||| November 20, 2025 by Kelley Lavin

Asking the Right Questions: Using Research to Build Audiences

The final session of our Learning Circle: “Asking the Right Questions: Using Research to Build Audiences” just finished so, before I sat down to write this article, I thought I’d review some other AEE blogs just to see if anything was relevant. The first one I found was a November 11 posting from Northlight Theatre’s Marketing Director Chad Peterson, blogging from the National Arts Management Project Conference held in Rhode Island. I got more than I bargained for. It is an affirmation that many of the same business issues Circle participants identified are shared, for better or for worse, with other arts organizations across the nation.

Audience research is far more than merely an in-program survey with questions about demographics

One point that Chad made really struck a chord,

“Customers are changing their decision-making process. As a result, there’s a shift fromcompany-driven marketing to consumer-driven marketing.”

In order to successfully market to arts consumers, questions must be answered first to find what is important and has value to them, and then, how and when to reach them. This is where “knowing how to ask the right question” enters the process.

Audience research is far more than merely an in-program survey with questions about demographics and “how did you learn about us,” perhaps only done to satisfy funding requirements. Purposeful audience research is fundamental to your entire operation, and as such, must be carefully planned and agreed upon throughout your organization. Effective research can lead you to understanding audience motivations and what is of value to them, identify new target audiences to target, make informed decisions on budgets, fundraising and promotion and recognize potential collaborations with other organizations

Circle participants learned the in-depth process of creating sound research including how to:

   1. Identify their top marketing issues
   2. Translate these issues into research questions to qualify and quantify solutions
   3. Determine the most appropriate research techniques
   4. Identify their research audience
   5. Compose their survey questions

They heard success stories from two participating marketing directors who used what they learned in class to increase the number of completed research surveys and how to select and entice patrons to participate in 1:1 interviews.

The three presentations from the Learning Circles are in our resources you can link to them here.
Asking the right questions: Session 1
Asking the right questions: Session 2
Asking the right questions: Session 3

We encourage you to look through them to help you get started.   If you have questions please feel free to start a thread in our forum or leave them as a comment on the blog. Not only will we answer but we’ll ask our Learning Circle participants to give their viewpoints. One thing we all learned is that research is a “team sport.” It’s a process that can be fine-tuned by discussing the issues with others whose organizations have similar research objectives to yours.