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0 9 . 2 6 . 2 0 0 6
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volume four ~ issue ten
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Welcome to our *second* E-Marketer of the Month for September - a small schedule change to bring you our interview with Brian Whitehead and Liz Hill, Co-Editors for the UK-based arts management journal, ArtsProfessional. Next month we'll present two Client Features returning to our regular schedule in November.
We think you'll find their comments about the near-term changes facing Web publishers particularly relevant. We agree with their premise that the exploitation of the Web is no longer merely about having a great site that posts your information, it's more about developing an interactive relationship with your online audience.
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Featured E-Marketers: Brian Whitehead & Liz Hill
Co-Editors, ArtsProfessional
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Brian Whitehead and Liz Hill
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ArtsProfessional, the UK's leading arts management journal, was launched in May 2001 by husband and wife team, Liz Hill and Brian Whitehead. As the journal's co-editors, both have strong marketing and management experience within the arts. Liz is a former academic at Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge where she set up and ran one of the country's leading postgraduate degree courses in arts administration. Brian was marketing director for one of the UK's regional theatres for a decade before setting up a publishing and consultancy business with Liz.
Now in its sixth year, ArtsProfessional has an integrated web strategy that includes a content-managed Web site and a regular e-mail bulletin. As Liz and Brian discuss in the Q and A that follows, all three media (print, web and e-mail) tie in very neatly with one another to offer a full service for arts professionals in the UK and beyond.
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Q & A with Brian Whitehead & Liz Hil
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Tell us about ArtsProfessional - the audience you serve and your editorial focus.
We have a subscriber base of just over 7,000 readers within the UK and a small but growing community across the world. We are constantly surprised by the diversity of readers who happen upon our title and become avid readers. ArtsProfessional maintains this diversity by ensuring that there is always something of interest to every reader within each issue. The editorial ranges from practical hands-on skills and advice-sharing to far more aesthetic subjects, and the content is varied so that everyone from recent graduates or 'first jobbers' to senior managers, university lecturers or government policy-makers can find articles to interest them.
Ensuring that ArtsProfessional remains relevant to all of those market segments is a source of regular debate. All members of our team are involved in the editorial direction, and we carry out regular online reader surveys (research and data analysis being something of a hobby to saddos like us!). Our research often surprises us - one of the most popular sections of ArtsProfessional is the 'Changing Faces' column - basically a 'who's gone where' column (how we'd love to write gossipy notes about why people leave their jobs, but we can't afford the legal bills!). We also know that with over 7,000 copies mailed each fortnight, the readership is around 21,000, since most readers pass their copies around their colleagues.
As a journal, you write about online marketing - but how have you incorporated online technologies into your own business? How are you making use of the web and e-mail within the print magazine model?
We have invested in online technologies but recognize that, despite being ahead of the game in some ways, we are still barely scratching the surface in terms of future potential. Our current Web site was is content-managed with a fully-searchable archive of every word we have ever published - in print or e-mail. It has an area available exclusively to paid subscribers via password access, where they can search articles by keywords and download full back issues as PDF files. A range of other services is available to non-subscribers and casual visitors including limited editorial content and access to job recruitment advertising.
Aside from the fortnightly printed journal, we also publish an e-mail bulletin, APe-mail, which is distributed free-of-charge to around 9,500 self-registered recipients. This serves a multitude of purposes for our business: the bulletin carries a listing of every recruitment vacancy presently advertised within the Web site; it promotes the forthcoming issue of the printed journal, with details of upcoming writers and features; and it carries a digest of arts and culture stories that have appeared in the national broadsheet press during the previous fortnight. (APe-mail also carries a full listing of arts-related obituaries appearing in the broadsheets during the same period - and it's the first section read by many!)
Can you give us an example of where the integration of print and web technologies have been advantageous for the journal?
The combination of print, web and e-mail ensures that we are able to provide the very best job recruitment advertising for arts and cultural organizations - something which continues to generate around 70-80% of our total income.
Recruiting organizations are able to post their vacancy on our site within minutes of contacting us. With follow-up e-mails through the APe-mail bulletin and the addition of the printed magazine, the advertisement will be seen by both avid job-hunters as well as casual readers who might be tempted to apply, even if not actively searching (we did hear that one theatre manager was so keen that her staff read the management articles but were not tempted by better salaries elsewhere, that she cut the recruitment advertisements out of the magazine before passing it on to her staff!).
As a professional journal you play a role in educating your readers as well as analyzing and even critiquing the field. What is your take on the general acceptance of online marketing in the arts sector in the UK? Are arts professionals catching on as quickly and fully as you think they should? If you could give them all some advice, what would it be?
There are many good examples of online marketing within the sector, but often the nub of a good idea is destroyed through poor implementation. Thus for tools such as e-mail, bad segmentation or lousy database management result not simply in failure to achieve sales, but more likely active hostility from the intended recipient of the marketing message. This might take the form of the passive 'blocked sender's list' or the more proactive complaint via the UK's Information Commissioner who has the power to do all sorts of unpleasant things to abusers of personal data.
We usually invite our writers to give advice - it keeps our heads (as editors) out of the firing line! However, if there's one word of advice from us, it is to let the purpose of the message dictate the choice of technological solution not the other way around. Showing technology off for its own sake has no place in successful sales and marketing campaigns - unless you happen to be selling technology itself!
In thinking ahead about your own business plans, how will you exploit the online medium for ArtsProfessional in the coming months and years?
We are at a crossroads in the development of ArtsProfessional. We recognize that whilst the printed magazine continues to tick most of the boxes we have set for it in terms of content and appearance, we are under-exploiting online technologies. It is no longer about how pretty our Web site is or whether we use some fancy Flash graphics, but it's about the very tools themselves and how they can best be used to exchange information with our readers and users.
Despite the power of the multinational media conglomerates, there is an increasing democratization of media in general. Opportunities for the public to participate and interact with their chosen media are increasing, whether through online polling, blogs, podcasts and video, or digital photos and mobile phone video exclusives of breaking news, even 'citizen' or 'witness' journalism through which contributors provide first hand commentaries on stories.
The impacts of this constantly-changing environment are filtering down - even to the relatively uninteresting activities of a small business-to-business publication. We now have a technological challenge for the next couple of years. We know the road we need to travel along, and as this is published, we are actively talking with a range of people to decide who's going to drive us there!
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Register Today: E-Marketing Seminars with Gene Carr Oct 18-26
Washington DC, New York, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh & Los Angeles
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Come to these live seminars and confidently take your E-marketing to the next level!
For Beginners
E-Mail Marketing: The Very Basics
Top ten tips for effective e-marketing. Learn what works and why--with the facts and statistics to back it up!
For Experienced E-Marketers
Advanced Techniques
Case studies and advanced techniques for improving your e-mail marketing and your Web site.
Click on your city for more details or to register!
(Please note that seminars may differ slightly by city.)
Wednesday, October 18: Washington DC
Presented in conjunction with the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington
Monday, October 23: New York
Tuesday, October 24: Milwaukee
Presented in conjunction with the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee
Wednesday, October 25: Pittsburgh
Presented in conjunction with the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council
Thursday, October 26: Los Angeles
Presented in conjunction with the LA Stage Alliance
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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.
Watch for the next edition of our E-Marketer of the Month
coming November 14, 2006.
Patron Technology
850 Seventh Avenue, Suite 801 | New York, NY 10019 | 212-271-4328
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