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The New York Philharmonic is by far the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, and one of the oldest in the world. Founded in 1842 by a group of local musicians led by American-born Ureli Corelli Hill, the Orchestra currently plays some 180 concerts a year. On December 18, 2004, the Philharmonic gave its 14,000th concert — a milestone unmatched by any other orchestra in the world.

Today the Philharmonic is led by Music Director Lorin Maazal, who has been at the helm since September 2002. Recently, the organization announced that for the first time it had appointed an American-born conductor as its Music Director - Alan Gilbert will take over Maazel's role in 2009.

Since 1917 the Philharmonic has recorded nearly 2,000 albums; more than 500 recordings are currently available. In 2006 the Philharmonic became the first major orchestra to enter into an agreement to produce downloadable concerts on the DG Concerts label. The first recording in the series, released in April 2006, immediately reached number one on the iTunes classical charts and number thirty-six overall.

What's the scope of the organization in terms of budget and activities, and what kind of audience do you serve?

We have a $4.7MM marketing budget.

Our audience is, of course, made up of lovers of arts, culture, and classical music lovers. Subscribers come mainly from New York and the tri-state area, but our audience is made up of people from around the world, as the Philharmonic is an international brand (and in this Internet-age, we can really continue to expand our global reach in our branding approach).

Our typical audience member averages around 55 years of age and very well-educated.

Our e-marketing efforts aim to communicate with our regular audience described above, but also to extend our reach to new prospects with an interest in classical music and to younger audiences, who live more online than their older counterparts.


Can you give us a brief overview of your e-mail marketing activities?

We have just over 100K e-mail subscribers, with an average open rate of about 28% and and an average click-through rate of 2.7%. We send out e-mails about 2-3 times per week, but not everyone gets every e-mail. 

Our monthly newsletter, eNotes, lists the details of the month’s programs (this is not promoting a discount, but simply reminding people of the upcoming concerts they may want to consider, and selling more last-minute single tickets). We find that people really love these summaries because it’s a quick way for eSubscribers to see if there is a concert they want to go to without much effort in seeking out the info. We also provide the link directly to the page where they can read the event details and then buy a ticket to each featured concert. Those who tend to buy this way may have never even been to our homepage! [read more on this later this month in part two of the interview]

From January through May, we also have an extensive schedule of subscription announcements and subscription offers. These mailings are heavily segmented, reflecting our direct mail subscription brochure campaign/offers. For example, this year we had about 18 different segments, and including deadline remembers, we sent out a total of about 25 e-mails for the subscription campaign.

We also use e-marketing for offering last-minute discounts for those programs that may need bit more of a marketing push. These are exclusive discounts provided as a benefit to our eSubscribers.

Of course, eNewsletters are also sent out to announce big news items, such as announcing our new Music Director Alan Gilbert, or our new iTunes deals.

We also use e-mail as a customer service/audience-building tool: we send ticket holders their program notes in advance of their concerts, as well as any updates, changes, or other pertinent info about their upcoming concerts.


You've had some great success with soliciting ticket purchase via e-mail. Will you share one particular case study?

Absolutely. In August, we ran our one-week-only $59 ticket promotion. This Web-only offer was promoted through various online and offline media including print ads, radio, e-mail blasts (internal and third-party), Web, keyword search, and direct mail.

To our e-mail list, we handled the announcement a little differently. The sale ran from Sunday through Saturday, with print and radio advertising scheduled to run starting mid-week. So we e-mailed our eSubscribers about the sale on the Friday before, and told them that our advertising to the public would run starting Wednesday. This tactic provided the extra urgency to act for best seats. (It also was great for loyalty building.)

E-mailing is certainly just one component of the overall campaign as direct mail, advertising and other Web efforts all work synergistically to reach our target audience and provide the most optimal results.

However, integrating e-mail blasts into the campaign is pivotal. In this case, the e-mail got a 19.3% open rate and a 3.7% click rate, and more importantly, it generated a huge portion of ticket sales. Though the sales were the result of the combined media vehicles working together, the e-mail blasts were indeed the most preferred way of redeeming the offer, bringing in 39% of the total sales.

Overall, we sold 16,000 tickets and generated $875,000 in revenue from our sale –an increase of 14% from last year’s results.

Click here to see the $59 ticket e-mail campaign.



Don't forget to check out the September 25 edition of E-marketing Organization of the Month to read part two of our interview with Julii Oh.

Visit the New York Philharmonic's Web Site

Now you can read and subscribe to regular updates from Patron Technology's President, Eugene Carr. Gene's blog provides a snapshot of his perspective on what's going on in the e-marketing world now, and how it relates to arts marketing.

If you haven't been reading, here's a quick look at what you missed last week:

Text Messaging vs. E-mail Marketing: The popularity of text messaging among teenagers may prompt some marketers to wonder whether e-mail is a dying medium. Gene explains why he thinks it's texting that will become the thing of the past.

What Not To Do: Bad e-mail marketing choices from a major corporation.

Click here to read the blog, and submit your e-mail address in the upper left-hand corner to subscribe to e-mail updates.


 

Over the next few months, Patron Technology will be presenting a variety of seminars around the country. You'll see us at all the big arts marketing conferences, as well as stand-alone seminars in several cities. These seminars offer arts professionals introductory through advanced techniques on e-marketing.

Please review the schedule below, click the cities you're interested in, and make your plans now. We're looking forward to seeing you!

Patron Technology's Fall Seminars

September 25 -- Chicago, IL
October 1 -- Dover, DE
October 3 -- Little Rock, AK
October 3 -- St. Paul, MN
October 5 -- Duluth, MN
October 13 -- Torrington, CT
October 28-29 -- San Francisco, CA
October 31 -- Phoenix, AZ
November 3-4 -- Miami, FL
November 5 -- High Point, NC
November 8 -- New York, NY

Click here to see the complete listing and to register!