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Volume Two
Issue Nine
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Welcome to our September Issue. After this issue, these will be coming to you now on Tuesdays (instead of Wednesdays), each month from now on. This month features Rosie Vergilio, Director of Programming and Marketing for The Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia as our Arts Marketer of the Month. Read on to find out how the Mann Center (and Rosie) handle marketing and promoting a perfomance venue with programming that lasts less that half the year.
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Featured Arts Marketer: Rosie Vergilio
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Rosie Vergilio,
Director of Programming and Marketing
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Rosie Vergilio is The Mann Center for the Performing Arts' Director of Programming and Marketing. Responsible for booking events and developing and executing all in-house marketing and promotion with the Center's marketing coordinator, Rosie is kept on her toes - always focused on both sides of the organization - those performing and those attending!
In the Q & A that follows, Rosie discusses the marketing challenges facing Philadelphia's premiere outdoor summer venue and what the Mann Center is doing to make things work.
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Q & A with Rosie Vergilio
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THE MANN CENTER IS AN INTERESTING ORGANIZATION. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT ITS PROGRAMMING STRUCTURE AND SCHEDULE?
We are an outdoor amphitheatre, with a season that runs from June to September, offering diverse programming that reflects the population of the greater Philadelphia region. The Mann offers something for everyone -- pops, classical, contemporary, jazz, cultural arts, as well as Broadway, and we have the distinction of serving as the summer home of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and as the regional summer presenter of The Boston Pops and Keith Lockhart. In addition, we present a five-concert free Young People's Concert Series that is attended by 25,000 children -- this is a unique program that presents regional young people's performance groups and provides our young audience the opportunity to be inspired by the artistic contributions of other young people.
WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU FACE RUNNING PROGRAMS FOR ONLY A FEW MONTHS EACH YEAR?
Our greatest challenge is keeping our venue in the forefront during a very limited time frame and on a limited budget -- patrons don't really focus on summer entertainment until after Memorial Day weekend, and then we have a concentrated four month window in which to promote both our venue and our individual events. Weather also has an influence on our season -- we have undercover seating for 4,700 and outdoor seating for 8,000 -- although we can't change the weather, it does affect our ticket sales.
HOW DO YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS FIT IN WITH THE SCHEDULE? WHAT KIND OF MARKETING (IF ANY) DO YOU DO IN THE OFF-SEASON?
We do a combination of direct mail, print, electronic, and street marketing, and this season we have introduced internet promotions with media outlets and corporate HR departments. Our marketing is tailored to the type of show we promote -- cultural arts audiences have responded to direct mail and print and contemporary and pops audiences respond to electronic marketing.
In the off-season, we really have no marketing budget to speak of, so we tend towards maintainence --just keeping our name out in the public domain in vehicles that are free or very low cost for us. The only actual direct mail is "Starlight," our newsletter with content that is more education/outreach and development oriented. The newsletter is a combination PR piece on the highlights and successes of the season with heavy emphasis on joining the eclub, becoming a donor, and opportunities for patrons to interact and become more involved with our various fundraisers along with a teaser about our upcoming season. We also highlight a favorite patron experience in our "Sounding Board" column, as we provide a prize package for the experience we select to include in our newsletter. Our newsletter is a great vehicle for telling our story the way we would like it to be presented to the public without the need to rely on other press vehicles that we cannot control.
The marketing shift in the off-season is heavy towards group sales cultivation: We promote our group experience in the tour market and through corporate and local chamber of commerce groups, and we maintain our ads that reach out to these group markets. As we do not announce our season until March or April, we have a very short selling window for the group market so our strategy is to get these folks aware of us and excited about the moment at which we can announce our season and begin to take group orders. For tour companies that are involved with us, the off-season is an important maintenance period where we can continue to stay in touch and get them primed and ready to buy our new season.
WHAT CHANGES HAVE YOU SEEN IN THE USE AND EFFECT OF E-MAIL IN YOUR OVERALL MARKETING MIX OVER THE PAST 2 YEARS?
We have tried to increase our e-marketing over the past two years as more people are online and we have increased internet sales every season: Not surprising, internet sales comprise 60-80% of our contemporary concert revenue with the shows with younger demographics coming in closer to 80%: Our pops internet ticket sales are about 27% and approximately 20% of our cultural arts and classical concert revenue is from internet ticket sales. When we started our eclub, we included program inserts with sign-up sheets -- surprisingly, most folks wanted us to input their info. They were not proactive in signing themselves up online. We also devote significant space in our newsletter to encourage patrons to join the eclub.
For the first time this year, we worked on print eclub promotional ads and internet banners on media and entertainment sites with ticket giveaways and other packages to encourage folks to sign-up and thereby, enter to win an evening at The Mann. This has been the first year that we have earmarked monies for e-marketing and we have seen some nice bumps to our eclub membership. Prior to the announcement of our season, we purchased banner ads on our local newspaper home and entertainment pages. This banner contained a link to our eclub sign-up page and any new members were entered to win tickets and dinner at the venue with the sense of urgency being that folks could sign up, join the club, and be the first to know about our season and to purchase tickets before the general public. Throughout the season, we ran internet promotions with television and radio stations so new emembers could enter to win tickets to shows that were relevant to each radio station. Our promotion appeared on either the station home pages or on their "special contest" pages.
As most corporations communicate with employees through their own email system, we did similar eblasts announcing a special discount and an opportunity to join our eclub and enter to win tickets -- this was good venue exposure and focused attention on our summer offerings. Several companies routinely send bi-weekly announcements and updates about our season and on-site dining options. In addition, we ran several ads inviting folks to join our emember elite -- these were calls for winners of three evening packages of the winner's choice. Every season, we try to expand upon our efforts of the previous season and we will do so again next year. We are off to a good start - we started with 2398 in 2001 and now have 42,600. We will be adding approx. 5000 more at the end of this season for an approx. current total of 47,000.
YOU HAVE JUST WRAPPED UP ANOTHER SEASON. HOW DID IT GO?
This has been a season of late ticket buying and we have stacked our marketing plans to reflect this. Our sales are slightly off projection which I don't think is uncommon this season but we have had many successes -- the sum of all of our shows is greater than each show as a stand alone. As a summer venue in a highly mobile market with heavy vacations and jaunts to the nearby shore, I think radio marketing is key and internet marketing will continue to grow as it is direct, inexpensive and patrons of all ages find themselves online and loving it.
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Visit the Mann Center's Web Site
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Thinking about E-mail Marketing for Next Season? Request a PatronMail Demo
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If you're planning next season's marketing now, we'd welcome the chance to show you how effectively e-mail marketing could improve your results.
Today, over 200 arts organizations use PatronMail --and if you'll give us 15 minutes, we'll allow you to "test-drive" a PatronMail account to see how it works.
During the demonstration, we'll talk about how to comply with the new anti-spam law, and show you how PatronMail helps you stay in compliance.
We're happy to schedule a demonstration at your convenience -- let us know by clicking below.
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Click here to request a demonstration
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2004 National Arts Marketing Conference to be held at Hilton Chicago, October 2-5!
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Only a few days remain to secure your hotel reservation at the special conference rate of $155!
Reserve your hotel room by September 10 by calling 800 Hiltons! Be sure and mention the Conference!
Don't miss out on these 3 1/2 days of sessions, roundtables and, new this year, honors! Come see Danny Newman, author of "Subscribe Now!", receive an Award for Lifetime Achievement in Arts Marketing at the National Arts Marketing Conference.
For more information about this and other Conference agenda items, visit the web site (by clicking below). New to the web site this week, click the Who's Coming link to see which of your colleagues have already registered.
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Visit ArtsMarketingConference.org
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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 October 12, 2004.
Note: The CAN-SPAM act mandates that all commercial e-mail contains a physical mailing address, and ours is: 850 Seventh Avenue, Suite 704, New York, NY 10019
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