Gene Carr's Patron Technology Blog

What Is Normal Anyway?

Yesterday I got my morning fix by way of Tom Cott. His daily e-mail highlighted Andrew Taylor's blog in which Andrew commented on post by Neill Archer Roan, which talks about whether the current economic crisis is not the "new normal" after all. The provocative thought here is that perhaps what happened between 1950 and 2000 was an aberration, and that we need to look back before that to see what the future may bring. Commenting about the arts, Andrew wrote:

....it's a good time to check ALL of our assumptions about what we do, how we do it, and what we define as success. And it also might be a good time to dust off our history books to see how arts and culture worked before 1952. There might be some useful ideas from the OLD normal that could be revived.

I think that's a good idea. Let's then look back even before the 50s to, say, 100 years ago. The arts we talk about in our field and the way we produce them here were in large part an import from Europe, where going to cultural events was as much a social experience as it was entertainment. Concerts in the 18th century routinely dragged on for three or four hours with multiple intermissions, which gave people a chance to congregate. Back then, there were no phones, no radio or TV -- the cultural events served a fundamental societal purpose of bringing people together. Indulge me here -- you could even call it a form of social networking.

And, yes, the strata of society that attended the arts were, like our audiences today, wealthy and educated. Not only enjoying the arts, but also mingling with their own is partly why generations of folks repeatedly subscribed and made it part of their lives -- they were patrons of the arts.

And, in addition to patronage, somewhere along the line, the state got involved in supporting the arts. There was an idea of civic responsibility which meant that the arts should provided by the government, in the same way as clean water, or the fire department. That's why there's an opera house in virtually every small city across all of Italy, and why a relatively unknown city like Dresden has one of the finest orchestras in the world.

Now fast forward to the U.S., where we imported the notion and the practices of European culture, including the concept of a "subscription."  We kept patronage in new clothing, but we largely left out the public-funded part.

So the struggle for money to fund the arts here begins at conception, and lasts forever. In flush times, and with less competition, the arts tend to do okay. Patrons (rich and less rich) pay, and governments do their small part. But compared to Europe (where government still routinely picks up 80% or more of the bill), we rely on patronage much more -- survival depends largely on the whims of patrons rather than more regular and predictable government funding. Ultimately the model we live with here is structurally unsound, forcing vast amounts of time and resources to be shifted from making art to amassing the money to pay for it, and soaking up vast amounts time of executive staff, and board members, and artists.

That's the way it is now, and I believe the way it will continue to be. I don't think there's any likelihood that our government will ever step in to support the arts in a meaningful way. Increases like we're seeing at the NEA (just this week) are important in the absolute, but even more important as a catalyst for private funding.

What this points to is that the relationships arts organizations develop with their patrons are the key ingredients to their success -- in whatever economic environment we live in. The traditional ladder of arts patronage, starting with attendance, and moving up towards philanthropy and board involvement still works. And creating a social networking experience is also part of the game, as it was before.  

Those organizations that are obsessively managing their patron database will have a significant advantage. Cultivating deeper and more meaningful relationships with patrons is still the fuel for success.

These days, thanks to the Internet, arts marketers now have a host of new and affordable tools to accomplish this better than ever. Database marketing techniques such as highly targeted and relevant e-mails, personalized fundraising appeals, timely and relevant follow-ups to the live experience, and even Facebook and Twitter posts -- these are the new ingredients for success. (For example, I learned last week at NAMPC that the Obama campaign's e-mail list had 300 targeted categories.)

My take is that the new normal will be the same as the old normal after a big diet, and the game arts managers must play will simply have to be played better. It's going to be all about efficiency: the careful, measured, analyzed, and targeted use of precious non-profit capital will be the thing that makes the most difference in the next 10 years.

On the Rhode (Island)

This weekend is the annual NAMP Conference, where hundreds arts marketers of all stripes will converge. This year we'll all be in Rhode Island, and I'll be moderating a session on e-mail marketing. I've invited two colleagues to present, Brad Louryk from Playwrights Horizons and Carol Fitzgerald from The Book Report Network, two of the smartest e-mail marketers I know.

I asked them both to prepare a presentation sharing specific case histories and learnings from their work, and having just reviewed their PowerPoints, I'll reveal an overall theme now: targeting & relevance is the key to their success.

Neither of these folks are blasting their patrons by clicking the "send to all" button. They are segmenting their lists, creating engaging and targeted content, and carefully sending messages that are timed and tuned to a particular audience. It's hard work, but their results are stunning.

If you're already signed up for NAMP, our session starts at 10:45 AM. If not, we'll be at the Westin Providence, and day-passes are still on sale. If you're there, please drop by our booth and say hello sometime during the weekend.

Open Rates - What Do They Really Tell You?

Open rates are the industry standard way to measure of how well an e-mail campaign did in attracting readers. (I happen to think they are actually a pretty crude measure, but I'll get to that in a minute.)

The good thing about open rates is that that they are monitored closely across the digital universe, and the graph above recently published by Epsilon is fascinating. For instance, the average open rate under "consumer publishing" of 15% is among the lowest here, which says a lot about the ability (or lack thereof) of traditional publishers to engage with readers online. 

The Epsilon report doesn't track arts industry e-mail open rates, but we do. We maintain an ongoing benchmark across all our 1,600+ clients, and the average open rate for the last six months is 20.1%. That's a lot better than the 17.5%  generic 'non-profit" benchmark.

That said, open rates only tell a tiny part of the story. A more significant measure is what percentage of your e-mail list opens your e-mails consistently, what percentage open sometimes, and how many don't open at all.  We've done some research into this and determined that approximately 2/3 of any list will open an e-mail at least once in a six month period. I've long been obsessed with this "cumulative average open rate" but it isn't a number that anyone else tracks.

The point of all this is that tracking your e-mail campaigns and targeting your e-mails based on the interest/engagement level of your recipients (behavioral targeting) is smart, and something that sophisticated e-mail marketers are doing, and you should be thinking about doing it too.  When you target your content based on interest level, you get better results - simple as that.

Better Late for Wait, Wait

Last week Patron Technology was in the news and owing to the fact that I was in LA for the ArtsReach Conference most of the week, I'm late in reporting this.

MY star assistant Shannon McGilly, was chosen to be a participant on the always amusing NPR news quiz show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" which aired last weekend.

Given the number of friends and clients that wrote me, I wanted to give a formal shout-out to Shannon for winning, and especially telling everyone on NPR that she works for Patron Technology! 

If you missed the show, you can click here to listen.

I've heard rumors in the office that Jeopardy is next...

Not Everyone Laments a World Without Print

I'm glad I'm not the only one that sees the demise of newspapers as something completely predictable and ultimately unstoppable. 

The fact that the venerable print publication, Newsweek, published an article this week about this topic surprised me, and I agree with most of it:

Don't Bail Out Newspapers--Let Them Die and Get Out of the Way

Indeed, in about 1996, when I was working closely with AOL, The New York Times began posting selected content on AOL. Getting The Times online was a benefit of being an AOL member.

I asked many people at the time what their long-term strategy for The Times would be, since it seemed clear to me that eventually all of its content would be online.

I think right answer would have been, "We'll eventually have to move to an all-digital environment, and we're going to be innovating like crazy to make sure we thrive in the digital age." But of course, that wasn't the answer I got.

I spend a lot my time thinking about the future, and how technology changes will impact what we're doing. Is your organization doing the same?

The Future of Broadcasting & Print (again)

It was in last week's post that I wrote about the "coming soon" sign at the new studio for WNET. That's why I was rather surprised to read the next day's headline in Crain's: At Channel 13, the financial signals are red.

As you'll see, the article is about all the problems at WNET. With regard to the new Lincoln Center Studio, this sentence pretty much summed it up for me:

"[The new chief executive of WNET, Neal Shapiro] also signed a deal with Lincoln Center for the street-level Broadway studio, paying $1 million a year for the 5,000-square-foot space."

Whoa. Seems to me, you can produce a whole lot of great online content for $1 million a year.

In a related note, this weekend I had lunch with a staffer at one of this country's leading print magazines. She matter-of-factly mentioned that the magazine is debating whether it will go all digital... in 2011 or 2012. Inside the company, it's not a debate about "if" it will go digital -- but only about "when."

The next wave of fundamental changes to media because of the Internet is happening all around us -- clear as day. And what surprises me is that when these changes arrive, so many managers are surprised and unprepared.

The mindset I'm living with is that television and newspapers (and magazines) are artifacts of another era. Sooner than we may think, we'll be living in world in which these media sources will have to reinvent themselves -- if they are to survive at all. That's something we all can prepare for now, seems to me. 

Is this the Future of Arts Broadcasting? I Don’t Think So.

A few months ago on my walk home I took this picture of a new PBS TV studio under construction as part of the renovation of the Juilliard School. It seems to borrow a page from some of the morning TV shows and sports broadcasts that have street-level studios dotted around the city.

Something bothered me about this, and it took until last month for it to really sink in. I was at a concert at Tanglewood, where the Boston Symphony has installed high definition TV screens in the back part of the 6,000 seat outdoor Shed where it performs. In the past, those seats were so far away that you could barely see the stage. Now, with these large and clear screens, the experience is entirely different. You hear the music live but can watch close-ups of the musicians as if you’re at home. The direction is terrific, and it’s done in a completely professional away. I thought it would be somehow a violation of some well-worn concert-going experience, but rather it was a completely new and enjoyable way to hear a concert.

But, I digress. The real point is that if the Boston Symphony has already invested in video cameras, directors, and staff to make these in-venue broadcasts possible, it’s not a stretch to imagine that they will eventually stream these live online. Let’s for a moment set aside all the obvious union issues that have to be surmounted. I think in time the BSO and others will recognize the same thing that major sports teams understand; that when you broadcast, you don’t cannibalize your audiences -- you entice them to come to see the live event. (That’s certainly what the live Met Opera radio broadcasts did for decades.)

But again, I digress. The overarching point is that the technology for any individual to broadcast a live video stream from his or her living room PC is about to be here. And if they can do it, that means that virtually every arts organization is a potential broadcaster. The BSO might just do it, and I'll bet any number of other orchestras with enlightened unions and leadership will too. And the Berlin Philharmonic is doing it right now.

It’s even easier in other genres: There's tons of non-union theater, and dance as well. And just imagine the potential for broadcasting student performances. My own alma mater, Oberlin Conservatory, tells me they are planning to broadcast every student recital and orchestra concert. And doesn't this sort of put high school musicals in a whole new light? If you think grandparents like getting pictures of their grandkids in e-mail, just imagine their delight in watching a live stream of Bye Bye Birdie from Baton Rouge High.

So, is that photo above the future of cultural broadcasting? I don’t think so. That flashy new studio still represents the old model, the narrow pipeline where PBS selects which events the masses get to see. The real future lies in the hands of individual arts organizations, who will find that creating their own broadcasts will be a new and powerful way to expand their audience and motivate folks to attend their live events.

Stay tuned!

Web-Audience Development Tipping Point?

With thanks yet again to "ArtsJournal" I caught an article this morning chock-full of new and creative ideas for building audiences using the Web. It's all about what's going on in Seattle, but the truth is folks are trying these kinds of new approaches all over the country, and I couldn't be happier about it.

First, here's the article, which is well worth a read.

And by the way, another article from the UK which talks about a Twitter opera libretto being performed at the staid Royal Opera House.

I think the most interesting thing to me is that the foundation world has finally woken up to the fact that throwing some money at creative folks (like you) makes a lot of interesting things happen very fast.

For years, I talked to funders about doing this, and they said "we're not ready to invest in that kind of newfangled technology." Now, it seems we're reaching a tipping point. I think it's becoming commonly accepted that the traditional audience development approaches can exist side-by-side with newer more creative ones.

The only downside I see is a lot of groups are going to spend their money inventing the wheel. Right now, it's a free-for-all and everyone is trying things imagining that they are first, when in fact others may have tried the same approach and learned something.

Would that there were a clearing-house for all of these new initiatives -- a master Web site, so that groups that try these new approaches can share their success and what they learned.

Hmm... maybe this is something we should do?

Twittering Concert Notes & More

Now here's something interesting -- I read in ArtsJournal this morning that the National Symphony is going to do a real-time Twitter stream of program notes during a symphony performance. Here's the article that includes the press release.

For years, many people have been discussing the idea of a handheld device in the concert hall which would do approximately the same thing. In fact, some years ago, Roland Valliere, the new Executive Director of the Columbus Symphony, brought a good deal of thinking and investment dollars and put together a PDA "concert companion," which enabled concert-goers to not only read program notes in real time, but also watch video of the conductor from other angles other than his/her back. It was the right idea, but too early and too expensive.

Now we're looking at something more practical, and just like the iPhone tour guide product I wrote about in my last post, this is simple to execute.

Sadly, the press release above says that this experiment will be done on the lawn of an outdoor concert and that Filene Center forbids electronic devices in the hall. Why did they have to add that to the press release? Why couldn't they just say, "If this works well, we may allow patrons to bring devices into the hall in the future? "

Anyway, imagine now not program notes from a concert, but opera subtitles? Isn't a Twitter-stream of the dialogue a better, more subtle approach than the imposing overhead titles many opera houses have now? And of course, doing it via Twitter opens up the opportunity for multiple streams with different content, depending on the interests of the recipient. I, for one, would love such a thing for the next ballet performance I go to, since I usually have no idea what's going on.

This is all fascinating to me, and basically free for any enterprising arts organization that wants to experiment. I look forward to hearing about more of this stuff. 

Arts, Tourism, and Technology Wow

I’ve been in Italy on holiday for the last week, and while looking at extraordinary history from the 13^th and 14^th centuries, I tried to keep my eye out for what will eventually be extraordinary history from the 21^st century. I didn’t find much until one day when wandering by a spanking new tour office with a sign for “iPhone tours.” This intrigued me. 

Turns out a week ago, this tourism company started renting iPhones preloaded with dozens of 3- to 10-minute video narratives of key historical sites, museums and the like. Using the phone's visual GPS, I could navigate easily to pretty much any spot in Florence, and the phone included organized itineraries so I could map out a logical order of seeing things.

What had been a somewhat cumbersome experience of finding my way on the map, opening the guide book, finding the page, and reading about what I was seeing, suddenly became entirely now. I was now listening to my own personal guide (in most cases with appropriately chosen music underscoring) and seeing on the video specifically what I should be looking for. It was particularly helpful inside churches where it’s not always clear where to find the chapels.

What was surprisingly helpful was watching the short videos as a way of selecting where to go – there’s never enough time to see everything, and often the descriptions in the guide books are nothing compared to watching a video preview.

 

What I experienced was version 1.0 of this new product. As the beaming salesperson (who I think may have been the owner of the company) explained, the phones are of course already Web-enabled (which let me check my e-mail and news for free, rather than paying for an internet café or over-priced hotel access), but soon you’ll be able to use it as a real phone for the day as well. So if you’re traveling with someone, now there's a really good way of keeping track of each other, particularly with the new apps that let you see where your friends are on a map. 

Just like the Web is no a replacement for printed book, but something rather different, this approach is far more than a electronic replacement for a guide book. I can only imagine how useful it will be when you can call up cultural events happening while you’re in a city, buy tickets that you can use with a bar-coded entrance rather than a ticket, and get discounts already arranged by the tour company.

It also suggests a time when rather than having the tours pre-loaded onto the phone, you could merely stream them directly from a Web site. That opens up tons of possibilities because you won’t then need to rent a particular device – anyone could access any tour from anywhere. And the tours could be developed by anyone – imagine a city-tour for foodies hosted by your favorite celebrity chef, or an art gallery tour given by a noted art historian.

This has the potential to completely revolutionize the travel experience. Those of you who are explorers and cringe at all of this technology removing the sense of discovery will hate this. But I found it to be a whole new way of experiencing travel – and I think it's going to reinvent what some refer to as cultural tourism.