Staying ahead of audience engagement and fundraising is a continuous challenge at arts organizations. As a sector, we are much better at getting new audiences in the door than we are at keeping them engaged (talking about you 85% attrition rate), but acquisition is the expensive route. Do you also have strategies to grow and retain the audiences who have already sought you out, bought a ticket, or donated? To help our clients “love the ones they’re with”, TRG Arts deploys two pivotal tools: the Patron Loyalty Index (PLI) and Programmatic Analysis (PA). These tools are not just about data analysis; they are organizational transformers that are delivered together to recalibrate how departments work together, understand their audiences, and measure their own programming effectiveness.
Brad Carlin, a senior consultant at TRG Arts who frequently coaches clients using both of these tools, highlights how effective both products are at breaking down silos within organizational departments: “These two products (PA and PLI) drive coordinated strategies for campaigns in all my client’s venues. What makes these products unique is our coaching and planning alongside the analysis; it gets teams within arts organizations rowing in the same direction, speaking with a shared vocabulary, and looking at their roles in new and collaborative ways.”
The Patron Loyalty Index redefines how sales, marketing, and development teams work together. We have seen it engage boards in fundraising and accelerate focus and resourcing on customer-facing staff and experiences. The PLI will be a centrepin that can orient your staff around strategic segmentation decisions by scoring your database so you can learn which sub-segments are ready to commit deeper. Using these scores, your TRG consultant will help you create specific tailored asks for each segment.
Here are some examples of how it works:
Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) received their Patron Loyalty Index in 2020 just before COVID-19 shuttered live events. The PLI and the intended collaboration between TSO’s marketing and development enabled active support of sustained patronage through the closure and into their recovery.
TSO communicated with key segments identified in their PLI to ensure they received the entirety of the content the orchestra was generating.
TSO stewarded the segment of ticket buyers who donated their ticket purchases instead of claiming refunds for cancelled events. Classifying them as donors, they were able to renew their gifts the following year.
A segment who had left their subscription dollars on account or donated them were invited to attend regular Zoom events for donors.
TSO actively cultivated their audience segment who had participated in digital programming - both paid and free – sending them special invitation messaging to purchase tickets or give gifts after reopening.
The Patron Loyalty Index enabled TSO to segment strategically, treat annual fund donors as key stakeholders, communicate regularly with specific segments, and cultivate their digital audience. As a result, TSO is on track in 2024 to achieve their fourth consecutive year of exceeding pre-pandemic revenues in their annual fund. Their average retention at their “Friends” donor level (under $2,500) has held at 60% over the last three complete seasons, up from 48% prior to having these insights from their PLI.
Marlowe Theatre, in Canterbury England, returned to TRG, after a 2 year pause in their Full Suite relationship through the worst of COVID, to re-establish their strategic focus on building repeatable revenues and customer loyalty. Through a back-to-basics focus, a PLI and PA Planning Sprint, and 6 months of add-on consulting, TRG and the Marlowe team built plans and established priorities for the marketing, front-of-house, and development teams to implement. The entire Marlowe team embraced the work and implemented campaigns that have generated results the Director of Audiences at Marlowe Theatre called ‘eye-catching’.
Marlowe’s memberships increased 18% in the year following delivery of their PLI and PA Sprint, making the program the largest it has ever been. The resulting incremental revenue growth was over £45,000 ($56,000) in the most recent year. Ticket revenues around just the season on-sales have surged at the Marlowe as well, growing 35% between 2023 and 2024, equating to £70,000 ($90,000) additional revenue. Over time, with regular iterating and adapting guided by TRG strategies and tools like the PLI & Programmatic Analysis, the team at the Marlowe is seeing behaviors change in their audiences.
“Our audiences are now really understanding the messaging around booking early, multi-buying and membership.” – Ben Travis Director of Audiences, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury England
The PLI is a tool that helps our clients get fast and enduring results, even in a challenging pandemic or when the sector is having a tough year in fundraising. The TRG consultant who would partner with your organization would consider your unique needs and opportunities, and help you evaluate what resources can be mantled against them to define exactly the right path for you.
These insights can be even more impactful when combined with another tool:
Programmatic Analysis is the add-on tool that brings your programming team to the table in advancing audience engagement and loyalty growth. It will literally change the way you’re marketing and programming teams speak to each other – by creating a shared vocabulary rooted in the role that programming decisions should play in fueling RFMG (recency, frequency, monetary investment, and growth) at your organization. Programmatic Analysis will drive coordinated strategies for all of your campaigns by analyzing and arranging your offerings to bring more focus on building long-term sustainable revenues in a holistic way.
In sum, TRG’s Patron Loyalty Index and Programmatic Analysis are more than just tools—they are catalysts for organizational transformation. By breaking down silos and fostering a culture of collaboration and strategic alignment, these solutions empower arts and cultural organizations to build more sustainable, audience-centric futures. The reports you will receive are designed to help your entire organization understand where you are driving the acquisition of new people and where you get the best return on investment, but we don’t leave you to implement these new strategies alone. The TRG consultant working alongside you and your data can then use these insights in the context of your unique needs and opportunities to build the right custom plans to achieve your goals.