We're here...wait, where is here?

It has been a grueling month, and many apologies to those of you who read regularly, however Arena Stage has now officially relocated to its temporary offices in Arlington, VA and the groundbreaking for the Mead Center for American Theater is being held this Wednesday. I think I am finally starting to get a little comfortable, and am ready to start writing again. Thank God I finally figured out how to use our new phone system.

Many of you are probably wondering how our PURL (personalized URL) campaign went. I will go into more details in a later post, but the PURLs worked out great. Each of our subscribers were given a personalized website that they logged into which provided them step-by-step directions from their house to the new theatre, restaurant discounts, interactive seating map showing them the location of their new seats, and other important information. Our subscribers really loved it. However, I do have one word of caution: it seems the rather new technology doesn't seem to play well with Macintosh computers. I am happy to report that we have had less than 1/2 of 1 percent of our subscribers ask for a refund, and that the last two weeks have had the highest grossing sales so far in our fiscal year.

The real story of today's post comes from my friends at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (specifically Lory Bowman, Director of Marketing and Brad Graham, Public Relations Manager). I have known Lory for several years, and recently had the pleasure of meeting Brad Graham when I spoke at an event for the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission. Every now and then I take a look at their website to see what they are up to, and this last time I found something really interesting. We all know that word of mouth marketing gets exponentially better if you provide your advocates the right tools to spread the word. Well at the Rep, they have a page that allows you to spread the word about a particular production via Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo!, Google, and email all with just the simple click of your mouse. Check it out here: http://www.repstl.org/season/share/765/.

I promptly emailed Lory and told her that I thought the idea was genius, and asked if I could copy it. Here is our version: http://www.arenastage.org/about/news/ella-friend.shtml.

Thank you to Lory, Brad and the Rep for establishing the page. I am very grateful for the wonderful relationships that I have developed as I have traveled around, and this instance has reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." -- Isaac Newton, 1676

Notes from NAMP #3

At the Table: Making Marketing’s Voice Count in Organizational Leadership
Speakers: Jerry Yoshitomi, MeaningMatters, Port Hueneme, CA; Brian Jose and Susie Farr, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD

1. At the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, they implemented several organizational changes after their staff turnover got to be really high. First they learned that a director’s loyalty needs to shift to the success of the organization and the leadership team, rather than being with their individual departments. This meant that each director needed to become more expert in other department activities. The director of artistic initiatives and the director of marketing shifted to become joined at the hip. Decisions were made together by those two and the executive director, and the offices of those two staff members were moved to be right next to each other.

2. Always challenge the prevailing organizational wisdom and make improvements because the world is changing quickly and you must adapt. Try to draw attention to issues without drawing attention to specific individuals. Gather the people in the organization who can influence change.

3. As a strong team member, you can’t just be an expert in your discipline—you must now know about other departments. If the finance director wants to know why you aren’t hitting the ticket sales goal, then work with him to develop an understanding of the problem so he/she better understands marketing. Overall knowledge about all departments by the leadership team will promote better understanding and therefore better decision-making. This understanding has to be a two-way street—invite questions. Questioning is liberating and genuine, constructive conflict can be very good. “Artificial Harmony” can destroy an organization.

4. Strive for complete clarity and transparency in the organization.

5. People who get defensive about questioning can inhibit growth and can support a stagnant environment. The idea of running your department as an entity by itself is detrimental—be open about your process, invite questions, work with your peers. They all have different strengths.

6. Maybe some questions we should be asking: What are we doing that is ground-breaking? Are we setting an example for the rest of the country? Are our processes outdated? Are the practices of the American regional theatre outdated? Where are we stagnant? Where are we dynamic?

7. Two to One ratio – you have two ears and one mouth so listen twice as much as you speak.

8. Suggested reading: “Five Dysfunction of Team” and “Death by Meetings” by Patrick Lencioni and “Leading with Limited Authority”

Notes from NAMP #2

Direct mail in the New Frontier: Here to Stay or Only a Click Away
Speakers: Catherine Carter, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; Shelly Felder and Howard Levine, 92nd Street Y, New York City; Rick Lester, Target Resource Group, Woodland Park, CO; Laura Sullivan, Penn State’s Center for the Performing Arts, University Park, PA

In 2006, direct marketers mailed 116 billion pieces of direct mail. Quantity increased by 15% over the previous year, primarily because there is no spam filter to get through or “Do Not Call” list to deal with. Plus many people seem to prefer a tangible, paper offer. Direct mail expenditures in 2006 were $59 billion.

• National response rate for all offers was 2.15%
• On a national average, one year lapsed subscribers had a response rate of 3.3%, traded names 0.14%, rented names 0.05%, and current single ticket buyers 2.6%. It was suggested that it is too expensive to mail to rented names.
• New rule is in place: always step on your offer. Usually you will mail first, then you should follow up with an e-mail solicitation. Houston Ballet sent out a postcard and had a 3% response rate. Then they sent out a postcard and followed up with an e-mail and got a 4.5% response rate.
• Even though people are not responding by mailing in an order form, Target Resource Group has found that people refer to the order panel before they go online. When they removed the order panel, they got a lower response rate.
• A/B test everything. What offers work best, which list segments work, sequence of mailing
• Increase the frequency of your message in front of the target groups which regularly over produce on mailings.
• Nationally 96% of all subscribers come from contacts already in an organization’s database and only 3.5% come from trades, while 0.4% come from rented names. It should be noted that of the 96% of all subscribers within an organization’s database, on average 6% of all subscribers are on the organization’s “do not contact” list.
• We should build a predictive model of people who are likely to respond and then target lists with this predictive model.
• The 92nd Street Y covers events around the country on their website and then they tie it back into their programming. Often other blogs pick up their articles and link back to their website or blog.
• YouTube has now launched a non-profit channel. The 92nd Street Y video was featured as the non-profit video of the week, and had over 100,000 views. YouTube now gives non-profits their own landing page which can be tailored with your graphic identity.
• They also started making restaurant reservations on behalf of their ticket buyers through http://www.opentable.com/.