perfect for people on the fence since it nudges them to the side of buying.  However, these discounts can give the wrong message to your potential audience.

1. It can send a message that you are not worth more than these discounted prices.  Your audience might get used to these pricing points.  In attempts to raise the price to more normal levels, you might not see a “return” on your discount investment.  This factor could be accommodated by only having these special deals at rare occasions, but these audience members may become savvy and wait until the sale happens instead. In this case, you may see a return, but at the continued discount prices.  It’s definitely a gamble.  Can you ultimately afford this?
2. If there is no follow up involved, there is no guarantee that these deal buyers will turn into loyal audience members. Using discount methods may get people in the door, but it does not guarantee them coming back.
3. Deep discounts could send the wrong message that you can afford selling at these prices.  I understand that there could be an argument that you can’t afford not to sell at these prices to get “butts in seats” with the potential to convert, but I guess it all depends on your bottom line.  In my opinion, there are ways to sell the value of your art/organization without deep discounts.  If people see the value, they will purchase at a regular price.  I can’t be the only one willing to go out of my way or purchase at a higher price if the quality and value are there.  If you really want something, you will pay the price.  Maybe we need to focus on people wanting the arts experience more instead of pricing less.
4. Discounted prices can be a signal that you may not need extra support.  As I mentioned in a conversation, one of my patrons asked about our discounted subscription: “Why are you discounting? Don’t you need the money?”  Discounts can cause this confusion. Plus, people view their ticket purchase as a means to supporting the art/organization.  If you ask for a donation on top of this discounted amount to supplement, they may simply say they already purchased tickets.  You will then be out the difference of the discounted price vs. regular price, and out the donation amount since the perception has now shifted.In more consideration to these conversations, perhaps adding the choice of not discounting and paying regular price could give loyal patrons the opportunity to be  loyal, which will give you the option of being open and honest in communicating that you need the continued support.
5. Groupon and Living Social may be popular methods, but as a nonprofit arts manager, I would look for other ways to get the word out about discounts so you don’t have to split your revenue.  Getting less than 50% of the value of a ticket doesn’t sit well with me or with most nonprofit budgets.  With ticket purchases averaging only 30-40% of  income, can you really afford to give so much away?  Shouldn’t you be figuring out ways to increase this percentage instead of lowering it?  Unless the shear volume of purchase compensates for the lowered revenue, I would look into other avenues that may cost considerably less.  Of course you need to look into the quantity vs. quality issue too.  More purchases may not equal a quality audience.

I understand the need to get people in the door, but I also see that starting people off with a discount may be setting ourselves up for some rude awakenings.  Perhaps this is one of the reasons that building loyalty has been tricky.  I guess it can be a means of sifting out who will become more loyal patrons and who are simply there for the discount if follow up occurs, but it can also mean that you are sending out the message that the arts are not worth more than a vastly discounted price, lowering the value of the arts along with continued lowered monetary support.

The only way discounts first as a method can work in the long run  is if you can convert these discount buyers to see the full value of your art.  If they see the value, then maybe they will be willing to pay full price in the future.  Are we implementing programs to make sure this conversion happens?

However, on a further limb,  discount pricing to build an audience, in my opinion, should be used more as a last resort and not as a first resort.  I tend to discount towards the end if seats still need to be sold. The audience that is loyal will purchase at the regular price.  The audience that sees the value will too.  The audience that is on the fence will buy based on the later discount.  You might be shooting yourselves in the foot if the discount is sooner rather than later.  The loyals may purchase at the discounted price since they tend to purchase sooner than later, costing you the difference.

In some ways, inviting them for free may be better since they will know that this won’t last and regular pricing is going to happen.

Lastly, without audience development, nothing will be developed except lowered value in the end.  Have you honestly tried audience development?  I know when I switched to audience development and fair valued pricing, I found myself with a bigger and better (quality) audience.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza
Audience Development Specialists
http://www.buildmyaudience.com
Facebook/twitter /E-mazing Newsletter /Blog

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Workshops are available!

Does your arts organization or artists group need some new energy?  Our workshops can generate enthusiasm for audience development.

Contact us for more information!

Hourly Phone Sessions – Do you have a question about audience development or need feedback or advice on a project or challenge?  ADS can help!

Donate to the Audience Development Specialists Grant Fund!

YouTube Gallery – Do you have an amazing way you use YouTube to promote your art?  Let ADS know, and you might see your YouTube highlighted on our new gallery!

Audience development and social media – a matter of quality not quantity

This will be a quick one.  I have been noticing  more lately the “click like to help us get to 100 fans” or “4 more until 300 Twitter followers.”   In one way, it is good to get the request out there for more people to be interested in your Facebook fan page or Twitter feed, etc, and it may indeed help add quantity.  However, are you really adding quality?  To me the entire purpose of social media is to build relationships and strengthen these relationships between you and your patrons.

I know someone that has over 4,000 friends on Facebook.  Considering that most of us know an average of 300 people on a first name basis, do you think he knows all 4,000 people?  Are they quality friendships or simply “FB friends?”

I also know some people that have over 3,000 Twitter followers.  Most of them follow around the same amount too.  Do they really care about connecting with all these people?  Do they have the time and energy to do so?  Are some of these potential beneficial relationships falling through the cracks?

In the article “Clive Thompson in Praise of Online Obscurity,” Wired Magazine, January 25, 2010, the consideration of what happens when you get too many followers is explored:

Consider the case of Maureen Evans. A grad student and poet, Evans got into Twitter at the very beginning — back in 2006 — and soon built up almost 100 followers. Like many users, she enjoyed the conversational nature of the medium. A follower would respond to one of her posts, other followers would chime in, and she’d respond back.

Then, in 2007, she began a nifty project: tweeting recipes, each condensed to 140 characters. She soon amassed 3,000 followers, but her online life still felt like a small town: Among the regulars, people knew each other and enjoyed conversing. But as her audience grew and grew, eventually cracking 13,000, the sense of community evaporated. People stopped talking to one another or even talking to her. “It became dead silence,” she marvels.

Why? Because socializing doesn’t scale. Once a group reaches a certain size, each participant starts to feel anonymous again, and the person they’re following — who once seemed proximal, like a friend — now seems larger than life and remote. “They feel they can’t possibly be the person who’s going to make the useful contribution,” Evans says. So the conversation stops. Evans isn’t alone. I’ve heard this story again and again from those who’ve risen into the lower ranks of microfame. At a few hundred or a few thousand followers, they’re having fun — but any bigger and it falls apart. Social media stops being social. It’s no longer a bantering process of thinking and living out loud. It becomes old-fashioned broadcasting.

The lesson? There’s value in obscurity.

To read the entire article: Click here!

I have seen this happen a great deal with people that have over 3,000 followers.  I have attempted to reach out to them, and they simply do not have the time and energy to respond personally anymore.  Instead, you see messages from these folks apologizing that they can no longer respond to each message that comes to them.  What a shame!

Not to mention the fact that if you do not consider who you follow or who follows you, you might just end up with a bunch of spam or be inundated with too much information that you cannot use.

Unless we factor in quality for our social media experiences, the very gain that we have for using social media for audience development, the ability to form and strengthen relationships with people, may disintegrate if we keep clamoring for quantity.   Audience development is the chance to create two way conversations and social media is a perfect platform to accomplish this.  If we take away the quality and focus on quantity, you will be taking away the two way conversations.  You will simply end up with old fashioned, one way marketing again.

Just a thought to keep in mind!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza
Audience Development Specialists
http://www.buildmyaudience.com
Facebook/twitter /E-mazing Newsletter /Blog

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Hourly Phone Sessions – Do you have a question about audience development or need feedback or advice on a project or challenge?  ADS can help!

Donate to the Audience Development Specialists Grant Fund!

YouTube Gallery – Do you have an amazing way you use YouTube to promote your art?  Let ADS know, and you might see your YouTube highlighted on our new gallery!

Audience development – follow up needed for visual artists

I am back from vacation and have been waiting for the next topic to come to me.  As I was having dinner with a colleague, the discussion turned to the lack of audience development for visual artists, or rather visual artists are not using audience development.  The conversation continued with my thoughts about how visual artists typically conduct business, and the main component that is lacking is building relationships after an initial connection has been made.  Many artists know how to market their events now.  They do get people to come to their events; some of them do quite well with numbers in the door.  If you want to get to the next level, a successful art business, you need audience development.

Perhaps visual artists are not as people oriented as other types of artists, but learning to follow up can be the single skill that will build your audience.  Let me give you some personal examples.

I visited about 10 different artists during our Open Studios tour last year.  I was interested in finding some new art to liven up a blank space area I had in the hallway.  I narrowed it down to about three artists I really enjoyed and had art within my budget.  After some thought, I chose my top artist.  I arranged a time to purchase after the event, had a brief conversation, signed her guest book, and went home happily with my new paintings.  The artist has my phone number, address and email.  She has not followed up with me.  As far as the other 9 artists, none of them have contacted me either, despite having my basic contact information.

The second scenario takes place at another art studio tour event.  I was very drawn to a particular photograph.  Unfortunately, the artist did not have the size I was looking for.  She said she could make it available in the size I wanted. I gave her one of my cards so she could contact me.  The event took place in June, and I have yet to hear from her.  Perhaps since it was my business card she hesitated, but maybe follow up was not a part of her business plan.

The third example, I happen to have many artist friends.  Some of them have new shows happening in the area.  Not one of these friends has sent me an invitation to their event personally.

Jazz by Linus Maurer (not what we purchased)

Lastly and definitely the best example, when I was in the Sonoma County area, I came across the Gallery of Glen Ellen that exhibits works of Linus Maurer.  When you think of Linus you think of Charlie Brown’s best friend.  This is the real live Linus, Charles Schultz’s friend and colleague.  We were not able to purchase one of the main paintings, but we did purchase a small drawing out of his drawings bin.  The gallery owner told us to give her our address.  Linus, no matter how much money the drawing/painting is, will respond with a personal note.  I was skeptical, but we did give her our address.  Lo and behold, about a month later, Linus wrote us a personal message with another little drawing, thanking us and wishing us much enjoyment of our new art piece.  Our names and specific art piece were in the message with his signature and date.  There is a drawing of him creating the drawing we purchased.  It was amazing!   I was completely blown away, and we are on hunt for our next Linus Maurer! Funny how despite the recognition Linus already has, he was the one artist that did follow up with us.

I am finding that it is very rare when an artist does follow up. I know that visual artists (and artists in general) rather spend their time in the studio working on their art.  The day to day business tasks are not what makes them tick.    However, if you want people to enjoy and purchase your art, if your art is for others and not just for yourself, meaning you want to share your gifts, then connecting and following up are crucial.  You want to automatically follow up with people especially if they show you they are interested in your work and most especially to thank them after they have purchased.  It’s a no brainer.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza
Audience Development Specialists
http://www.buildmyaudience.com
Facebook/twitter /E-mazing Newsletter /Blog

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

New Services!

Hourly Phone Sessions – Do you have a question about audience development or need feedback or advice on a project or challenge?  ADS can help!

Donate to the Audience Development Specialists Grant Fund!

YouTube Gallery – Do you have an amazing way you use YouTube to promote your art?  Let ADS know, and you might see your YouTube highlighted on our new gallery!

Top 3 excuses I hear for not attempting audience development

I have been hearing a variety of excuses why some organizations and artists are not using audience development.   In this blog, I would like to take the time to provide answers for the top three excuses.

1. I am an individual artist so I do not need audience development.
Audience development is for anyone and everyone that needs support.  If you need a fan base, volunteers, donors, patrons, board members, people to help spread the word, you need audience development.  Audience development is about building relationships with people that will want to support your art.  It is about building positive people energy, or a community, that will surround your art to help you build more support.

2. I do not have the money or capacity to implement an audience development plan.
Most people do not realize that audience development helps build funding and capacity to support your art form.  The real problem here is that there is a need of shifting from old methods to newer methods.  If you were to take a look at what you are spending your time and money on, I am willing to bet that you will find old methods that are not worth funding or spending time on anymore.  Then you can shift these resources to an audience development plan that will build more support and start you on a more successful path.

3.  I already have marketing, why do I need audience development?
If you are in need of a bigger and better audience, then perhaps marketing alone is not working.  Marketing is about hoping to target individuals that will want to take part in your art.  Audience development is about learning who these individuals are, reaching out to them, and building relationships with these people that you know will want to take part in your art.  I hope you see the difference.

I see there is a need for education, so I am attempting to complete my book by this December.  I am also available for workshops, seminars and phone sessions.  Please feel free to get in touch with me when you are ready to take the audience development plunge!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza
Audience Development Specialists
http://www.buildmyaudience.com
Facebook/twitter /E-mazing Newsletter /Blog

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

New Services!

Hourly Phone Sessions – Do you have a question about audience development or need feedback or advice on a project or challenge?  ADS can help!

Donate to the Audience Development Specialists Grant Fund!

YouTube Gallery – Do you have an amazing way you use YouTube to promote your art?  Let ADS know, and you might see your YouTube highlighted on our new gallery!

Butts in seats and Audience Development

I have lightly touched upon this subject before, but I felt it was good timing for me to approach it again.  I was recently contacted by an organization that is in need of filling their seats, “we need butts in seats!”   They needed someone who could guarantee butts in seats in order to make their sponsors happy.  I completely understand the bottom line.  Funding is necessary to continue their program.  However, fulfilling the bottom line does not guarantee that the bottoms they are filling it with will return again.

Butts in seats is not audience development.  Butts in seats is a series of short term marketing pushes to paper the house.  Butts in seats can bring short term rewards like creating the facade that you are successful in filling the house, but in the long term, you are actually taking the focus away from building an audience that will commit to you and your art form.  The % of your butts for these types of consuming initiatives (time and money) is low to return.

Audience development is a long term initiative (takes time, but less money); it is about building relationships with the right people.  This focus will build your audience and fill the seats with people that not only will want to come back time and again, but are likely to become more involved with your art and organization by subscribing, volunteering and donating.  It may take more time to build, but it is well worth it.  In the end, you won’t need to work as hard since all of those never ending bursts of costly marketing pushes will become more and more unnecessary as you go along.

Furthermore, your art form took years to perfect.  Wouldn’t it be wise to approach something as important as building the right audience with the same diligence?

However, in my current search for opinions, I have come across a most interesting blog entry.  This blog is from March 19, 2007; the challenge of defining audience development is not a brand new one.  Jim Morris who was then the executive director of the Central Florida Performing Arts Alliance (now the Arts & Culture Alliance of Central Florida), succinctly discusses the difference between butts in seats and audience development, coming to this conclusion:

“The beauty is that by working together, both with attempting to fill seats to maintain the bottom line (arts organization role) and on audience development (Alliance role) through new collective initiatives our whole community will gain. That is where the real bottom line of producing art becomes more than just a commodity or widget to be promoted. It becomes a part of the completion to being human.”

I invite you to read the entire blog.

So perhaps butts in seats can serve a purpose, but the organization would get a little behind if it is not accompanied by audience development.  The short term and the long term can be accomplished together.  Bottom lines and people with bottoms will both be happy!

For further reading about butts in seats and audience development:

Invitation to the party: building bridges to the arts, culture and community, By Donna Walker-Kuhne

Beyond Butts in Seats: Building an Elite Program (not an article about the arts, but still valid)

Black like me (a very powerful blog entry about butts in seats and diversity)

Way beyond butts in seats

Until next time, may your audiences be happy and loyal ones, and if they are not, feel free to contact me!

~Shoshana~

Shoshana Fanizza is the founder of Audience Development Specialists. Her mission is to introduce artists and arts organizations to their existing and potential audiences and to help them to form more rewarding relationships.

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

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Audience Development Blog