Arts Marketing 101: READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO SELL TICKETS!

From Business Secrets of the Pharaohs (Mark Corrigan’s corporate self-help book in Peep Show) to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the arts are full of tips on how to work your marketing muscles in service of success. And whether you’re a seasoned marketer or a first-time SPA (self-producing artist), finding out how to connect your show/company to its audience is going to be the difference between commercial fire emoji or financial flop energy.  

With decades of combined experience across the culture sector, we have worked alongside many producers, companies and venues through the complex and often labour-intensive process of getting bums on seats. From strategy to socials, copywriting to print distribution, we have the combined professional awareness to ensure a show gets the best chance at achieving its goals, and understand the many essentials and obstacles that play into running a successful campaign. Here are some of our top tips on getting ahead in the market.

Firstly, it helps to have a basic understanding of marketing theory. Learning the 5 P’s is an incredibly useful framework for establishing the key elements of your offering, around which all strategy can emerge. Sometimes when you’ve lived and breathed a project from its conception it can help to take a step back to think about it from a more objective point of view.  

Similarly, the marketing funnel is a really useful tool for understanding the audience’s user journey and how best to engage with them at each stage.  

Once you’ve these things under your belt (or spoken to an agency who can get them under theirs!) there are some other things to consider: 

• Know your audience. The more you can learn about them by evaluating their experience, getting feedback, meeting them, the better able you will be to engage them in future. You can’t always anticipate who will come to your show, so keeping tabs on this and updating your audience profiles (even if they are just in your head), is essential. Try and summarise the types of people in clear, short and creative ways, and focus on why they enjoy your experience. Tools like audience personas are a really helpful way to personalise who you’re looking to reach and is something we consider at the start of each new project.

• Speak to people’s emotions. Promoting arts and culture experiences is all about communicating what people will feel at a given experience. Copy and visuals should reflect that, and having content that stands out is essential in a highly visually and media-saturated landscape. Catch people's attention with something loud and arresting, or warm and soothing (depending on the nature of your show), and they will carry it with them until the moment you can convince them to invest. Dawn Farrow writes an interesting LinkedIn piece on this, and we have a whole blog post on working with designers.

• Learn your channels. The ‘Marketing Mix’ is incredibly broad, and can include things like social media (we recommend you follow Annie-Mai Hodge for weekly updates on the best socials practice), print ads in magazines and newspapers, press and influencer campaigns, other digital activity (e.g. online ads, newsletters), flyers and posters, outdoor ads and stunt marketing. The channels you use will be determined primarily by your product, audience and budget, and getting data on the effectiveness of different tools will help you know how better to invest your money in future. Here are some of our favourites: 

• Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram) and Google ads are usually the best use of a small budget as they can target highly specific audiences and be constantly monitored to adapt to what's working. Ones including tracking pixels are far more efficient at converting sales. 

• Community outreach i.e. posting in online groups or sending direct marketing emails to relevant communities is great to reach engaged demographics boost a more organic ‘word of mouth’ style of marketing. It’s a high ROI as is usually cost-free, but can be very time-consuming if researching/contacting groups from scratch and relies on a strong understanding of your audience using the tools above.  

• Targeted hand-to-hand flyering reaches engaged and relevant audiences and also people who are clearly out and spending money on cultural events. You can target relevant entries/exits for different shows, and it’s also a chance to get rich, qualitative, one-on-one feedback from your audiences which you and then build into your other channel’s targets. 

• Partnerships with relevant charities or local restaurants looking to reach their own followers and communities and cross-promote your project can be a really valuable way to share an authentic message. Things like post show panel discussions and offers can not only build your public profile but offer audiences that extra something that might push them into buying tickets. 

Having someone on your team whose job is primarily marketing is a great way to ensure business goals are taken seriously and that campaigns remain organised and effective, as artistic and/or other producing jobs can often get in the way. Arts marketers are some of the most passionate advocates of the arts the industry has, but their job is ultimately about creating good strategy, keeping things on track, and making sure the work reaches the right audiences in the most effective ways. A lot of what we do requires skill and expertise but there are also some elements that are more about taking time consuming tasks of our clients' plate. 

If you aren’t sure how this works in practice or would like to know more, we are always open to chat as this is what we do all day! For more information on how we can help plan and run your marketing campaigns as well as the other services we offer, get in touch and let’s set up a chat.