HOW TO... Market your orchestra or classical music ensemble By Trudy Johnston, Director, Vim and Zest The essence of marketing The planning, implementation and analysis of any activity to promote or maintain the awareness of a product or service that is marketing, in a nutshell. What sets marketing apart from other key functions of business is its customer focus. Developing a marketing plan to guide you through the stages of research, strategy creation, implementation and review is the best way to approach marketing relevant to your musical organisation. How a marketing plan works Working through the steps to create a solid marketing plan will help you define your marketing goals and maximise all potential opportunities. Furthermore, the very process of constructing the marketing plan will help you consider the best set of marketing tools for your unique ensemble. Customer acquisition and generating awareness are both solid reasons for creating a marketing plan, however marketing is also fundamentally concerned with keeping current clientele coming back. TARGET MARKET = NEW CUSTOMERS + EXISTING CUSTOMERS When proper marketing gets the message to the right audience, delivered in the right context and at the right price, you ll notice growth and positive results as the likely outcome. Initially, marketing calls for the development of research strategies to investigate your audience who are they, what do they want to receive from you in return for their money or support, and how is it best to communicate with them? The building blocks of a marketing plan Basically, marketing is about two-way relationships. It is a process of building bridges and engaging audiences with your music. Traditionally, marketers start with identifying the 5Ps. 1. Product: What am I selling? 2. People: To whom am I promoting this product? (defining your target audience) 3. Price: How much is my service or product worth? What is the business worth? What do I need to achieve to ensure growth? What percentage will I spend on marketing? 4. Promotion: What are the most relevant promotional techniques and tools available for me? 5. Place: Where should I sell/promote my business? Page 1 of 6
Create a strategy A strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal or vision. Strategy differs from a tactic, as it is planned or premeditated for the long-term. Set your orchestra s goals and develop a strategic approach based around the list below: 1. Knowing yourself 2. Identifying your destination (this could be anything from being an award-winner within three years to securing five pieces of media coverage per year) 3. Knowing your clients/audience 4. Building relationships with your clients/audience 5. Reaching your clients/audience 6. Reviewing and revising your approach TIP: Think long-term and plan accordingly. Don t sacrifice long-term gains for short-term outcomes. An audience-centered outlook versus a product-centered viewpoint When drafting the marketing plan, it is essential to put yourself in your audience s shoes. Understand your audience s wants and needs, and build a picture of why your music will be important to them. This shift of focus can sometimes be challenging and raise questions such as Am I selling out?, Who are the customers? and How can I call my music a product? but this step is critical in the execution of a great marketing campaign. TIP: Focus on the benefits of the music for the audience, not the features of the music. Working through the 5Ps 1. PRODUCT: Knowing your business (the first step) Who am I? What am I marketing? What is/are my product/s? A product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a need or want. It can also be a service, as it does not have to be a tangible thing. Yours might be: Musical concerts Services, such as teaching others to play music Products, such as musical instruments or even prints, t-shirts or postcards Educational programs regarding classical music TIP: Make a list of all of the services you will be marketing and then list the benefits produced by this marketing effort. This will help you see that what you are providing is a solution to a need or want, rather than merely selling a product. For example, the customer benefits of attending a concert include the opportunity for a family event, a guaranteed high quality performance, the chance for a group outing, and so on. So now you need to ask yourself, where are you aiming to go with all this? How can I maximise audience attendance? How much do I want to increase the current number of tickets sold to public performances? Do I want to build the orchestra s profile or individual profiles? Do I want to raise awareness and encourage new talent to the orchestra? Do I want a combination of all four of the above? And more? Your objectives should reflect be the major goals of your business plan. Page 2 of 6
2. PEOPLE: Knowing your clients/audience Your customers and audience are made up of different groups or segments, and your marketing output should reflect your understanding of the needs of these different groups. Marketing determines the needs and wants of target markets, rather than the hard sell. Promotion can be limited to a specific target group, such as over 50s living within a 20-mile radius of your performance, or it can be aimed at all classical music enthusiasts. Markets are used to describe various groupings of customers, such as: Demographics age, gender, income, occupation, education, country of origin, family size and stage in family lifecycle Psychographics attitudes and lifestyle choices Geographics where people live - country, city or different states? TIP: By understanding that the market has different segments, you can employ different methods of marketing to them, which will increase your success rate. You want to reach new customers and retain existing ones by satisfying their needs. So who is your target audience? Classical musical enthusiasts commercial Friends and family Local residents Other musicians General public Musical students The classical music press Existing ticket buyers A combination of all these You can profile your target audience by doing the following: a) Write a list of the groups in your target audience (as above) and then estimate what percentage of the whole each group holds. b) Against each group, write out where they live, how old they are and their media consumption habits - if they are readers of particular magazines, internet users and even how much money they earn and what type of jobs they might have. c) Decide which groups are most important to you in reaching your marketing goals. When you come to working out marketing budgets, it can be useful to know where the biggest opportunity for growth lies. TIP: Make sure you energetically market to your existing customers it s a common understanding that it costs seven times more to get a new customer than to retain an existing one. TIP: Know your market by researching and understanding your customer s wants, needs and demands. This provides important input for designing market strategies. 1 TIP: Capturing data is vital. Make sure you have a top quality, accurate and up-to-date database with all contact information, as well as a note that tracks the customers relationships with you/your organisation. A simple, coded Excel spreadsheet that can be easily sorted and filtered is an excellent start. Page 3 of 6
3. PRICE: Crunching the numbers THE COST OF A TICKET TO A PERFORMANCE x THE NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS LESS THE COST OF THE FEES FOR THE PERFORMERS = PROFIT It is likely that grants, business fees and many other variables are involved in your particular organisation, but it can be useful to start thinking about marketing in a way that quantifies the effort involved. For example, if you spend $2000 on a magazine advert that attracts 30 new customers each buying 2 tickets at $60 each, then the resulting $1800 is a negative profit. However, a website that costs $4000 to build and maintain may generate 100 new customers per year running for five years, therefore making it a positive investment. You may decide to spend 10% of the company s profits on marketing per year. This will give an important framework to the marketing plan when it comes to promotions. 4. PROMOTION: Building relationships with clients/audience It s vital to build and maintain relationships with your clients/audience by satisfying their needs, wants and demands. This has taken on a whole new level of meaning with the influx of technologies that assist you to connect with your clients. Use the table below to define the best promotional tools for your business. BENEFITS CONS WHO CAN I TARGET WEBSITE A promotional facility that can present further background information and image downloads for clients and journalists Broad reach Easily updateable Long-term value Constant access Two-way communication Opportunity for direct sales facility Needs ongoing maintenance and can get out-of-date, which looks unprofessional New and existing customers with a limitless reach CONSIDERATION S FOR PLANNING Budget required for design and SEO (search engine optimisation) Useability and accessibility Good strong content EMAIL CAMPAIGNS / NEWSLETTERS E-newsletter E-flier Reminder for concert E-survey Competition etc. SMS Builds relationship with people Creates ongoing dialogue Cheap to produce inhouse Speedy can inform of events quickly Needs time and research investment People change their email addresses. Strict privacy requirements Existing customers people must opt-in to receive your email promotions Frequency of contact Type of data required Interrelationship with other marketing strategies and measurement of effectiveness MARKETING COLLATERAL Brochure Flier Posters Opportunity to be very creative People respond well to physical collateral Lasting message Can be expensive with distribution challenges Local targeted mail and poster placement Brochures and fliers tend to circulate within local areas ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN Display Broadcast Radio Online Big impact Can create a high level of interest and excitement Can be expensive, involvement from third party agency is often required to make a really big impact Temporary if the radio or TV not turned on, then the ad is missed Should be targeted as niche broad or local, depending on your goals What s the message? Budget for both production and placement costs Measurability Page 4 of 6
Of course, there is much more detail that can be added to each of the sections above, however, this should provide a solid framework to make decisions and support the marketing budget as you move forward. Make sure you invest in good images it may be a cliché, but a picture tells a thousand words. And editors insist upon great images. Photography will support all your marketing elements including press, website, email and flyers/brochures. Chose images to represent your music and orchestra. File them in a range of sizes, from small 72dpi emailable size to large tiffs for reproduction in glossy magazines. Ensure they are properly captioned and are up-to-date so to accurately represent your orchestra. TIP: Performance halls use images differently to marketers. Images for printed flyers are different again from the images used by Internet sites. Do some research in the music pages of newspapers and see how the work of other musicians and orchestras is presented. 5. PLACE: Reaching your audience Raise awareness of your product, shape attitudes, generate interest, stimulate desire, provide a call to action and then close the sale. TIP: You will want a mix of wide-reaching and targeted promotions, and remember to always keep your existing customers in focus. Think back again to the local and broad. Decide what is important for your customers if your potential customers are all aged over 60 and living within 20 miles of a specific performance venue. In this case, investing in web and online strategies might not be the best means for reaching your audience. Strong marketing collateral and an advertising campaign targeting local conurbation spots would be a better alternative. There are many other marketing strategies that can be employed to reach arts audiences and these include: Merchandising Sponsorship and fundraising Creating events (awards, competitions, fundraisers, etc) Joint ventures and relationship marketing Creating new product features International touring Tourism-based activities Entering awards Identifying new market segments Special membership groups friends, etc Educational activities Onsite promotions Page 5 of 6
Resources www.americanorchestras.org/interest_areas/marketing.html A great USA website with reports and factsheets concerning marketing http://www.marketingfororchestras.com/ A marketing service provider s website with useful blogs focused on marketing for orchestras Further Reading Helen Close and Robert Donovan, Who s My Market? A Guide to Researching Audiences and Visitors in the Arts, Australia Council, Sydney, 1998 Dr Sharron Dickman, What s My Plan? A Guide to Developing Arts Marketing Plans, Australia Council, Sydney, 2000 Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point, Abacus, Great Britain, 2001 Peter Hughes and Peter Steidl, Marketing Strategies for Arts Organisation, 2 nd edition, Australia Council, Sydney, 1999 Philip Kotler, Principles of Marketing, Prentice Hall, NSW, 2003 Marketing consultant Trudy Johnston of Vim and Zest shares some of her top tips for marketing for success! Trudy is the director of Vim and Zest, a public relations and marketing agency dedicated to conveying a client s vision with integrity and passion. With experience ranging from the Sydney2000 Olympic Games to many other major projects, her ethos is grounded in communicating with positivity and inspiration. Trudy also taught strategic arts marketing at post-graduate level at UNSW and is a regular workshop presenter for the Australian Business Arts Foundation. www.vimandzest.com.au Page 6 of 6