Seminars & Trainings
Deborah at the National Arts Marketing Conference 2009:
Artists Learn to Advance Their Career By Building Marketing Skills from Americans for the Arts on Vimeo.
Engaging the NeXt Generations:
Marketing to Generations X & Y In order to better serve audiences and attract new supporters, arts and cultural marketers, educators, and leaders must understand and evaluate many aspects of their audiences, including the differences and similarities among generations. Today, the American Marketplace can be divided into four distinct generations: Matures, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y (also known as Millennials or Echo Boom). Experiences that shaped their value systems, responses to media, and their overall outlook on life make these segments very different from each other as consumers. This session illuminates several broad concepts underlying generational issues by outlining two generations’ values, needs and arts participation; provides relevant research and resources for arts and culture professionals to explore; and presents case study examples of successful generational marketing strategies. The target groups are Generation X (b. 1965-78), a difficult to reach, but influential group of arts and culture supporters; and Generation Y (b. 1979-97), the most recent generation of arts and culture supporters who are extremely marketing-savvy. Note: This session can also be expanded to include information relevant to developing audiences among the Mature and Baby Boomer generations as well.
Finding and Motivating New Audiences
Building audience requires understanding the different segments of arts users that make up the existing and potential audience base. Understanding the distinct motivations for and barriers to increased participation by medium and light users is key to building audiences. This seminar is based on the numerous arts and cultural usage studies that been conducted across the country in the last 10 years. Participants will learn what benefits lighter users have identified with the arts, which of these benefits are strong enough to motivate increased participation, what barriers are perceived by these users that organizations must decrease or eliminate, and possible strategies for incorporating these learnings into marketing initiatives. Case study examples of real world arts and culture organizations that have implemented new strategies targeted at medium and light users will be included.
Identity & Branding: Positioning Yourself in the Market
Does the community really know who you are and what you do? If you are trying to expand your audiences, donor base or participants for your organization, branding is critical to achieving those goals. The key to successful branding is developing a brand identity that expresses the uniqueness of your organization. This workshop takes an inside look at the components that make up image and positioning and then shows how these concepts influence audience/donor development. Participants will learn – branding basics; the process of developing a strong brand identity; how to transition from an old brand to a new one; how to incorporate key constituents; and how to use your brand to position your organization in the marketplace.
Engaging the Board in Marketing
The Board of an organization can play an integral role in successfully marketing the organization, and it can also hinder progress in this area. This seminar will lead participants through the delicate dance of board/staff roles in the marketing arena toward finding the balance that is appropriate for their specific circumstances. Topics covered include: Board members’ integral role as ambassadors of the organization; using board member expertise and connections (how and when to engage them in the process); learning to let go (when to know you’ve gone too far as a board member in “helping” the staff with marketing); the role of the board’s marketing committee and how it can be a win-win for board and staff. Note: This is an excellent session for board members and staff members to participate in jointly.
Market Research – Who’s out there? Who’s in here?
The most important part of successful marketing is knowing who your audience/supporters are. This workshop details the different ways you can collect information on your audience and how you can use this information to make smart marketing decisions through target segmentation. You will learn how to develop an audience survey that will get you the results you want, as well as how to interpret market research.
Customer Service Training for Cultural Organizations
Seamless customer service for arts and cultural organizations is key to enhancing the customer experience and putting the spotlight on the art. This seminar covers how to create customer focused policies and communications, recognizing positive and negative customer cues in your organization, and how to motivate staff to provide great service. Participants will leave the seminar with the necessary tools to conduct a customer service retreat in their own organization*, understanding how “going the extra mile” for customers can reap great rewards for the organization. *This seminar can also be tailored to address the training needs of individual organizations, serving as a facilitated customer service retreat.
Arts Marketing 101 – Tools of the Trade
Three-Part Series (total time of seminar is 11 hours of training)
This seminar can be targeted to either organizations/businesses or individual artists.
Part I: Who Are We? Where Do We Want To Go?
Begin at the beginning. This session covers the basics on how to better understand your own organization and where to look to increase your base of support. Participants will learn how to do a situation analysis — identifying mission/vision, competitive analysis, SWOT analysis — and target segmentation.
Part II: How Will We Get There?
This part of the series covers choosing who to target, setting objectives, branding your organization and selecting strategies. This session will also assist participants with analyzing their “product,” “price” and “place.”
Part III: Getting There.
The final session wraps up the process by looking at implementing the marketing strategies participants have been developing over the course of the series and includes: promotions & communications strategy, action planning, budgeting, and tracking & evaluation.
Note: This can be presented as a two-part series, combining Parts II & III into one longer second session. It is not recommended to present this series in less than two separate days of training.
Seminar Logistics
Duration
All seminars (with the exception of Arts Marketing 101) can be presented in 2 ½ – 4 hour time slots. Longer seminars include more hands-on and group exercise participation. Shorter 1 – 1½ hour presentations can be crafted for most of these topics.
Fees
Single seminar/presentation – $750
Two seminars/presentations in one-day – $1000
Other possible combinations available on request
