ISSUE 26 | JULY 2007

> Getting away from it all

> How did we get here? > Day-to-day data

Time for a spring clean

Scanning the outside world

Friends reunited

> Marketing audit

2 > JAM 26

This issue of JAM was edited by Kate Sanderson with assistance from Helen Bolte helen@a-m-a.co.uk

JAM is published by the Arts Marketing Association7a Clifton Court, Cambridge CB17BNt 01223 578078f 01223 245962e info@a-m-a.co.ukw www.a-m-a.co.uk

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JAM is published four times per annum.UK subscription rates £17 per annumOverseas subscription rates £35 per annume helen@a-m-a.co.uk

© Arts Marketing Association, 2007 All rights are reserved and reproduction of any parts is not allowedwithout the written permission of the publishers.

Opinions expressed in JAM are not necessarily those of the AMAand no responsibility is accepted for advertising content. Anymaterial submitted for publication may be edited for reasons ofstyle, content or available space. Meanings will not be alteredwithout permission from the author.

ISSN 1474-1172

(g) Marketing activities

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desulooT

Spend– leaflets

Contents> RegularsSpotlight…………………………………………………… 3

Research round-up ………………………………… 4

Building a marketing audit ………………… 11

What gets my goat ……………………………… 15

Resources ……………………………………………… 22

> Marketing auditTime for a spring clean ………………………... 6

Case study: Getting away from it all …… 8

Case study: How did we get here? …….10

Scanning the outside world …………………16

Case study: Day-to-day data ……………… 18

Friends reunited …………………………………… 20

JAM is published by

Time for a spring clean

What gets my goat

value of PEST is increa

the identified factors (selecte

CAL

• local authority fun

ICAL

• educational cur

ls of dis

gory

FACTOR

Scanning the outside world

JAM is always on the lookout for new writerswith good ideas for case studies and features,especially from some of those smallerorganisations out there.

If you would like to contribute, please e-mail:helen@a-m-a.co.uk

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Friends reunited

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Research round-up

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Building a marketingaudit and review

JAM 26 > 3

> EDITORIAL

I thought (very briefly) about carryingon with Hannah’s musical analogy(last issue of JAM), but the closest I’vecome to anything musical was playingtambourine in junior school.

I am the latest recruit to the AMAteam although I have been here for awhile now. My role is membershipand events administrator and I havetaken over looking after the MemberReps Scheme from Neil –a very hardact to follow.

My background is in environmentalbiology and most of my working lifehas been spent in conservation,including a long spell with the RoyalSociety for the Protection of Birds(RSPB), where I worked in themembership team, and arrangedtraining for nature reserve wardens. I came to the AMA fromCambridgeshire County Councilwhere I was working with members of the Parish Paths Scheme and theLocal Access Forum, as well asorganising various projects.

I am also a weaver, taking myinspiration for my textiles from thenatural environment. I have justfinished a course in HandwovenTextile Design at Bradford College,and I am honourable secretary of theCambridgeshire Guild of Weavers,Spinners and Dyers. My other half is a potter and wildlife artist, and Iregularly get involved in a range ofcreative events.

I believe very strongly inencouraging people to participate.Involvement in the arts can be a vitaloutlet for creativity, therapy, or justan escape from everyday cares, butmost of all it is fun – whether aspectator, an amateur or aprofessional, there is something foreveryone. I look forward to meetingas many of you as I can at AMAevents and conference.

Chris TuckerMembership and EventsAdministrator AMAe chris@a-m-a.co.uk

Really knowing your audience

Spotlight onChris Tucker

Before I became a freelance consultant, I was director of communications atWest Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds and I have a confession to make. I neverwrote a marketing plan. Ever. In nine years.

It’s not that I have anything against marketing plans or that I advocate sloppythinking. On the contrary, I’d be the first to bang the drum for marketingplanning. Lists, processes, analytical tools? Bring it on. Give me a matrix and, asmany will testify, I’m one happy marketer.

So, I might not have written anything with Marketing Plan on the cover, butwhat we did have was a really in-depth knowledge of our audiences and somepretty sophisticated ways of analysing information. We knew exactly where ouraudiences were coming from for each show. We knew how often they werecoming, how they booked, how soon before the show and on what kind ofdiscounts. We knew the response rate of each direct mail campaign. We knewhow each show compared with the last, with other shows and with this timelast year. We knew exactly how much we’d spent on marketing each show andeach ticket, and we knew how many new people we’d brought to the theatre.And we talked to each other about all that information, sharing it among theteam and the whole company to build up a really strong bank of knowledge. Oh, and then we set targets each year based on some of those performanceindicators. And compared how we were doing with a few other key theatres.

All of which means that I don’t feel like too much of a fraud. Surely all thatmarketing theory is just a way of organising your thinking, giving you somestarting points and some structure? How you choose to apply it needs to beright for you and your organisation.

I hope that this edition gives you some of those starting points and inspiresyou to find the right way forward for you; whether it’s beginning a full-scalemarketing plan or integrating your ‘where are we now and how did we get here’into your everyday thinking. Or, ideally, both.

Kate SandersonArts Management and Marketinge kate@katesanderson.co.uk

Finally, a mention forThinking BIG! – a guide tostrategic marketingplanning for artsorganisations by StephenCashman. It’s quoted atlength throughout thisedition and I’m sure you’llfind its wise, pragmatic butrigorous advice of greathelp. And it’s got somelovely matrices …

The point of marketingplanning is to make informeddecisions about what will getyour organisation from where

it is now to where it wants to go. Sowhere can you get the information tosupport those decisions?

Wait before you reach for thatquestionnaire, because someone hasprobably done the work for you.There is such a lot of readily availableinformation about audiences (byaudiences, I mean readers, visitors,participants – whoever it is you wantto engage with). The abundance ofinformation has its down side; if youare not to drown in paper, you needto decide in advance what you needto know, why you want to know it andwhat you will do with the information.

Your shopping list will include twosorts of information: aboutorganisations and audiences similarenough to yours for you to makeparallels; and about the widercommunities your organisation seeks to serve.

Information about organisationsand audiencesArts Research Digest at www.arts-research-digest.com is ajournal that summarises researchfindings. It’s worth subscribingbecause these abstracts save youreading lots of reports that turn outnot to be relevant to your particularneeds. Subscribers can also access asearchable online archive. Hosted onthe same site is an electronic libraryof the research funded by ArtsCouncil England (ACE) over the past15 years or so. This is searchable bykeyword. ACE’s own site,www.artscouncil.org.uk, features arange of relatively recent publicationsto download. ACE has placed atreasure trove of publications, projectreports and evaluation studies byindependent researchers from the fiveyears of its New Audiences Programmeat www.newaudiences.org.uk

The team at the Australian agencyFuel4Arts must spend countless hoursferreting out up-to-date and relevant

information about audiences fromaround the English-speaking world. Youcan find the resulting mix of research,arts marketing case studies, articles,trend reports and marketing andaudience development tools atwww.fuel4arts.com. Access is free butyou have to register as a member. Thesite has a sophisticated search functionset up by someone with an eye for thekeywords we marketers really use. Signup for their What’s New service andevery month they will e-mail you theeditor’s top five pick of new resources.Their marketing e-journal Gas Quarterlyis free if you register.

The Scottish Arts Council hasassembled a useful research resourceat www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information including Taking Part2006, which gives levels ofattendance and participation in thearts among the population inScotland, and Peter Verwey’s paper onmarketing planning, downloadablefrom www.scottisharts.org.uk/DownloadPublication.aspx?pub=994.

In the know

Heather Maitland advises you to think about what you want to know – it may be that someone has already done the work for you.

4 > JAM 26

> RESEARCH ROUND-UP

JAM 26 > 5

Heather Maitland Consultant and authore hmaitland1@aol.com

Arts Council Wales also offers a rangeof research and statistics atwww.artswales.org.uk/publicationscheme.asp?pubcatid=67.

Many of the audience developmentagencies offer downloadable researchreports on their websites. You can linkto individual agency sites throughtheir umbrella organisation’s websiteat www.audiencedevelopment.org.

The Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncil’s site at www.mla.gov.uk ispacked with research and advice butthe exceedingly long list ofpublications is only searchable by dateor title so finding what you want istime consuming.

Research and statistics aboutdomestic and overseas tourists areavailable at www.visitbritain.org/ukindustry and www.visitscotland.org/research_and_statistics.htm.

Other websites worth a look areArts Research Monitor atwww.artsresearchmonitor.com andNational Endowment for the Arts(USA) at www.arts.gov/pub.

Don’t forget the Arts MarketingAssociation’s own site at www.a-m-a.co.uk The reports fromconferences, away days and seminarsare packed with useful information.

Much research commissionedbefore the mid-1990s can still offeruseful insights but is only available onpaper. Several of the longer-established audience developmentagencies have libraries which theirmembers or clients can consult by

appointment. Hi~Arts in Scotlandeven offers a loan service by post.Most of these agencies have somekind of online catalogue. Find yourregional agency atwww.audiencedevelopment.org.

Information about communitiesThe government has madedemographic statistics, mainly fromthe censuses, available by region, localauthority district, ward andsometimes even smaller areas athttp://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk.Statistics about Northern Ireland’seconomy, population anddemographics at national and locallevel are downloadable atwww.ninis.nisra.gov.uk and statisticsabout neighbourhoods in Scotlandare at www.sns.gov.uk. You can finddata on national social and economictrends at www.statistics.gov.uk.

Area Profile Reports givedemographic information about acatchment area defined by you,broken down by postal sector. Theyalso include projections for thenumber of people likely to attend arange of different cultural activities,again broken down by postal sector.Start by reading Peter Verwey’s paperon Area Profile Reports andCatchment Area Analysis which youcan download atwww.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1003111.aspx. If you are based inScotland, you can get an area profile

report using the order form at theback. If you are based in England orWales, you will need to get an orderform by e-mailingareaprofiles@artscouncil.org.uk or bywriting to Philip Cave, director ofaudience and market development,Arts Council England, 14 Great PeterStreet, London SW1P 3NQ. AreaProfile Reports for Northern Irelandinclude similar information but notthe projections for arts attendanceand are available to members ofAudiences Northern Ireland only.

Finally, several audiencedevelopment agencies will, usually fora fee, analyse both your existingaudiences and the population in yourcatchment area using ageodemographic profiling tool suchas ACORN or Mosaic. These tools giveeach individual postcode in the UK aclassification based on a range ofdata sources. This classificationindicates lifestyle as well as familystage, income, type of housing etc.You can find out the ACORN type of apostcode at www.upmystreet.com.

> FEATURE

Time for a spring clean

Kate Sanderson prepares to rummage at the back of your cupboards tofind out where your organisation is and how it got there

So, you’re about to embark on ajourney towards a newmarketing plan. Maybe you’renew to your organisation,

maybe you’ve taken on a new rolewithin it, or maybe you’ve been therefor some time and feel the need torefresh your knowledge and re-defineyour strategy. Whatever the reason,you’ll need to start your journey with athorough look at your organisation;you’ll need to rifle through those filingcabinets, dust those old reports down,even dig out those 500 questionnairesthat the artistic director insisted youdid but you never got round toanalysing (oops, was that just me?).

Yes, it’s time for a spring clean.Let’s start with thinking about the

process a bit. We’re in the territory ofthe situational or strategic analysisand the marketing audit. Figure 1,taken from Thinking BIG! – a guide tostrategic marketing planning for artsorganisations (Stephen Cashman,2003) shows where this fits within astrategic marketing planningframework. A strategic or situationalanalysis is the process of looking notonly internally but also at the externalfactors around you and the context inwhich you’re working. It isn’t aboutidentifying solutions or strategies(that comes later) but about really

analysing the issues facing yourorganisation and, ultimately, ofinforming the marketing that you willdecide to undertake.

All of which can seem ratherdaunting, so it’s useful to have ashopping list to refer to. There arevarious shopping lists that you couldlook at and it’s important for you tocome up with the right things for yourorganisation. There’s a list in ThinkingBIG!, and you could also look at PeterVerwey’s Marketing Planning paper,written for Arts Council England andavailable to download atwww.scottisharts.org.uk/DownloadPublication.aspx?pub=994. It has a reallydetailed and helpful list to follow.Briefly, here are some of the thingsyou will probably need to look at:• Product – what exactly is your

organisation selling? What types ofshows, exhibitions, programmes?Are you selling less obvious thingslike workshops and talks? Are therethings like subscriptions and Friendsschemes which might have startedout as incentives or promotions buthave actually become products intheir own right? And beyond the ‘art’itself, is there an ‘experience’ thatcustomers are buying that might bejust as important? You might alsowant to look at your organisation’sbrand values; is its reputation andhistory as important to customers asthe current show on offer?

• Income – look at the figures forthe past three or five years if youcan and, where appropriate, plotticket income as well as otherincome like sponsorship or earnedincome from merchandise.

• Ticket sales – How many ticketsdo you sell and are there any

Figure 1: a strategic marketing planning framework

ORGANISATIONAL MISSION

Marketing objectives

TOWS (SWOT rearranged)

Matrix based strategy assessment& selection of strategy sets

Positioning &branding plan

Marketing mix plan

Implementation plan

SW OT

Internal analysis• Marketing audit & review

External analysis• Trends • Competition • Markets

SMP phase 1

STRATEGICGOAL SETTING

SMP phase 2

STRATEGIC OR SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

SMP phase 3

MAKING &SELECTINGSTRATEGIES

SMP phase 4

STRATEGICACTION

EVALUATION

6 > JAM 26

trends? You might want to look atdays of the week (are Mondaysreally as bad as you think?) or atseasonality (how have youperformed in January for the lastthree years?).

• Pricing – if you charge for entry,look at three to five years’ worth ofinformation about pricing. Has theorganisation’s broad approach topricing changed in this time andwhat’s its current policy? Is there aneed to balance income with accessand, if so, what’s the overall approachto this? What levels and types ofdiscounts are offered and how hasthe uptake of these varied over thetime period? For theatres, you’ll alsoneed to look at how your house ispriced and any pricing for differentdays of the week.

• Booking and/or selling facilities– how and where do you sell yourtickets? What proportion of ticketsdo you sell online? Do you selltickets through agents?

• The market – this is where you’llneed to look at some of the sourcesof secondary research detailed inResearch Round-up (page 4) to giveyou a really clear idea of the natureof your potential market and howyou’re performing in relation to this.If you still think that there are somegaps in your knowledge, you mightdecide that you’ll need to do somenew research. If so, it’s a good ideato talk to your regional audiencedevelopment agency first and seehow they could help. And perhapsthink about working with some otherorganisations to get the most out ofyour research (and your money) –Alan Stacey from Talawa gives areally good example of this in the

case study on page 10. If you aregoing to do some new research,there’s some very good advice to befound on the AMA website in theADUK resource sheets by CathHume, Liz Hill and Beth Aplin – seeresources on page 22.

• Marketing resources – how manystaff are there in the marketing teamand what budget is available formarketing? You might want to lookat how this breaks down in terms ofspend per earned pound or spendper customer. And if you think this isa particular issue, you might want tolook at other similar organisationsand see if they’d be prepared toshare information about theirbudgets so that you can comparewith yours.

• Marketing approach – in overallterms, how do you do yourmarketing? Are most of your effortsspent on seasonal brochures or printin general? How customer-focusedare you? Do you know how effectiveeach element of your marketing is?Again, you might want to sharesome information with otherorganisations, whether through aformal benchmarking project orsimply by chatting to colleagues.What do they do, how effective is itand is there anything you can learnfrom them?

• PEST analysis – using PEST canreally help you to get a clear pictureof the external factors facing yourorganisation. See pages 16 and 17for more information on this tool.

• SWOT analysis – finally, looking atthe Strengths, Weaknesses,Opportunities and Threats for yourorganisation is always a usefulexercise and an excellent way of

beginning to create some order outof all of the facts and figures you’vebeen uncovering so far. See pages20 and 21 for some practical adviceon how to use SWOT.

When you’ve sorted out that little lot,you’ll have a really clear andcomprehensive picture of where youare and how you got there. And you’llbe ready to move on to thinkingabout what the implications of that isfor your future marketing strategy. Itmay seem like a laborious and time-consuming task but the case studies inthis issue give some really practicalexamples of how to make it work, andof how individual organisations havetailored the situational analysis to suittheir own needs, picking out keyindicators and developing their own‘shopping lists’ to speed up theprocess for next time. Yes, it’s aninvestment in time but, just like anannual spring clean, it’s good for thesoul, clears out all the cobwebs andputs you in the right place to face therest of the year ahead. Good luck.

JAM 26 > 7

Kate Sanderson, Arts Marketing and Management e kate@katesanderson.co.uk

8 > JAM 26

Getting away from it all

> CASE STUDY

Compton Verney is an award-winning art gallery inWarwickshire housed in aGrade I listed Robert Adam

mansion surrounded by 120 acres ofCapability Brown landscaped parkland.

The gallery opened in March 2004following a ten-year restoration projectand I joined Compton Verney in June2004. At this point, the organisationwas starting to re-evaluate itself nowthat it was fully operational. This wasdone at a series of away days attendedby permanent members of staff wherewe reviewed the SWOT and PESTanalyses (originally drafted in January2003) to identify the currentenvironment, agreed our vision andstrategic aims and decided on theprocess for monitoring our objectivesover the forthcoming year.

How we did itThe process started with reviewingour mission statement and core valuesto ensure that we were all clear aboutwhere we were going. We then movedon to the SWOT analysis, returning tothe previous draft and looking at whathad changed since 2003:• Had any new strengths come to light

since opening?• Were our strengths in the eyes of our

audience what we thought theywould be?

• Had any new opportunities emerged?• Were the opportunities being fully

exploited?• Had any of the threats changed? And

had we under- or overestimated any?• Were there any weaknesses we

hadn’t anticipated?

In our next away-day we looked atsome case studies of other venues

such as the Eden Project, Baltic and theLighthouse. We combined this with aPEST analysis looking at externalfactors that would affect our performance.

From here we went on to re-address each of our strategic aims, asking ourselves whether:• the objectives were specific enough• the measures put in place were

working and how we had performedso far

• the objectives were still achievablenow that we had an idea of how ourbusiness would perform in reality

• the objectives were still realistic andwhether we could still achieve themwithin the time frame set.

The resultant document helped usestablish what our key performanceindicators were so that we could buildthem into ongoing monitoring. For us,this monitoring included visitor figuresand customer feedback.

Why was this useful?I feel very lucky to work for anorganisation that takes its businessplanning seriously and involves a widenumber of people in it. With such alarge group, this process could havebecome unwieldy but, thanks to goodfacilitation, everyone’s voice was heardand the key decision makers were inthe room so decisions could be agreedinstantly. It was also helpful to hearother departments’ perspectives andwe had important discussions aboutour mission, aims and objectives.Finally, it was a much more interactiveway to plough through a complexdocument; the onus was on all of us tocontribute, which made pulling thefinal version together much easier.

Sam Skillings explains how investing time with her whole organisationhas helped her marketing planning

With such a large

group, this process

could have become

unwieldy but, thanks to

good facilitation,

everyone’s voice was

heard and the key

decision makers were

in the room so

decisions could be

agreed instantly.

Where next?This process feeds into my annualmarketing planning and it has evolvedto a simple checklist of internal andexternal factors. These include:• Looking at the local tourist economy

– I use the Heart of England andSouth Warwickshire Tourism websitesfor information

• What’s the strength of the poundand how might this affect tourists?

• What have our competitors donethat has been successful and whatcan we learn from them?

• What are the lessons from last year’smarketing plan? For us this includeslooking at the relative success ofexhibition titles.

• What do our customers think of us?Customer feedback led us to removeour Art, Architecture, Landscape,Learning strapline from certain market-ing materials to avoid confusion.

• Have any new unique selling points(USPs) come to light?

• Will there be any new products this year?

• What’s the profile of our audienceand has it changed? If you’re luckyenough to have a box office you cando a simple geographic profile. Or getmore sophisticated and get aMOSAIC or ACORN profile.

• How many people made a return visitlast year?

• What was the average ticket yield?• What are our competitors charging?

How much has it increased?• Look back over our Area Profile

Reports – are we maximising ouraudience potential?

In the future I hope to take this a stagefurther by joining an Audience Data UKbenchmarking scheme to get an ideaof how we are doing compared to

other galleries within the region.Personally, I find this bit of time

invested in the planning stage helps mework much better throughout the year.I still have plenty of room forimprovement but it’s a good place tostart. In the future I’m hoping to spendmore time using this process to informmy planning for individual exhibitionsso that I stop fire-fighting and worksmarter, not harder.

JAM 26 > 9

Sam Skillings,Marketing Manager,Compton Verney,Warwickshire

e sam.skillings@comptonverney.org.uk

10 > JAM 26

How did we get here?

Alan Stacey explains how he’s been getting to grips with TalawaTheatre Company’s history and current position

> CASE STUDY

Talawa is Britain’s foremostBlack-led theatre company.We give voice to the BlackBritish experience and we

nurture, develop and support talent.We cultivate Black audiences andaudiences for Black work. In so doingwe enrich British theatre.

In my opinion, the mission statementof Talawa Theatre Company isexcellent – ambitious, clear and to thepoint. However, there is one sentencethat will stand out to marketers: ‘We cultivate Black audiences andaudiences for Black work.’

After three months as MarketingManager at Talawa I have that phraseingrained upon my brain. At differentpoints it has meant different things tome. It has also meant different thingsto different people. This case studycharts my attempts to examine anddefine this focus on ‘Black audiencesand audiences for Black work’ in orderto inform my marketing planning.New in my role, it seemed vital to methat I understand the company andits objectives as fully as possible so I

embarked on what has become athree-stage process.

First, I made use of anecdotalevidence. According to patrons,founders and friends, between 1986and the late 1990s Talawaproductions were attended bypredominantly white middle-classaudiences. Depending on who I spoketo this was either a travesty, becauseit failed to engage Black audiences, ora triumph, because it engaged themainstream. Then, with a change inprogramming, there was an influx ofpredominantly Black audiences. Sonow, in 2007, with a mandate to ‘givevoice to the Black British experience’,Talawa hopes to attract a culturallydiverse audience.

It was becoming clear thatanecdotal evidence would only getme so far, and it would often leaveconfusing or contradictoryimpressions. So the second step wasto analyse previous research. When itcomes to touring companies,audience research documents areoften in short supply but with Talawa,I was relatively lucky. In the 2000-2005 drive for a building of its own,Talawa had commissioned a wide-ranging marketing research survey.The results were surprising.

Despite its 21-year history andrelative high profile, very fewoccasional to regular theatre-goershad actually heard of Talawa. It is aproblem many touring companies willbe familiar with – the intervieweesmight have been to shows, but theyhadn’t heard of the company. Overall,there was little difference betweenWhite and Black respondents in termsof entertainment preferences anddisposable income, but there was a

difference in the way they perceivedTalawa. White respondents feltexcluded by the concept of Blacktheatre, whereas most Blackrespondents recognised the need forthe company to exist. Both groupsfelt they would be interested in seeinga show, but both felt detached fromthe company because they wereunaware of its existence.

It has become clear that there is arole for Talawa not only inprogramming to culturally diverseaudiences but in research. There is aneed to build awareness of thecompany’s activities and for thecompany to better understand itsaudiences. Fortunately, several othertheatre buildings and touringcompanies were looking to do thesame, so stage 3 of my process hasbeen to form a partnership, under theumbrella of Audiences London, toresearch booking patterns,preferences and motivations inculturally diverse theatre audiences.Data will be shared between all thepartners and should lead to greaterunderstanding and more informedmarketing. Collaboration is the key,and each partner will inevitably getsomething different from the project.And for Talawa, the project will gosome way towards defining thephrase ‘audiences for Black work’.

Alan Stacey, Marketingand Press Manager,Talawa TheatreCompanye alan@talawa.com

JAM 26 > 11

Taken from the downloadable Thinking BIG! worksheets which can befound on the AMA website at www.a-m-a.co.uk/publications.asp, thefollowing will guide you in carrying out a marketing audit and review.

Building a marketing audit and review

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Programming policy:

Types of events, exhibitions or shows put on:

(a) Product and offering information

Core propositions underpinning the marketing of your organisation’s products:

desusetaddnaemitfo.oNyticapaCnoitacoLemaN

Venues and spaces used:

(

You should first acquire (as far as possible) the data and information needed to fill in sections (a) to (h). Then, havingreviewed this material, please consider and respond to the questions posed in sections (i) to (k).

12 > JAM 26 25

> Building a marketing audit and review

(b) Attenders and user data, and trends(NB Current financial year = 0, previous year = -1 and so on).

A.

Financial year

B.

Total attenders

and users

C.

Total no. of events

D.

Average attenders

per event

(= B / C)

E.

Change in number

of attenders since

previous year

F.

Change in average

number of

attenders since

previous year

0

-1

-2

-3

-4

(c) Income data and trends(NB Current financial year = 0, previous year = -1 and so on).

A.

Financial year

B.

Total income (£s)

C.

Total no. of events

D. Average income

per event (£s)

(= B / C)

E.

£s change in total

annual income

since previous

year

F.

£s change in

average income

since previous

year

0

-1

-2

-3

-4

(d) Pricing(NB Current financial year = 0, previous year = -1 and so on).

A.

Financial year

B.

Maximum price

charged

C.

Minimum price

charged

D.

Average price

charged

E.

Average

concession

provided

F.

Change in top

price since

previous year

Pricing policies:

0

-1

-2

-3

-4

(

> Building a marketing audit and review

JAM 26 > 13

(e) Booking and selling facilities

Box office opening hours:

Average no. of sales staff:

Sales points made available:

aivraeytnerrucnidlosstekcitfo.oNslennahcselaSthis channel

% of total tickets sold in last year viathis channel

Walk-in customers

Telephone calls

Postal booking

Via agencies

Via internet

Other

(f) Marketing resources(NB Current financial year = 0, previous year = -1 and so on).

A.

Financial year

B.

Total marketing

budget

C.

Total no. marketing

staff and job titles

D.

Resources contributed

or acquired from

outside

E.

Data resources

0

-1

-2

-3

-4

(

14 > JAM 26

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raey

sih

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Spend%

oftotal

marketing

budget

Resultsof

spend(incom

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attendance)

Spend%

oftotal

marketing

budget

Resultsof

spend(incom

eand

attendance)

Spend%

oftotal

marketing

budget

Resultsof

spend(incom

eand

attendance)

Print–

leaflets

Print–

brochures

Print–

flyers

Print–

posters

Advertising

–press

Advertising

–broadcast

Direct

mail

Salesprom

otions

Specialoffers

Other

tools:

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Mmm. Marketing audits.Those are two words thatcan strike fear into theheart of the most seasoned

arts marketer. Where to begin?We know that taking the first steps

on the strategic planning journey isGood for Us and makes us BetterPeople. Perhaps it’s the professionalequivalent of the January detox – getaway from the bad habits and self-inflicted excesses and clean out thesystem once in a while. You knowyou’ll relapse but at least you’ve madethe effort.

But hang on; if it’s a Good Thing,why does it also sound like a negativeexperience? First, it can make theheart sink as it’s the necessary firststep of what’s likely to be a long andarduous journey in creating a fullmarketing strategy or plan. But apartfrom being a somewhat dauntingprospect, it can also sometimes bethe reality that the hours, days, weeksand months ahead will ultimatelyappear to be pointless. The fact isthat it can feel like an academic

exercise resulting in just anotherspiral-bound document destined forthe filing cabinet.

I’m sure I’m not alone in havingworked at some point for anorganisation that failed to include asingle mention of audiences in itsvision for the future. So whenaudiences are not on the agenda, is itany wonder that doing a marketingaudit – or indeed any strategicmarketing planning – can feel like awaste of time? There’s nothing morefrustrating than doing a piece of workthat just doesn’t bear any relation tothe wider organisational objectives.

Then there’s the pressure ofundertaking the task while keeping allthe other departmental platesspinning: how to give the marketingaudit due consideration whilesimultaneously dealing with the day-to-day operational business ofworking hard to find an audience fornext week’s show.

So there can be several reasons notto want to even start a marketingaudit. But let’s ignore that for a

moment and press on. Well, we allknow the theory: a PEST/environmentalanalysis and a SWOT analysis that’sessentially an audit of capability. Anaudit of capability = facing up(honestly) to weaknesses. That can bean interesting process.

Is the organisation ready for this,and is it willing to change? Is it gearedup for some investment in marketingand committed to a new approach?Or does it think that if you justmanaged to put up a few moreposters in the local shops everythingwould be better? Is there acommitment to invest in resourcesfor marketing and to take risks? Ditchthe brochure. Stop last-minutediscounts. Fine until the next showthat doesn’t sell well and the strategythinking is conveniently put aside bythe immediate pressures to deliveraudiences in the short term.

So the amount of work that goesinto a process that might not bewelcomed, valued or supported iswhat really gets my goat. And thereally galling thing? That despite thesebarriers and pressures that get in ourway, we’ll carry on doing the researchand putting in the time because, asprofessional marketers, we care aboutgetting it right. And we’ll go on caringand making the case for audienceseven when we might be lone voicesdoing so. I’ll get my coat.

JAM 26 > 15

> TALKBACK

What gets my goat

Matt Cawardine-Palmer’s goat needs to be welcomed and valued, not left on the shelf

Matt Carwardine-Palmer,MCP Arts Marketinge matt@mcpartsmarketing.co.uk

While an internal andretrospectiveexamination of anorganisation’s past and

present marketing activities is a keypart of strategic (marketing) analysis,so is a detailed consideration of itsenvironment and the things going onin it. On the face of it, this can seemlike a big and rather challenging taskbut fortunately, an approach tosimplifying it exists so that the ‘woodcan be seen for the trees’; this is theacronym PEST.

PEST stands for political (andlegislative), economic, social andtechnological factors. PEST

assessment can be used to draw up a checklist of factors and trends thatare thought likely to have a big impact(either positive or negative) on theimplementation of a strategy andthus the achievement of thatstrategy’s desired results.

Figure 1 shows some of the factorsand trends that might legitimately beincluded in a PEST assessment.

However, to really make the mostof PEST, a number of tips andtechniques should be noted:• Look for the positive as well

as the negativeRemember that as well as being ameans of detailing the competitivethreats faced by the organisation,PEST can also identify and recordaspects that may be opportunities.

• Making PEST specific to yourorganisationSome of the factors shown in Figure 1 are probably relevant to all arts organisations. However,it’s important to develop a PESTassessment from the particularperspective of your organisation. It is likely that each organisation’sinterpretation of PEST will differ insome way from its peerorganisations; there are no rightanswers here – only ones that areappropriate to the organisation’sparticular circumstances.

• Triggers or prompts and notjust pigeonholes The headings that make up PEST are only meant to provide triggers to thinking. So it doesn’t really matter where you put a factor aslong as it makes a kind of sense and is put somewhere rather thanbeing left off.

16 > JAM 26

> FEATURE

Scanning the outside world

Stephen Cashman identifies competitive threats, environmentalopportunities and the trends they represent

Figure 1: examples of potential PEST factors affecting the marketing activity of arts organisations

POLITICALand legislative factors

• national arts funding policies• local authority funding policies• health and safety legislation• child protection legislation• data protection legislation• the educational curriculum

ECONOMIC factors

• levels of household income• levels of disposable income• levels of unemployment• prevailing interest rates• rate of inflation

SOCIAL factors

• demographic trends (e.g. composition of families and overall ageing of population)

• levels of unemployment• levels of disposable time• degree of social exclusion• levels of educational attainment

TECHNOLOGICAL factors

• local and regional communications infrastructure

• increased availability of internet and CD-ROMs as sources of entertainment

• increased number of leisure alternatives• fragmentation and proliferation

of media

• Still a need for some claritywith definitionsWhile it doesn’t really matter wherethings are put, it is important tohave some clarity as to the meaningof some of the PEST terms. Here‘politics’ refers to politics with asmall ‘p’ and relates to any factor ortrend that has a governmental orlegislative origin. Similarly ‘techno-logical’ should not be restricted tothings such as sophisticatedmachinery and high-tech electronicsbut can refer to less sophisticatedequipment such as a paper-basedfiling system or a manual ticketingagency selling hard tickets.

• Limit the factors included byconcentrating on ones that arerelevant and important With such a potentially wide-rangingexercise there is a constant danger ofan avalanche of facts. So keepchecking that each element is relevantor important to your organisation. If itis neither, leave it out.

• Seek things that offer analternative to the needs servedby your organisationAnything that forms an alternativemeans of satisfying your customers’needs can represent a competitivefactor and should be included in thePEST assessment. For instance, ifyour customers are seekingentertainment, then DVDs mightprovide a similar satisfaction. If yourusers currently value your

organisation because itsparticipative events make them feelinvolved and fulfilled, a community-focused programme of sportsdevelopment may well be seen as apotential alternative.

• Go a step further and elaboratethe implicationsMerely listing the PEST factors facingan organisation only really forms astarting point. To make the most ofthis exercise, it is worth teasing outthe implications of each factor forthe organisation’s marketing activity.Figure 2 does this for a number ofselected factors.

Building a PEST assessmentIt’s completely possible to build aPEST assessment by working alone.But it can also benefit from theinvolvement of a wide range of peoplefrom within your organisation who willbring to it different thoughts andknowledge. Running meetings,seminars or working groups devotedto building a PEST assessment can alsobe a powerful tool for creating internalconsensus on the issues that are reallyimportant to the organisation.

It can also be important to drawknowledge and ideas from a range ofpublished and broadcast sources. Youmay wish to refer to qualitynewspapers and magazines (forinstance the Economist), trademagazines and newspapers (e.g. ArtsProfessional, the Stage and Television

Today) and current affairsprogrammes on TV and radio aspotential sources for such research, aswell as to the list of secondaryresearch sources detailed in ResearchRound-up on page 4.

Whether you decide to build a PESTassessment alone or by working withcolleagues, carrying out the sorts ofthinking described above andrecording your conclusions will forman important component of yourstrategic marketing plan.

You can find downloadableworksheets on the AMA website atwww.a-m-a.co.uk/publications.asp tohelp you with your marketing audit,PEST and SWOT analyses.

Edited by Kate Sanderson, this article is anextract taken from Thinking BIG! – a guideto strategic marketing planning for artsorganisations by Stephen Cashman,published by Arts Council England.

Stephen CashmanStrategic Arts Manager, Hartlepool Borough Councile stephen.cashman@blueyonder.co.uk

Figure 2: the value of PEST is increased by teasing out the marketing implicationsof the identified factors (selected factors)

POLITICAL • local authority funding policies • Budgetary restrictions may reduce available resources

POLITICAL • educational curriculum • More limited emphasis on arts may reduce market for schools groups, but may increase need for schools toaccess external provision

ECONOMIC • levels of disposable income • People may not consider organisation affordable

ECONOMIC • prevailing interest rates • May diminish feeling of economic optimism

SOCIAL • increasing average age of population

• Providing dedicated events for the elderly becomes an opportunity

SOCIAL • low levels of educational attainment

• Restricts size of potential markets

TECHNOLOGICAL • increased leisure opportunities • Increased level of competition from alternatives

PEST category FACTOR SO LIKELY IMPLICATIONS ARE

JAM 26 > 17

At the Liverpool Everyman andPlayhouse Theatres we’refortunate to be in theposition of having a

marketing planning manager on theteam (see JAM issue 24, February2007 to find out how this cameabout). One year on from Scott’sappointment and I’m delighted to saythat we’re integrating our use of datainto our day-to-day marketing and,quite frankly, I wouldn’t go back.

As an organisation we’re stillrelatively new, with the Trust beingformed in 2000 and the newprogramme of more home-producedwork, Made in Liverpool, beginning in2004. Since then, the main drive ofmarketing activity has been toexpand the audience base – both interms of raw numbers and of socialand cultural diversity – and to fosterstronger engagement, loyalty andcustomer retention. Having someonededicated to monitoring this hasbeen invaluable, as we can seegrowth in audiences from productionto production, season to season andyear to year, fine-tuning our marketingactivity as we go.

So what do we do and how dowe do it?First, we have developed a standardExcel report which we create at theend of each production. Thiscombines information from a numberof reports either generated in PASS orVital Statistics, including: sales andseats sold against target, ticket yield,buyer types, number of bookers(including first timers), crossover withother productions, response to directmail, groups (including the value ofour partnership schools), booking

time, drive time and postcodeanalysis. We evaluate this report inour weekly team meetings and alsolook at elements of it in relation to aseries of benchmarks we have createdfor particular programme strands andvisiting companies.

We now review each season using aseries of key performance indicatorswhich relate more broadly to recency,frequency and value. This allows us tobuild a picture of customer loyalty(retention and frequency), customerretention (including new, lapsed andreturning bookers), and the crossoverbetween the two theatres, as well asseasonal trends. This is increasinglyinforming our season marketingactivity, from measuring the impactof our brochure to targeting ourlapsed attenders.

A good example of this approachwas with our 2006 autumn/winterseason when we radically reduced thenumber of brochures we sent out,focusing on targeting more frequentbookers and those that book withinsix weeks of the brochure beingreceived. These ‘planners’ who bookin advance want to ensure theirfavourite seats, as well as to fit in theirvisits with attendances at other artsevents across the region. Looking atour autumn programme with a betterunderstanding of audience behaviour,we created two targeted direct mailcampaigns focusing on classic theatreattenders and lapsed attenders. Theresults were fantastic. Our classicdrama checklist generated a 22 percent response rate, representing 14per cent of income and 12 per centof tickets for the first Made inLiverpool production that season(Arthur Miller’s All My Sons). Our

18 > JAM 26

Day-to-day data

Sarah Ogle explains how Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Theatreshas taken a new approach to constantly monitoring its position

Top: Photo by Stephen Vaughan: Arthur Miller's All My Sons

Bottom: Photo by Keith Pattison:Improbable Theatre's The Wolves in the Walls

mailing to lapsed attenders saw a 9per cent response rate but, moreimportantly, an investment of £2,500in this project generated sales of over£35,000 net in that season.

These two strands of analysis –production and season – then feedinto an annual customer review,bringing everything together to forma clear picture of year-on-year growthand highlighting any areas forconcern. At this point we bring inexternal data, using our localmarketing agency (TEAM) to map ouraudiences, look at Area ProfileReports and consider market share.This approach informed our FamilyCampaign in the autumn of 2006.Looking at our audiences in relationto postcodes and potential, we usedMOSAIC profiling to identify a seriesof ‘hotspots’. We worked with TEAMto refine this further and to targetfamily postcode sectors with abespoke piece of print to over 30,000homes and 470 outlets. For aninvestment of about £4,000 in printand distribution we generated over£16,000 net, generating over 200 newbookers and encouraging over 50attenders back.

Since 2004 we’ve learnt so muchabout our audiences and how theyare responding to the newprogramme of work. Because it’s nowso integrated into the work of themarketing team, it’s not an annualchore but a source of living datawhich gives us more confidence as adepartment and which is helping us tobuild a memory for the organisationwhich is accurate rather thananecdotal. This knowledge bankimpacts on our marketing activitydaily, seasonally, as we plan for thefuture direction of the theatres withLiverpool’s year as European Capitalof Culture in 2008 and as we embarkon a major capital re-developmentproject from 2009. It is informingdecisions at every level of thecompany, from how manyprogrammes to order to the work we produce on our stages.

JAM 26 > 19

> CASE STUDY

Sarah Ogle, MarketingDirector, LiverpoolEveryman and Playhouse

e s.ogle@everymanplayhouse.com

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So you’ve gone through yourshopping list and looked indetail at areas such as product,price and marketing approach.

You’ve looked at the secondaryresearch that’s available to help youunderstand the market you’re workingin and you’ve identified any gaps inyour knowledge that might needaddressing through some primaryresearch. Finally, you’ve used PEST toanalyse the external factors thatimpact on your organisation and itsfuture marketing. How are you nowgoing to pull all of this together,summarise your findings and begin tothink about the implications of it all?Fortunately, there’s an old friendwaiting to help you; SWOT.

The example here gives you an at-a-glance guide of how to useSWOT but let’s just remind ourselvesbriefly of how SWOT works and how

to make the most of this old but veryvaluable tool.

First of all, there’s the issue ofinternal and external; Strengths andWeaknesses should be internal factorsover which your organisation hassome degree of control.Opportunities and Threats, on theother hand, should be externalfactors. It’s worth being quite rigorousin your use of this.

Second, apply the same kind ofrigour to deciding whether a factor isallowed to go into more than onebox. You might find that you need tobe a bit more specific in order toreally get to the heart of the issue. Forexample, just putting ‘car parking’ intwo boxes isn’t really doing it. Youneed to work a bit harder and put‘Council’s planned redevelopment ofadjacent car park’ in Threats and‘excellent City Council car park next

Friends reunited

Kate Sanderson helps us to get re-acquainted with an old friend …

At-a-glance guidance on where factors go in a SWOT analysis

POSITIVE

INT

ERN

AL

EXT

ERN

AL

NEGATIVE

STRENGTHSGood things about how theorganisation is now / has been in the past, or things it currently / formerly has / had control over.

WEAKNESSESBad things about how theorganisation is now / has been in the past, or things it currently / formerly has / had no control over.

OPPORTUNITIESGood, uncontrollable, things about:• the environment as it is now• the environment as it might be• the organisation as it might be.

THREATSBad, uncontrollable things about:• the environment as it is now• the environment as it might be• the organisation as it might be.

20 > JAM 26

door’ in Strengths to really identifythe issues facing you.

Finally, don’t be afraid to play withSWOT a little to make it work for yourorganisation. For example, at WestYorkshire Playhouse, we used SWOTanalysis all the time in our marketingplanning but we re-packaged it slightlyto suit our needs. Nick Boaden,current head of marketing, explains:‘We have campaign planningmeetings, often with members of thecreative team for a production, wherewe’ll discuss at a very early stage howwe’re going to approach themarketing. It’s a great chance toinvolve everyone and make sure thatthey’ve had an input at a point whereit’s useful. We used to do a SWOT foreach show but found the SWOT labelsweren’t always very helpful for ourrelationships with directors anddesigners – it was a bit too business-speak and felt rather brutal to talkabout the ‘weaknesses’ of a production,often before they’d even started workon it. Fortunately, I went on an AMAcourse and came back with a newidea; for each show we create a list of‘10 reasons to go’ and then ‘10 reasonsnot to go’. These are basicallystrengths and weaknesses butsomehow the different labels make theexercise work better for us. We thenlook at Opportunities and Threats froman external perspective. Opportunitiestherefore becomes about partnerships;opportunities for us to work withexternal organisations to promote theproduction (the Council, communitygroups, etc.) while Threats is aboutanything that we can’t control whichmight impact on the success of ourmarketing (the football World Cup,school holidays, etc.).

‘We then take it a step further andgo through an exercise of counteringthe objections with the strengths ofthe production. It’s basically doingSWOT into TOWS (see below) butusing simpler language, and it’s verypractical. We do have to be carefulthat the director of a show isn’t toodepressed by the end of the list ofreasons not to attend, but we canmanage that. And at least theyunderstand what we’re up againstsometimes. Usually we have great funand end up with a really good sharedunderstanding of the production andthe marketing approach that we’llneed to take to sell it most effectively.’

Once you’ve finished your SWOTanalysis, you’ll be relieved to hear thatyour situational analysis is complete.You’re ready now to move onto thenext bit of building your marketingplan: thinking about strategies. Andthe good news is that SWOT leadsyou seamlessly through this process.By turning SWOT into TOWS, you canquickly start to see ways forward anddevelop clear and focused strategies.Thinking BIG! gives you much moreinformation about how to approachthis and how to take the next steps.Happy planning!

... for each show we

create a list of ‘10

reasons to go’ and then

‘10 reasons not to go’.

These are basically

strengths and

weaknesses but

somehow the different

labels make the exercise

work better for us.

Kate Sanderson,Arts Marketing and Managemente kate@katesanderson.com

JAM 26 > 21

> FEATURE

Thinking BIG! - a guide to strategic marketingplanning for arts organisationsStephen Cashman

(2003, Arts Marketing Association, £10, ISBN 1 903315 06 9)Commissioned by Arts Council England and published bythe Arts Marketing Association, this has a deliberately wide-ranging set of purposes. These are: • to enable readers to understand the basics of strategic

marketing planning; and • to generate the ability, understanding and interest to

create and implement a strategic marketing plan for theirown organisation.

To order your copy for £10 + £7.50 post and packing, e-mail chris@a-m-a.co.uk

Thinking BIG! worksheets to download fromwww.a-m-a.co.uk/publications.asp

Thinking BIG! is accompanied by a set of worksheets(download only) that can be applied to your organisationto help you form the core materials and elements of astrategic marketing plan and by completing them you canbuild such a plan for your organisation.

Download the following resources from the ADUK pages ofthe AMA website at www.a-m-a.co.uk

Chapter 2 - writing a research brief, taken fromCommissioning Market ResearchLiz Hill, ArtsProfessional(2000, Arts Marketing Association, £5, ISBN 1 903315 03 4)

Referred to in this issue’s first feature, Time for a springclean, on page 6, this offers advice on writing a researchbrief and can be used in conjunction with …

Research brief samplesCath Hume, Smart Audiences.

Based on real briefs from various organisations, theseexamples will give you an idea of how to construct aresearch brief.

To purchase a copy of Commissioning Market Research for£5 + post and packing, go to www.artsprofessional.co.uk/cont02.cfm?part=5, www.a-m-a.co.uk/publications.asp ore-mail chris@a-m-a.co.uk

Identifying the pearls - what data is important formy organisation? Why is all this visitorinformation so important?Beth Aplin, Henderson Aplin Partnership

This resource is designed to help you develop insight,knowledge and understanding of potential visitors and willhelp you to decide what you know already, what might bemissing and what you can do about it.

Stringing the pearls together - how do I actuallygo about doing this?Beth Aplin, Henderson Aplin Partnership

Picking up the baton from Identifying the pearls, this willguide you through planning a small in-house researchproject doing face-to-face questionnaires to existingvisitors.

Audience intelligence - a guide to deskresearching audiences and visitorsLeo Sharrock, amh

This guide offers an overview of some of the most useful,readily available secondary sources of information onaudiences. It will also explore how these sources might providemore information on your audiences to support your businessor marketing planning.

Learning more about your catchment area - a briefintroduction to area profile reportsEric Hildrew, Sheffield Galleries

For audience-focused cultural organisations, hunches basedon observation are insufficient grounds on which to baseimportant business planning or audience developmentdecisions. Accurate information is required about themarketplace you are operating in and this resource explains allyou need to know about area profile reports.

22 > JAM 26

> RESOURCES

A great little bookfor great smallorganisations

AMA members £10.00 + post and packing Non AMA members £15.00 + post and packing To order a copy e-mail chris@a-m-a.co.uk

Word and PDF versions are also available

Written by Caroline Griffin, Programme Director at Audiences

Central. This Way Up was produced in collaboration with Arts

Council England, with the support of Audiences Central.

This book, written by CarolineGriffin, de-mystifies theprocesses and explains eachstep in creating a marketingplan: ‘… arts marketers oftendon’t have the time for thisand This Way Up enables usto effectively do what we allknow is so important.’

Louisa Cox, the Merlin Theatre

JAM 26 > 23

CANTATE ADVERT –