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3.8.2005
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Volume Three
Issue Three
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Welcome to March's Arts Marketer of the Month. This month we feature the Chicago-based Joffrey Ballet and their Director of Marketing, Hope Wolman. Hope joined The Joffrey in 2003, coming from the world of corporate marketing and development. Read on to discover how the skills and techniques from her old environment are helping in a new (and very different) one....
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Featured Arts Marketer: Hope Wolman
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Hope Wolman, Director of Marketing at The Joffrey Ballet
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The Joffrey Ballet was founded in 1956 and while it had always toured in Chicago, it made the city its home in 1995.
The Ballet presents a unique repertoire, reconstructing "lost" works from the early 20th century, presenting full-length ballets, and commissioning new works. With an operating budget of $12 million, they run a 3-program subscription series as well as the yearly "Nutcracker" and other add-ons.
In her role as Director of Marketing, Hope Wolman is responsible for all earned revenue and all PR. This translates to increasing sales as well as increasing The Joffrey's mindshare of the Chicago arts patron which Hope aims to achieve through branding and innovative marketing solutions to the issues facing the Ballet.
As Hope puts it, "on a deeper level, [my job] encompasses everything we distribute that touches the subscriber, single ticket buyer or prospective audience member; subscription and single ticket campaigns; telemarketing; maintaining a unified marcomm strategy; press efforts; and an increasing online marketing effort."
Hope moved to The Joffrey in 2003 from a corporate career that included positions such as VP, Marketing and Strategic Alliances for dELiA*s; VP, Business Development for WeddingChannel.com; Director of New Product Development for Limited Brands; and Director of Strategic Development for the Home Shopping Network.
In the Q & A that follows, Hope discusses what she has learned from corporate marketing and describes how she is applying it to the non-profit arts world of The Joffrey Ballet.
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Q & A with Hope Wolman
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Dancers of The Joffrey Ballet
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Tell us about your professional marketing background, and how you eventually came to The Joffrey.
Basically, networking. I'm a networking fiend and it pays off. I met someone at a party who knew the company was seeking a marketing director. Coincidentally, I grew up taking ballet classes. But I also believe it's very important to "give back" and always wondered how I could leverage my skills in a non-profit environment. This was the perfect match. Moreover, through networking, I managed to get two fantastic season brochures created for us as well as secure some incredible promotional partnerships that greatly abetted our Nutcracker ticket sales.
What general challenges are you facing marketing at the Joffrey this year? How do you plan to address these challenges?
Our 2005-2006 season kicks off our 50th anniversary celebration. Beyond the challenge of promoting the company as a Chicago treasure, we're faced with growing subscriptions and single ticket sales. We're going to pursue direct mail heavily, because we can measure the return on investment. We're also looking at some creative partnerships that will help boost our sales.
E-marketing also allows close tracking and ROI measurement. Can you tell us how e-mail fits into your marketing plans?
Our objective for our outbound e-mails is to build our relationship more deeply with subscribers and other people who sign up to receive our e-news features and offers. To that end, we are working on developing an overall content plan that enriches the audience experience. All of our e-mails include a way to buy tickets. Beyond open rates and click-thru rates, "Forward to a Friend" metrics are very important to us. It's someone's endorsement of our product, and hopefully, it gets forwarded to a new purchaser. We limit the number of offers we send to people who are already users of our product.
We try to leverage e-mail blasts by third parties and banner buys on other sites to draw new audience members. Most of these include an offer. All of our single tickets are sold through Ticketmaster, so we partner with them on a consistent basis as well. It tends to be successful.
Since you've moved from a corporate marketing environment to a not-for-profit one, can you describe some of the biggest differences?
Luckily, I've spent time in both large corporations as well as start-up enterprises. The Joffrey most closely resembles a start-up where you are constantly resource constrained, especially with respect to headcount. At least in a corporate environment, the model is that eventually the investment in headcount, while immediately perhaps a deficit, will produce exponential growth; therefore, you have a higher tolerance in "investing" in the business. Because of the nature of the product (ballet), its much smaller target of customers, and the fiscal reality of non-profit arts organizations, that model doesn't apply.
What would you say is the most valuable lesson the arts world could learn from corporate marketing? And, conversely, is there something significant corporate marketers could learn from the arts community?
An arts organization has a great opportunity if it remembers two things: (1) that it (the small number of people in artistic and administration) is not enough of a customer-base to create a viable ongoing enterprise, and (2) to focus on getting new customers. Most corporate marketing focuses greatly on customer insights when developing products. At arts organizations, the product selection is driven by the artistic side of the enterprise, and it focuses on the artistic mission, often sacrificing what might draw a larger audience and create a wider patron base. Ticket buyers are the first step in the value chain as you move from ticket buyer to subscriber to donor. This is very important in sustaining an ongoing company. Ultimately, if you cannot demonstrate enough customer base, the individual donor base won't grow. Moreover, corporate funding looks at audience growth in making its decisions of where to allocate support.
Which corporate marketing techniques have you applied at the Joffrey?
Marketing now has input on what work we will present. Our 50th Anniversary Celebration programming is both true to our mission but also clearly highlights a commitment to bringing in more new audiences. Additionally, I have five main objectives I focus on:
1. Increase subscriber base
2. Increase single tickets sold
3. Build brand
4. Focus on e-marketing
5. Improve web site
If initiatives don't address any of these, they fall off the list. I'm also very focused on ROI. If we can't see return, we don't do it!
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Visit The Joffrey Ballet's Web Site
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Coming Next Week: Full-Day Online Marketing Seminar March 18 in New York
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Smart Web-Based Marketing for the Arts -- (limited space still available - 19 seats remaining)
This full-day session, led by Patron Technology's President Eugene Carr, is an investment in the future of your online marketing effort. The seminar is designed for those who would like to improve their e-mail and web marketing, whether or not they are currently doing it. If you're just getting started, you'll come away with a solid sense for what works and why. If you're currently actively using the Internet, these sessions will include "best practices" of the arts industry. It will not be a technical session, but will focus on the marketing and communications strategies that drive good results.
Who should attend?
It is designed for anyone who is in charge of building relationships with a group of patrons or customers -- in most organizations this being marketing director, head of communications or development director.
When: Next Friday -- New York City - March 18, from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM
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Click here for more information and to register
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Ready to Learn More about E-mail Marketing?
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Do you want to learn more about how to do professional e-mail marketing?
Are you still doing your e-marketing in-house? If you're using Outlook, your mail probably looks like the first image - not exactly the kind of professional image you'd like to project. In addition, you're probably having to handle opt-out requests and bounced e-mail in your inbox.
If you'd like to move up from your "in-house" method, we'd welcome the opportunity to explain more about how to do professional e-mail marketing, and to demonstrate PatronMail to you.
With PatronMail you can:
* Create and Send professional looking e-mails without knowing HTML
* Track & Compare your results with other arts organizations
* Build your list automatically on your web site
* Ensure your mail is not mistakenly blocked by ISPs as Spam.
* Manage undeliverables and "remove" requests automatically
We invite you to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation with us.
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Click here to request a 15-minute consultation & PatronMail demonstration
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If
you have interesting and creative initiatives that you would like to
have featured or know of an arts marketer that you would like to
recommend for one of our upcoming editions, please contact
info@patrontechnology.com.
Please watch for the next edition of our Arts Marketer of the Month, coming April 12, 2005.
Note:
The CAN-SPAM act mandates that all commercial e-mail contains a
physical mailing address, and ours is: 850 Seventh Avenue, Suite 801,
New York, NY 10019
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