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Blog Entry 22 of 27 Audience Development Specialists
Do you want to learn how to build an audience for your events? During the week, join me on the adventures of audience development. It is my mission to help you to build a more loyal and satisfied audience!

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~AudienceDevelopment

Audience Development - extra or necessary?
Contributed by: Shoshana Fanizza   on 6/25/2008

I was speaking to a colleague of mine recently, and we were discussing the fact that most organizations do not have the funding for audience development programs, let alone funding for hiring a consultant such as myself. It made me realize that maybe most of the arts organizations in the United States are not committing to developing their audience. Maybe we are committing to marketing, but marketing is mostly not about relationship building. Marketing is mostly about getting the word out and making the sale (the numbers).

Most organizations I know of are in need of a bigger and more inclusive (diverse) audience. I am seeing empty seats. Due to most existing audience demographics, in the future, there will be more empty seats. Is marketing alone doing the job then?

So, I was thinking, maybe it is time to shift the budget to allow funding for audience development programs and planning. Each audience development program can cost between $200 - $500. Isn't this the cost of one ad in your marketing plan? What if you were to shift money for a few ads towards audience development, at least as a start to see what will happen?

Maybe you can think about it this way. If you were to build a good program that creates a good buzz, it is much more cost effective. Remember the rule that one happy patron usually tells 3 - 9 people. Usually a sale will occur via this word of mouth. It is a direct recommendation from someone you know after all. In marketing terms, it can take up to 9 ads to get someone's attention to buy a ticket and that can cost between $1800 - $4500 depending on the cost of the ad. Talk about a price difference in obtaining a new patron!

Sometimes you can get lucky with a particular ad and a new person will respond. However, are you more likely to keep the patron via this new ad or the patron via the word of mouth? It is more likely that the new repeat patron will be due to the word of mouth and not the ad (unless you have the time to follow up with audience development).

Marketing definitely has its place and can be very effective, but in this day and age of increased competition to get recognized, going back to good old fashioned, reasonably priced audience development (relationship building) programs is worth a shift in budget.

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 organizations to their existing and potential audiences and to help them to form more rewarding relationships.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Shoshana Fanizza

Boulder , CO

Shoshana Fanizza has posted 27 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 1/18/2008. Shoshana Fanizza 's average blog rating is 5.
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