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- So, in closing, we need to prioritize our research
for actionability.
What do you need to know that you can actually put into action
versus "nice to know"?
And sometimes we think the psychographic data
all fits into "nice to know" and it's not actionable,
but a lot of psychographic data is very actionable
and especially when you look at media planning.
Very actionable, so prioritize those questions.
Do those first.
Emphasize those in the front of your surveys.
Make sure that you have questions
that are actionable beyond demographics.
Demographics, to me, aren't actually very actionable,
actually.
We need to systematize, again, by using online survey tools,
which are--not in terms of functionality
but in terms of cost, are cheap.
And the learning curve is not that bad.
So systematize your research
so that you're not thinking from square one every time,
because that will mean you'll be doing less research.
To replicate your research,
that there are some questions that you need to ask frequently
so that you can track and see trends over time.
But it doesn't mean every question has to be asked
and that you cannot add other questions
or switch out questions during certain times of the year
or whatever.
But make sure that you're asking some core questions
across all of your segments, all of your audiences.
There are even questions that you might ask your core audience
that you could also ask non-users, non-visitors,
if you have access to people.
That's a whole nother presentation, though.
But to get a sense of, where are they similar,
and where are they really different?
And lastly--
and again, this should be systematized as well--
internalize your research.
It really is a living, breathing thing.
This is information that people are giving you,
sometimes from memory,
which is not very good, actually,
but it's a living, breathing thing.
It needs to be talked about.
It needs to be included.
Certainly we all think that the research
is important to put in your grant applications.
But it's critical for your strategy briefs
and your marketing plans and your development discussions
to actually use your own data,
sharing it and internalizing it.
We have told people in some of our learning environments
and learning activities to-- when we did that pyramid,
we actually come up with profiles of people.
My core user, my "core audience" person,
is really three distinct kind of personalities
that kind of are dominant.
And one is Alice, you know.
One is Jim.
And the other one is Shanita or something.
I don't know.
But they have distinct reasons why they come.
They have passions that may be different.
There are different ways to talk to each of those segments
and different places to engage those segments.
We counsel people to find a picture.
Give her a name. Give the person a name.
And put it up in some prominent place.
List all of those things that we know
about what she likes, what she doesn't like,
where she is, what she wants.
And put it up in your war room or the coffee room or--
I call it a war room.
You know, that's from consumer business, you know.
We're gonna attack things all the time.
But put it up where--
in the place where you think about your plans,
where you sit and discuss,
"What are we going to do next season?
"How are we going to-- we need to get some numbers,
"or we need to do something with an audience segment.
What are we gonna do?"
Everything you do should track right back to those profiles.
Is this something that will really speak to Alice?
Is this something she would come to and bring a friend?
We need to stop making these "audiences"
such nebulous, faceless globs of numbers.
They're not.
They're people.
So bring them in.
Put them up.
Live with them. Let them live with you.
So there are some links here, again,
where you can actually take zip code data from your own--
you could take your ticketing database or something,
where I know you collect a mailing address
or something and a zip code.
Prioritize that, sort it, and see which ones pop out,
and link them to some other data,
some other sources that can provide further insight.
The American Factfinder and U.S. Census Bureau
is very easy.
You can put in zip codes.
It's free all day long.
And it'll give you a whole--
a demographic and kind of some behavioral data
on one screen page
that even includes information like,
how long does it take for them to commute?
How long do they commute every day?
That could be great information to know
if you happen to be in music
and you know they're listening to music in the car.
It'd be great if they were listening to MP3,
'cause then you could give them a little drive or something
and, "Hey, here's a gift.
Play our music. Here's our upcoming season."
All right, but there are ways to link this back
to how we can further engage our communities.
The other one that I'm a big proponent of
is the Community Tapestry Lookup on ESRI.
And again, that's another one
that actually takes the census data
in addition to other lifestyle and behavioral data
and gives you these great lifestyle segments.
There are 64 of them.
And the interesting thing
is when you can look at various zip codes in your database
and see that those primary lifestyle segments
pop up in different zip codes.
Like yours did.
That's where I got it from.
All right, and there are a couple of others.