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COOL's Web site: www.CultureIsCool.org
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Tell us about Lowell. What's the demographic of the population?
Lowell
is the fourth largest city in Massachusetts, with 106,000 people, and
has many first and second generation immigrants from Brazil, Cambodia,
Mexico, Greece, Italy, Poland, Cameroon, Puerto Rico, the Dominican
Republic, and many other locations.
There is a burgeoning community of artists and young professionals in
the downtown area. With two universities in town, and many restaurants,
shops and cultural venues, Lowell is fast becoming a hub for arts and
culture in New England.
COOL
is a kind of umbrella organization for all things cultural in Lowell.
Tell us how the organization operates and what its main activities and
initiatives are.
COOL
is an arts advocacy organization. Through funding from the city of
Lowell and a major grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (which
we received just last year), we provide a variety of programming and
initiatives - leveraging support for local artists and coordinating
marketing strategies for the wide range of cultural and arts
organizations here in Lowell.
For example, at the annual Lowell Folk Festival, COOL coordinates
information booths for many of the city's major arts organizations.
Over 50,000 people visit Lowell for the festival and our booths provide
visitors (both tourists and local residents) with information about
local cultural destinations and upcoming events.
We've
initiated a city-wide marketing program for Lowell's six museums to
boost attendance, and have also worked closely with these museums to
coordinate Winterfest, a
2-day celebration with interactive programming for kids. As part of the
celebrations, we arrange gallery space in a local arts center for
artists to showcase (and sell) their work to the thousands of visitors
that come to Lowell for the festival.
In 2005, COOL launched Destination World, a Thursday night film and culture series in downtown Lowell. We also work with regional artists to coordinate and promote Lowell Open Studios,
an annual weekend event where over 70 local artists open their studios
to the public. Last year, thanks to a strong collaboration among
artists and COOL staff, more than $15,000 of art work was sold in a
single weekend.
Who is your public? As a service organization, do you connect more with arts patrons or arts organizations?
Our
main public is the community of greater Lowell - people interested in
the arts and cultural events. Because our mandate is to both coordinate
and promote cultural activity in and around Lowell, reaching patrons
directly is a large part of what we do.
That said, we also work directly with the broader arts community
(museums, festivals, artists etc.) to present events and initiatives.
So, connecting with administrators and organizers is also important.
However, even in this capacity, our end objective is to reach the
patrons!
And
how do you reach your public? Does the fact that patrons may not
associate you directly with an event or organization create particular
challenges?
Our
main avenues for communicating directly with our public is through
print advertising and e-newsletters. We also run a very comprehensive
Web site (www.CultureIsCool.org) which includes a cultural calendar of events, as well as links
to specific programming sites.
The Web site helps to create a central focus for the public, providing
an identity (almost and organization unto itself) which they can relate
to.
You have only recently begun using e-mail as a significant part of your
communication strategy. How has this helped you in furthering the
mission of COOL?
Although
e-mail has been very effective and useful for us to communicate with
our board and smaller networks of artists and museums here in the city,
it is, first and foremost, a marketing tool!
We send regular monthly e-newsletters to our entire list of about 1,000
(it's small but
growing!), updating readers about what's happening in the Lowell arts
scene. We get a fantastic response rate - for example, our November
newsletter had a 47% open rate and a click-thru rate of 2%. About twice
a month we also send updates about particular events
to those who have requested the extra info (about 1/2 our list).
Most of the people on our list find out about it via the
website, word of mouth, and through the events we host. Our plan is to
keep growing our list, since it is such an effective way to bring
together those who love art and those who create it!
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