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1.25.2005
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Volume Three
Issue One
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Client Feature: The Drawing Center
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Rebecca Herman,
Public Relations &
Marketing Officer
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PatronMail Client Since: July 2004
Starting e-list size: 2,300
Current e-list size: 4,500
Marketing budget: About $45,000
Percentage of marketing budget spent on e-marketing: 6%
Total budget: $1.7 million
The Drawing Center is the only not-for-profit institution in the U.S. to focus solely on the exhibition of both historical and contemporary drawings. For 28 years, the Center has presented exhibitions, publications, public programs, and services for artists with the aim of increasing general and scholarly interest in drawings.
In May 2000, after receiving a MFA in Sculpture from Parsons School of Design and working for three years for the fundraising consulting firm Jeanne Sigler & Associates, Rebecca Herman joined the staff of The Drawing Center. She began as Grants Officer, switching to Public Relations & Marketing Officer in June 2004. Like several of her co-workers at The Drawing Center, Rebecca is an artist and enjoys being part of an organization that promotes innovative work in the visual arts, including the work of emerging artists.
In her current position, Rebecca develops all of The Drawing Center's marketing and public relations materials and works with the Assistant Director and Executive Director to set marketing and PR goals for the institution. In the Q & A that follows, she describes how e-mail has become such an important focus in marketing the Center, particularly as they prepare to move into the new cultural complex at the World Trade Center site.
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Q & A with Rebecca Herman,
Public Relations & Marketing Officer
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Current gallery space, The Drawing Center
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TELL US ABOUT THE DRAWING CENTER.
The Drawing Center has an international reputation for organizing beautiful and thought-provoking exhibitions of drawings seen nowhere else. One of our marketing goals is to build awareness of the full scope of our programs, including publications, education, and programs for emerging artists. We also want to encourage cross-over among audiences for emerging, contemporary, and historical artists. E-newsletters are a great way to communicate the variety of The Drawing Center's programs and activities on a very modest marketing budget.
THE DRAWING CENTER DOES NOT SELL TICKETS, BUT RATHER HAS A SUGGESTED ADMISSION. HOW DOES THIS EFFECT YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY? HOW DOES E-MAIL FIT IN?
The Drawing Center uses e-marketing to generate earned income by promoting exhibition catalogs, special events, membership and limited editions artworks for sale. E-mail allows us to get the word out immediately and cut expenses on printed materials. First and foremost, however, we use e-marketing to generate interest in our programming. Then we tie the exhibitions and programs to our publications, limited editions, and membership opportunities. For instance, when we do stories on our exhibitions, we will also feature publications and limited editions by the artist. A recent newsletter connected our services to artists to special membership rates for artists. E-mail marketing also helps us build lasting connections to visitors, which, in turn, encourages more membership contributions.
Our e-mail list was gathered largely through sign-up by visitors to our exhibitions. The Drawing Center is fortunate to have enthusiastic audiences that visit our exhibitions regularly and want to receive announcements on upcoming events. We have an average open rate of 46% and a click-thru rate of 9%.
E-mail marketing has been one step in a larger process of reviewing, updating, and improving all of our PR and marketing activities. Since we have initiated e-mail marketing campaigns in September 2004, we have also been updating press and mailing lists, re-vamping our printed materials, creating a new institutional brochure, and planning an expansion of the website. Our e-mail marketing will be especially important to fulfilling our goal of significantly reducing our mailing list for printed invitations.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR E-MAIL CAMPAIGNS? WHAT GUIDELINES HAVE YOU SET OUT FOR THE CONTENT / STYLE / FREQUENCY OF YOUR E-COMMUNICATIONS?
We tend to send out two major campaigns a month, often alternating focused "e-postcard" style promotions with monthly e-newsletters. E-newsletters have featured upcoming exhibitions, core programs, new and sale publications, touring dates for The Drawing Center's traveling exhibitions, and general news about the institution.
The Drawing Center has always had an elegant, understated look in our printed materials, and we have carried this visual identity over to the website and e-marketing. Clean design and colorful images have been central to our email campaigns, and we use graphically striking artwork from our exhibitions. We also developed headers that identify the type of campaign-e-newsletter, special event, or press release.
Shortly after we started, we realized that we had a lot more information to share than we thought! I also discovered how essential it is to plan the updates to the web site in conjunction with the delivery of the email campaigns, so that recipients can click on the e-mail and see that the most recent information is on the web site.
AND HOW IS THIS WORKING? CAN YOU GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OF A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN?
We have been extremely pleased with the results of our e-mail campaigns. One very successful campaign promoted our first-ever art auction, which drove visitors directly from the auction e-mail to our website preview of the artworks that were available for bidding. Another notable e-mail campaign focused on a new limited edition artist's book by Richard Tuttle. Patrons responded immediately to this e-mail and the books sold much faster than we anticipated. We got 151 clicks to the description of the book and estimate that the e-mail resulted in about $5,000 worth of sales.
The Drawing Center's most popular e-newsletter so far was a special edition focusing on our programs for emerging artists. Although the articles in the newsletter featured ongoing services we provide, rather than date-specific events, this newsletter drove the largest audience yet from e-mail to our website. These results will encourage us to profile more ongoing programs, such as our growing education programs. Since the large majority of our press coverage focuses on specific exhibitions, e-mail is a great opportunity to draw a bigger picture of what we do and how all The Drawing Center's programs relate to one another.
YOU ARE GEARING UP FOR A BIG MOVE. TELL US ABOUT YOUR RE-LOCATION AND THE ROLE E-MAIL IS PLAYING AS YOU PREPARE TO JOIN THE NEW CULTURAL COMPLEX.
This is an extremely exciting time for The Drawing Center. In June 2004, The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced that The Drawing Center was one of four cultural institutions selected for a new cultural complex at the World Trade Center site. The Drawing Center is very honored to be selected as part of a fantastic mix of cultural institutions for this site, which will include the Joyce International Dance Center, the Signature Theatre, and the Freedom Center.
E-marketing is part of a larger effort to build the profile of the organization, tied to planning for The Drawing Center's historic move to this multi-disciplinary cultural complex in lower Manhattan. E-marketing is a wonderful way to communicate directly with our audiences about plans for the move and to introduce new visitors to The Drawing Center's unique mission and programs.
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Click here to visit The Drawing Center's website
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How Does Your E-Mail Look?
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It's tough to handle 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're feeling that you'd like to move up from your in-house method, but don't want to spend a fortune, we'd welcome the opportunity 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
* Comply with the CAN-SPAM law, and "remove" requests automatically
We invite you to schedule a free 15-minute phone demonstration to learn more about how cost-effective PatronMail could be for your organization.
And, if your list is under 1,000 names, ask us about our special "starter" pricing plan.
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Click here to request a PatronMail demonstration
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Please watch for our next Monthly Update, coming February 22, 2005.
Our mailing address is: 850 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019
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