Marketing Challenges for Arts and Entertainment Organization

Some of the challenges today include a huge drop in attendance.  According to a statistic by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, there has been a 20 percent drop in audience size, even for some of the largest museums and galleries in the world.  The only saving grace for organizations to survive is to have a solid marketing plan. 

One of the biggest mistakes or arts organizations and small businesses alike are a lack of marketing.  For the arts world, you typically find board members who wear many hats, and marketing seems to be a task that takes the back seat.  For the arts industry, you will see this reflected with an empty audience.  The best thing you can do is hire a professional marketing company to help you develop a solid strategy. 

Marketing Plans for Arts and Entertainment

Marketing for arts and entertainment can be done in many ways.  Whether you have a large or small budget, here are some ideas to promote your event to attract more attendees, sponsors and boost revenue. 

1.     Marketing Goals

·      How much money are you looking to raise?

·      How many tickets are you trying to sell?

·      Do you need sponsors?

·      Will you be selling anything at the event, or will sell tables to vendors?

Setting marketing goals is very important.  You want to be realistic and set goals that you know you will be able to achieve.  You want to take a look at past events, their attendance and revenue, then set you goal to increase that number by 10-20%. 

2.     Marketing Budget

·      How much is your event going to cost?

·      How much money are you looking to raise?

You can raise this money with a combination of sponsorship, vendors and ticket sales.  You need to determine how much money you can make from each. 

3.     Marketing Strategy

Audience

·      Who is your audience? 

·      What is the best way to reach them?   

If you are promoting a local event, a banner in a high traffic area may work.  Perhaps a direct mailout would work for you because you already have a list.  How you market also depend on your budget.  Below are the standard marketing tools.     

Radio, Television and Podcast 

·      Television Commercials

·      Radio Commercials

·      Podcast Commercials

Print Marketing  

·      Flyers

·      Invitations

·      Postcards

·      Brochures

·      Magnets

·      Banners and Signs

·      Table tents

·      Newspaper Ads

·      Magazine Ads

Digital Marketing

§  Email Campaigns

§  Social media

§  Paid ads on search engines (PPC)

§  Bloggers

§  Influencers

§  Inbound marketing strategy

§  3rd party sales

Sponsors

The best way to get sponsorship is to as your members and volunteers to reach out to their own networks.  Many times, you will have volunteers and member’s whose employers are delighted to support their employee’s events.  This can be done right when you sign up your members.  Ask them right on the registration form, “Does your employer sponsor local events and charities?”   

If you are seeking sponsorship from a company, check to see if any of the members or volunteers are already connected with that organization before you reach out.  An introduction can go such a long way. 

Some other ways to reach out to a sponsor are face to face, direct mail, emails, phone calls and social media.  You will also want to follow up with a sponsor package.   

Why would they want to sponsor you?  How will this benefit them?  This is where you will show them your numbers, past attendance, social media reach, size of email list, years in business)

What to include in a sponsor package:

·      Business Card

·      Company brochure

·      Sponsorship costs (tiers)

·      Contract

·      Tickets, VIP passes and other Incentives

·      Sponsorship benefits

Vendors

Vendors provide your event with two things, revenue and more attractions for your event.  Before making that list of potential vendors, think about your audience.  What would they like to see there? 

Once you have your list of vendors you can reach out to them through tv, radio, print marketing, face to face, direct mail, emails, phone calls and social media.  You will also want to follow up with a vendor package. 

What to include in a vendor package:

            Business Card

            Company brochure

            Vendor costs (tiers)

Contract

            Tickets, VIP passes and other Incentives

            Vendor benefits

Why would they want to be a vendor at your event?  How will this benefit them?  This is where you will show them your numbers, past attendance, social media reach, size of email list, years in business…

4.     Marketing Analysis

This is the most important thing you can do for your events!  When your event is over, it’s so important to take a hard look your efforts and calculate ROI (Return on Investment).   How many people did that Google ad really bring in?   There are many ways to calculate ROI, one example is through survey.  You can ask you attendee how they heard about you while they are purchasing their ticket or sending them a survey after the event.

The easiest ROI to calculate is your digital marketing efforts as long as you have the tool to capture this information on your website.  Does your website have analytic data?  If your website is operating without this, it’s out of date!  Most likely, your website is also missing many other crucial things that it needs.  Click here for a free website analysis.

Click here to read about How a non-profit went from a local organization to a national organization.

Our marketing agency specializes in non-profit marketing.  We work with every budget and can always come up with a monthly plan that works for our clients.