Arts Intranet

Drew McManus

It's great to see how much technology is integrated into this year's National Arts Marketing Project Conference. Out of the three conference categories (audience actions, technology treasures, and eye on income), technology occupies a full third and among the others, many of the session panelists are from technology-focused businesses.

And of all the tools available to arts marketers, technology solutions provide some of the most powerful advancements in recent years to effect positive change.

At the same time, technology providers have a responsibility to resist overselling products and services; something I fear is beginning to get out of control to a point where some arts organizations are beginning to suffer from the pursuit of improved technology solutions.

It's become so commonplace among web and IT professionals in the field that dissolution is fodder for satire. For example, I received the following text from a colleague the other week who had this to say about the onset of a technology implementation project at her arts organization:

"...always fun to watch as people realize [Technology-X] doesn't cause gumdrops and lollipops to fall from the sky..."

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Sherry Truhlar

This post is for you if you’re one of the thousands of arts organizations holding a fundraising gala with a silent auction component.

Statistics show that you’re failing miserably.

National averages of silent auctions show a 50%-60% return. That means for every $100 item on the table, you’re selling it for $50 to $60. Sooooo sad.

And once we figure in the costs to produce the auction – hours spent procuring goods, preparing displays, buying services – your returns fall further.

So should you bag the idea?

For organizations already holding a silent auction, continuing to offer it is likely in your best interest. Here’s why.

1.  With targeted changes, you can improve returns.
An audit of our clients found that when returns are average, it’s most often due to poor marketing. Simple changes can have a profound effect.

For instance, one of our clients raised an additional $44 per item once we employed aggressive onsite marketing tactics. With 82 silent items, they earned an additional $3600!

Incorporate both pre-gala and onsite marketing strategies for the best results. At a minimum rewrite your descriptions, use vertical displays, and incorporate a sensory experience.

Clayton Lord

At the place where marcomm* and advocacy meet, discussing our value in the landscape of possible activities is becoming increasingly important. Because at its core, both marcomm and advocacy are about where someone should put dollars, albeit on different scales.

In the most recent edition of WolfBrown’s e-newsletter, On Our Minds, Zach Kemp wrote about a study published in the Journal of Epedemiology & Community Health (abstract here) on the difference between the types of art that seem to generate the most health benefit for men and women. By looking at what the study calls “creative cultural activities” and “receptive cultural activities” (i.e. art that you do, like painting, singing, etc versus art that you watch, like theatre, concerts, exhibitions, etc) in a large-scale community study, the researchers were able to demonstrate, essentially, that women report more physiological benefits from doing and men report more physiological benefits from seeing.

This may seem a bit heady and esoteric, but I’m always interested in the place where hard science intersects with artistic consumption, as that’s often (if you dig) a good place to start thinking about good marketing.

Ron Evans

A colleague emailed me the other day and wrote “I gave a donation to an arts organization via (insert any popular online social fundraising site here). Does the organization get my information? I never got a thank you.”

Ouch!

Although it is possible that a fundraising site wouldn't share the information of a donor to an organization, it's really unlikely, and with this specific online social site, I know that they DO share the donor information.

So the organization didn't get back to their donor(s) to thank them. I see this happen a lot with donations through newer technology channels. I've seen statistics for something like 71% of nonprofits (not just arts organizations) don't send any sort of thank you (email or otherwise) to online donors. Wow!

As the orchestrator of this year’s blog salon I had to laugh when a colleague forwarded me the cartoon below:

Fitting right? Yes, my job was to blog, tweet, like, comment, and share as much as possible about this blog salon. But you, our readers, made my job super easy.

On behalf of Americans for the Arts, I would like to thank all of you for visiting our 2011 arts marketing blog salon and adding comments, tweets, questions, and opinions to the conversation.

With almost 7,000 views, 20 bloggers, hundreds of tweets and retweets, and hundreds more of Facebook likes, the Salon was a perfect way to jump start the National Arts Marketing Project Conference: Winning Audiences next month.