Resources
Psychographics
Have you been targeting 18-24 year olds, but they're still not showing up? Forget demographics- psychographics is the newest practice in learning more about your audience. Find out how to create a psychographic profile for any audience and discover best practices on understanding who is walking through your door.
Beyond the Art: Build Audiences by Designing Branded Experiences at all Touchpoints
To view just the slide show, click here.
Artistic quality is critical, but other factors also influence what audiences see, hear, experience and talk about. People start to develop impressions about your organization’s work from the moment they receive your program announcement, and continue to be influenced by everything from their box office experiences to the time it takes to exit the parking lot after your event. All of these touch points shape your audiences’ future decisions about ticket purchases and attendance. Knowing how many chances you have to convey your organization’s view and approach to your customers and how to maximize each of those opportunities is critical to building a satisfied and loyal audience.
In his AEE Open Forum presentation, Denis Weil, Vice President, Concept and Design at McDonald’s Corporation, explains how to apply a user centered approach to develop or re-design your customers’ experiences. Learn how your arts organization can use low-cost, iterative design and prototype testing methods to innovate the service aspects of your customers’ experiences. His presentation was followed by a “fishbowl consultation” during which Denis strategized with several arts organizations of varying sizes and artistic disciplines that were working through the same real-life challenges that you face every day.
Asking the Right Questions: Using Research to Build Your Arts Audience
Does your organization have a marketing plan? Do you know your audiences? Then it’s time to start asking them questions! Make sure to get the information you need by using these resources from our Fall 2009 learning circle.
Check out these resources from Session 1. Link to Session 2, Session 3, or the Follow-up Session.
Using Research to Build Audiences: Issues I Need to Research
Kelley Lavin and Brenda Magnetti Erickson also suggested the following resources to deepen your knowledge:
Advocacy
Burg, Bob (1998). Endless Referrals. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Godin, Seth (2008). Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Reichheld, Fred (1998). The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.
Organizational Transition
William Bridges and Associates, Inc. (1991, 2003, 2009). Managing Transitions, 3rd edition. Philadelphia, PA: Perseus Books Group.
Personal Transition
Watkins, Michael D. (2009). Your Next Move: The Leaders Guide to Navigating Major Career Transition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Watkins, Michael D. (2003). The First 90 Days: Critical Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Psychographics and Targeting Your Most Valuable Consumers
Conley, Chip (2007). Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Martin, Alain Paul (2002). Harnessing the Power of Intelligence, Counterintelligence and Surprise Events. Canada: Professional Development Institute (PDI) Inc.
Moore, Geoffrey A. (2005). Crossing the Chasm. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Psychology of Success
Burg, Bob and Mann, John David (2007). The Go-Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Carlson Nelson, Marilyn (2008). How we Lead matters: Reflections on a life of leadership. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies.
Teaching and Learning
Bateman. W.L. (1990). Open to Question: The Art of Teaching and Learning by Inquiry. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, Publishers. [LB 1738 .M3]
Cranton, Patricia (1994). Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Publishers. [LC5225 L42 C72: Mann Library]
Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Publishers. [LC5225 .L42 M61: Mann Reserve]
Mosston, M., & Ashworth, S. (1990). The Spectrum of Teaching Styles: From Command to Discovery. White Plains, NY: Longman.
Office of Instructional Support (1993). Teaching Evaluation Handbook. Ithaca: Cornell University Office of Instructional Support. [LB2333 .T25] Available for downloading at http://www.clt.cornell.edu/resources/teh/teh.html
Trust Your Intuition
Gladwell, Malcom (2005). Blink. New York: Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Asking the Right Questions: Session 2
Session 2 of the Asking the Right Questions learning circle focused on survey best practices. Some highlights from the session include:
- Selecting research methods so that you don’t ask the right question in the wrong way
- Identifying effective vs. ineffective questions. Any questions that are leading, loaded, 2 in 1, or dramatic can change a survey taker’s response
- Understanding rules of thumb like you need at least 200 completed surveys to be statistically reliable
This is all leading up to session 3, which will focus on observing your audience. Link to Session 1.
Deep Dive: Survey Best Practices
Asking the Right Questions: Session 3
Your surveys tell you where your audiences come from and what they like and dislike about your organization, but do you want to know more? Define the how and why of your audience - what motivates them to come to you and what keeps others away. Methods like participant observation, “mystery shoppers,” and focus groups are just some of the ways that your organization can reveal the underlying motivations and attitudes of audience members. Check out the presentation from session 3 for more on qualitative research as well as ways to gain support within your organization for your research plan. Link to resources from Session 1 or Session 2.
Qualitative Research Methods and Wrap up
Here’s an example of an executive summary developed by one of the learning circle participants, Tim Horsburgh of Kartemquin Films, with the assistance of our AEE instructors. Brenda and Kelley helped him think through his research plan starting with a broad research question and finishing with a sample executive summary that highlights research goals, actions and impact.
Asking the Right Questions: Follow-up
Learning Circle participants met to discuss their progress with audience surveys. As Instructor Brenda Magnetti Erickson emphasized, if you remember one thing about audience research…
- Many types of people make up an audience.
- Understanding how to segment that audience and research “who, “what” and “why” can make organizations profitable and happy.
- It just takes practice.
- And, practice leads to confidence.
Obama’s E-marketing Strategies and What They Can do for the Arts
Michael Organ and Pete Giangreco share the strategies that made the Obama campaign’s online presence so successful.
We want your feedback! If you attended the September 15th Open Forum, then please fill out this short online survey (http://tiny.cc/OpenForumSurvey)
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View more clips from the September 15th Open Forum on Vimeo.
View the presentation by Michael and Pete here:
And here are some of the tools suggested by Pete and Michael:
QuantCast
Compete.com
Google Adwords
Open Secrets
Using these tools or similar ones? Share your successes (or failures) on the AEE forums.
League of American Orchestras: Audience Motivators
The League of American Orchestra has done some research on audience motivators. Click here to learn more.
Psychographics Roundtable with Wallace Excellence Awardees
Find out how Chicago arts organization’s are using psychographics and get some ideas for your organizations. The roundtable report includes a summary of findings and led to the development of our Psychographics and the Customer Experience learning circles.
Psychographics and the Customer Experience
Philippe Ravanas introduces psychographics in this presentation, which was used in the 2009 AEE Learning Circle “Psychographics and the Customer Experience.” Also, be sure to check out this 60 minutes segment on Echo Boomers, which Philippe also presented in the Psychograhipcs workshop.
Chip Conley Videos
Chip Conley, author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, kicked off 2009 AEE events with a great presentation on the ways he used psychographics to reinvigorate his boutique hotel business.
Here’s an excerpt from the discussion between Carol Coletta and Chip:
Joy Parties from Chicago Community Trust on Vimeo.
And an excerpt from Chip’s Open Forum presentation: