Post-Election Lessons for the Arts

Photo via flickr

The billion dollar campaign that won the presidency on Election Day was the ultimate direct marketing strategy.  The outcome provides part lesson, part forecast about our future in marketing and raising money for the arts.

Big Data is not the future – it is now.  
In 2004, political consultant Joe Trippi reinvented politics by applying a few crazy ideas learned from a consulting gig in Silicon Valley.  Governor Howard Dean used websites and elementary data tools to collect contact information about voters, volunteers and solicited donations on-line. These guys started a revolution.

In 2008, the Obama campaign built a massive database of some 13 million supporters and their email addresses.  When connected with new social media tools and a barrage of emails, then-Senator Obama raised a half a billion dollars from small donations and went on to win his first term in office.

For 2012, the Obama reelection campaign squeezed victory from a race that appeared to be very tight. The strategy was built on growing their sizable 2008 database into a 21st century set of database tools.

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.

So, You Think You Know Your Audience…

In 2012, TRG bloggers are taking a fresh look at data and trends that inform risks worth taking, best practices worth hanging onto, and assumptions worth challenging – each in time for action to be taken.

The operative word in the title question is: think, as in assume.  The more TRG studies patron behavior, the more we realize how often and how much even the smartest managers make wrong assumptions about the patrons who are visiting their exhibits or sitting in the seats of their theatres, concert halls and arenas.

Take the question: Who in attendance at an arts event has been here before?  A 2011 TRG patron origination study told us: only about half. We say “only” because the prevailing conventional wisdom was that most patrons—75% or more—are repeat ticket buyers, subscribers, or members.   In fact there are so many new patrons in America’s audiences that the study’s author, TRG Vice President Will Lester dubbed it, Every Night is Opening Night.  See Will’s 6-minute video presentation on the study here:

View the slides on SlideShare here.

Knowing that a large population of new-to-you or new-to-the arts patrons make up your audience should challenge some other assumptions like:

No, really, my audience is old and has been coming for decades.  The only way to be sure is to look for new-to-file patrons and track them.  Once you do that, deeper analysis can tell you when new audiences tend to show up and for what, and what they are willing to pay. 

Every Night is Opening Night

Opening nights are fun. They also are hard work. Months of planning result in huge organizational resources being focused on the celebrations that mark the beginning of a new season or production. These are important rituals of organizational renewal.

The latest research from TRG puts a patron-oriented spin on this subject. It’s telling us that opening night is happening all year long for big numbers of patrons in the audience. How so? Our just-completed internal pilot research on patron origination found:

Half of the study group’s ticket buyers had a first-time ticket-buying experience
– their own personal opening night –
during the season.

And, half of those new ticket buyers had no previous attendance history anywhere in their arts community.

Let me elaborate with a little background.

We recently did a pilot study on patron origination to differentiate between patrons that an organization already knows through current or past transaction history from patrons that are completely new. The pilot study was a deep dive into the consumer behavior of performing arts single and subscription ticket buyers in the Houston and Seattle arts communities during the 2009-10 Season.

We found about a 50-50 split between new and “known” audiences. This ratio was remarkably consistent across all arts forms and organizational size.

The half that’s new included two distinct types of “new-to-file” patrons – meaning households that made their first single or subscription ticket purchase with one of the companies in the study group during in 2009-10. Of new patrons:
• 25% were Premiere Patrons, those new-to-file consumers with no previous attendance history in the arts community. Premiere patrons are not only making their first visit to a theatre or concert hall – but their first recorded visit to ANY arts organization!
• 24% were Shared Newbies, patron households that were new to an organization but had a prior ticket purchase history with one or more different organizations within the community.

This is a perspective that should change the priority if not the whole approach for building patron relationships. Those who have followed this space know of our work in patron attrition — business intelligence on the “here one year, gone the next” nature of new ticket buyers. We’ve long been proponents of efforts to mitigate those exits.

We know new ticket buyers require specific cultivation. Now we have more convincing evidence that cultivation efforts should be happening after every curtain call and with two very distinct types of new patrons.

The other half of the story is “known” patrons -- those that have a history of buying tickets (or making other transactions) recorded in the organization’s resident database. The study found two types of known patrons:
• 37% were Retained Patrons, single ticket buyers and subscribers that had purchase history with the company in the prior season (2008-09).
• 14% were Reactivated Patrons, households whose ticket buying with the company had lapsed for two or more years prior to 2009-10.

As usual, these first findings make us even more curious. There's much more we want to find out about the mix and dynamics of new and known patrons. For now though, there are three key takeaways:

1. Smart organizations recognize that every night is opening night..and they do something about it. Performing arts organizations are overly dependent on advertising and promotion plans to deliver new audiences for every performance. This is not likely to change soon. That’s why we’ll keep beating the drum for retention efforts. Institutional strategy must be centered on getting first time visitors to come back again. Creating more multi-buyers – retention—is absolutely critical to long term sustainable growth.

2. Reactivation of lapsed buyers always makes sense...and belongs in every organization’s campaign. Although patrons lapse for many reasons, reactivation often is a matter of simply asking for the order. How recently a lapsed patron purchased (recency) is a key variable; the more recent, the higher the likelihood of reactivation and improved patron lifetime value. Aggressively and constantly promoting reactivation is an inexpensive marketing and development strategy that offers superior returns on investment.

3. Big numbers of new buyers are already known performing arts consumers in the community...and smart managers make list trades work. Targeting current, multi-buyers within a community data resource offers a “can-grow” segment of ticket buyers. TRG’s catch-phrase, “the more they buy, the more they keep buying,” applies. Communities like Houston and Seattle, with large and active permission-based shared databases, have access to highly qualified prospects that are easy and highly cost-effective to find.

Surprised or curious about these findings? Tell us how. Leave a comment.

The Myth of Last Minute Buyers, Part I

Last year I added a new quip to my repertoire of answers for use during the inevitable Q&A sessions during conference season. At virtually every gathering, someone would ask about possible solutions to the increased numbers of single ticket buyers making purchase decisions later and later in the sales cycle. America’s recent economic downturn, it seems, was making this worrisome long term trend even more problematic.

I’ve heard this complaint for more than three decades. It was never supported by data or quantified over time. So, my quip seems equally unhinged from reality: If late-buying keeps increasing then any day now we’ll have patrons buying their tickets a month after the performance takes place.

An opportunity for TRG to explore the issue of late ticket-buying presented itself recently. The source data came from Southern California’s LA STAGE Arts Census. Specifically, we examined single ticket purchase patterns for more than 1.5 million households, about half of the total LA data warehouse. We were specifically looking for changes in the time between purchase date and date of performance. Our study period was 2006 through 2010.

As background, we note that the volume of single ticket orders changes from year to year in this market, as it does in every market. A number of factors drive purchase volume: the number of total performances will vary each year. So will the demand for tickets that accompanies the popularity of the productions offered on stage. Some seasons are just “hotter” than others.

In this analysis, the 2008-09 season marked a significant downturn in total ticket orders for the organizations included in our study – a one-season drop of about 20%. The 2008-09 season coincided with the worst (fears) of the Great Recession. This one year drop in total sales, accompanied by anecdotal reports of swings in buying patterns, offered a unique opportunity to use this particular data from a very large arts market to explore and quantify significant changes in buying behaviors.

Here’s what we observed:

Overall, near-performance advance ticket order volume was relatively consistent during the multiple-year study period. About 35% of total single ticket orders occurred during the week of the performance and about half of all orders (47%) were made during the two-week period prior to the performance.

However, these ratios ceased being normative during the 2008-09 Season - the year that witnessed the large decline in total single ticket orders. Week-of-performance sales rose from 35% to 46% of total orders and the two week ratio moved from 47% to 57%! These ratios were significant to be sure, and triggered our deeper dive into the raw transactional data. When we did, we saw that the actual number of orders for single tickets during the final weeks of sale in 2008-09 was virtually identical to the number of orders in comparable periods for prior seasons. That is, the number of households making a last minute purchase was the same as it historically had been – not more in number, just a higher proportion the total.

The bigger news in this analysis is that early ticket order volume was significantly lower in 2008-09. Advance single ticket orders fell behind historic sales pacing patterns beginning with the very first weeks of sales results. Thirteen weeks out, single ticket orders were already 60% behind the historic sales pace. As each subsequent week unfolded, this gap closed slightly – until the final couple of weeks. As the performance date approached, order volume increased as prospects finally made their decision to purchase.

The real story is that at the peak of the Great Recession, advance buyers in this large market appear to have decided to stay home – or at least, to delay their purchase. Their buying pattern in 2008-09 differed sharply from recent historic advance pacing. That created the perception of increased last minute buying because such a high proportion of those who did buy made their purchase nearer the performance date. In truth, however, the walk-up line was no longer and near-curtain traffic no greater than in other seasons.

So what happened next? During the 2009-10 Season, total single ticket orders recovered, far outpacing order volume experienced in 2008-09 – exceeding even the results of the two prior years. What fueled this growth? Advance sales returned to pre-recessionary patterns. And “week-of” sales? They grew proportionally with overall ticket order growth and the ratios remained consistent with seasons prior to 2008-09.

Questions and great curiosity remain, however. When there is a decline of 20% of the total audience in a single year, one has to ponder – who bought and when? Who skipped that season? Specifically, which patrons changed their behaviors? When sales rebounded in the following year, which patron group drove that success – did early buyers “come home?” Did arts organizations do what they have always done – find lots of brand-new buyers?

One of the great things about being a part of the TRG team is that we get paid to be curious. These kinds of questions make us both a bit crazy and really eager to dig in, seeking quantifiable answers. That’s just what we’re doing next. We’ll be back to you when we have more results to share.

Do you have a myth you would like busted? Leave a comment and we’ll add it to the list.

21st Century Tools for Arts Advocacy

For the past decade, TRG has partnered with arts and culture communities to develop and manage shared patron data services. These community databases, often called cooperatives or coops for short, are typically built to help organizations save money through shared services. Coops also develop new patronage and revenues using smarter and more efficient communication tools. This new generation of community databases has become America’s largest single repository of information about arts and culture consumers and their behavior. Savvy arts leaders across the country are learning new ways to use coops as a resource to advance the arts agenda in their communities. Specifically, they want to match arts consumers with voter registration files. Why? Facts win cases when advocating before public officials and voters. In this post, we offer our thoughts to the current online dialog on advocacy nationwide, including on the Americans for the Arts blog and its green paper, The Future of the Public Voice in Arts Advocacy.

The mid-term elections in the U.S. are only six months away, but already forces of all sorts are lining up to make the case for the candidates they want – or, this year especially, don’t want. Points of view on must-win issues at the federal, state and local level vary wildly among Democrats, the GOP, Tea Party, incumbents and those positioning themselves as government “outsiders” Making a case that will win over politicians and voters is a lot like direct marketing success. It requires putting the right message in front of the right person at the right time.

What about the case for supporting arts and culture?

Can we find any reason to hope that a successful arts message can cut through the “clutter” of a national discourse dominated by war and peace, terrorism and financial upheaval? How can we possibly make our case amid the most toxic political environment in decades? Recently, I’ve found reason for optimism. Why? In preparation for a recent conference presentation we compiled a small list of new ways that smart community organizers are using TRG’s data coop information. The outcomes we’ve witnessed are pretty remarkable, particularly given the current national mood.

Anyone working in the arts knows that arts patrons are a very diverse group – they come in many shapes and sizes. This is always a surprise to our critics and detractors. While not as diverse as the total population of most cities, the number of organizations and their diverse target markets creates a surprisingly varied group of patrons. (I’m planning a post on this topic in the near future.). Demographic and psychographic diversity aside, there is one immediately important attribute that arts patrons have in common - arts patrons vote. They vote regularly and often. They vote in off-year elections, primaries and special elections. This common behavioral thread creates power for those who take the time to look. This fact is what is driving an entirely new use for community database resources - Advocacy.

Take, for example, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance and their colleagues’ successful (emergency) campaign to fight back a proposed new state sales tax on arts and culture tickets. Legislators assumed that the proposed tax would only impact a narrow slice of Pennsylvania’s wealthiest consumers. The facts residing in GPCA’s community database proved otherwise. Two-thirds of ticket buyers TRG studied for this case had annual household income under $70,000, and only about 8% fit the preconception lawmakers had about arts consumers. Presenting that point was helpful, but why should a state representative or senator care? Well, GPCA used their database information to show each legislator exactly where those ticket-buying arts lovers lived – on a map. There’s nothing subtle about politicians seeing “arts consumers” as registered voters living in their district. Were these district maps the case cincher in this advocacy campaign? It’s arguable, I suppose. What isn’t arguable is: there is no tax on arts and culture tickets in Pennsylvania.

[Another big Pennsylvania database, the Cultural Data Project, also weighed in on this effort. They were able to prove that the state’s estimated revenues from the new tax were wildly optimistic. Again, a fact-based argument made the art case compelling and unambiguous.]

A very large TRG arts consumer map hangs in the offices of the Cultural Affairs Division of Santa Monica, California. In this case, TRG helped the city develop the map to support their case for the location of a new art museum that Santa Monica is vying for. Using patron data from a Los Angeles market segmentation study, Santa Monica found that 67% of its residents were active attendees and donors to local arts and cultural organizations, representing the highest concentration of arts consumers of any LA County municipality. The Santa Monica patron map shows where arts and cultural patrons live in proximity to the prospective museum site and in comparison to other location’s resident pool of arts patrons. The map also shows each city council member how many of their constituents/voters are also arts patrons! The map is tangible evidence that Santa Monica is uniquely well located for the new museum, and has the additional benefit of informing other city decisions such as where its arts events should be staged.

Over the past decade, arts patron coop data has helped Denver’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District win reauthorization of tax funding. It has helped organizations in Philadelphia convince local authorities to expand public transportation options for patrons attending post-rush hour evening events. More recently, we’ve joined an effort with several organizations in Pennsylvania to build a statewide case resource to advocate for public policy on the arts.

At TRG, we’ve begun to think about how data coops can play a greater role in influencing public policy on issues related to the arts. Increasingly, we see our data coops as providing Census-type information that can prove the case, rather than hoping that the “arts is good for us” message will ever find traction with our elected officials. As each new data coop comes online, we learn more about the power that arts and cultural patrons can have in our communities and our society. By illuminating the very presence this huge force - arts patrons who vote – we can be a positive force for influence in the political arena.