At your arts organization, do ticket buyers and subscribers “belong” to marketing or development? The immediate goals of each department are different, but both need to speak directly with your audiences regularly. It then becomes important to ask - how directly do they speak with each other?
Without an integrated strategy that considers and involves both departments, marketing and development can miss their best opportunities to deepen audience relationships with the organization. Marketing and development should be empowered to work together as they use their unique styles and approaches to develop relationships — from first-time attendees to major donors.
To that end, we would like to share some thoughts from our friends Ana Díaz-Diez and Joanna Penalva at Syracuse Stage on close collaboration between these two revenue-focused departments. Listen out for the ways Ana and Joanna are working toward their organization’s overall loyalty and revenue needs:
1. Unified Communication: Joanna highlights the importance of presenting a cohesive brand to the audience. By ensuring that all communications—from mailings to emails—have the same look and feel (from the font to the color scheme), the organization presents itself as a single, unified entity rather than disjointed departments.
2. Coordinated Messaging Cadence: As Ana discusses, strategically timing communications to avoid overwhelming your audience is crucial. This involves coordinated planning between the two departments to determine the right time to send out subscription renewals and donation requests. Audiences, especially those who are highly invested, expect that an organization will consider the context of their relationship when communicating with them. By not bombarding patrons with too many messages at once, you enhance the effectiveness of each communication.
3. Integrated Database Management: Many arts organizations work in multiple systems. This practice, while providing the individual functionality that each department may need, can stunt collaborative efforts to grow patron relationships. Utilizing a shared database allows for better coordination between marketing and development. This integration ensures that both departments are informed and can strategize based on the same data, helping them to align their approaches more effectively.
4. Priority Setting in Engagement Efforts: Joanna highlights the importance of presenting a cohesive brand to the audience. By ensuring that all communications—from mailings to emails—have the same look and feel (from the font to the color scheme), the organization presents itself as a single, unified entity rather than disjointed departments.
5. Building and Leveraging Relationships: Both Ana and Joanna stress the need to build relationships with patrons through marketing efforts before asking for support. This sequence aids in converting ticket buyers and subscribers into donors, fostering a deeper connection with the organization.
6. Measuring Success and Adapting Strategies: The increase in the donor base by about 10% is a testament to the effectiveness of their collaborative strategies. This ongoing evaluation of results helps both departments refine their approaches and celebrate successes together.
Marketing and development may differ, but each has an important role to play in audience development. How much more could your marketing and development departments accomplish by working together?