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- Hello, Deborah Obalil.
You are a key presenter
at the National Arts Marketing Project Advanced Training
for Twin Cities arts organizations
involved in the Arts Learning Xchange
this March and April, 2010.
Deborah, what's one of the experiences
in your great background
that gives you the insight and skills you have
in arts marketing?
- Well, I think I've benefited
from a somewhat unique combination
of both working directly in an arts organization,
a couple of arts organizations, actually, as marketing staff
but then also being able to connect that
to doing direct consumer research,
specifically looking at what different
target segments are looking for from their arts experiences,
who is most likely to engage
with different kinds of arts organizations
and what are their motivations and barriers to doing that?
So I have both the kind of theoretical side
as well as the nuts and bolts,
what it really is like to work
in a small- to mid-sized organization day to day.
- In the arts organizational development field,
we're familiar with organizations
that are board-driven,
or we talk about founder-driven or artist-driven.
And the advocacy now is for arts organizations
to become audience-driven.
What does that mean,
and why is audience focus such an important concept
for us right now?
- Well, I think there's a couple of reasons.
One is that as most arts organizations
are not-for-profits,
and the whole concept of being a not-for-profit
is that, essentially, the community owns you.
You know, you have to have a strong connection,
reason for being,
to servicing a particular community,
and to really do that effectively,
understanding who that community is,
who that audience is
that's going to engage with the artistic work.
And being as driven by that
and their needs and their desires
from the artistic product
as what the artist is aiming to do
is critical, quite frankly, in this challenging time
to remaining relevant,
to showing the value that you have to the community,
and then garnering the resources that you need
to continue doing that work.
- The Wallace Foundation has taught us
to think about that work in terms of broadening, deepening,
or diversifying our arts audiences.
Each of these arts participation goals
is different,
and it requires a different approach or strategy.
How does an arts organization know
which of these three emphases to pursue?
- Well, the first step to really understanding that
is to get a much clearer picture
of where the organization is currently at,
who its current audience is,
and how deeply engaged in the organization they are.
If an organization is currently providing a connection
to a broad diversity of audiences
but not going very deep with any particular ones of those,
then the deepen might make sense.
If they have a very deep relationship
but with a very specific segment of the community,
then either the broadening or diversifying approaches
might make more sense for them,
again, towards that goal
of really building greater relationship and engagement
with the broader community.
- Each of those three goals must have a set
of different types of strategies associated with it.
What would be typical types of strategies
that might be associated with broadening
as opposed to deepening or as opposed to diversifying?
- Sure, well, the broadening usually is a matter
of finding more of the same,
more people like the audiences that you're already
currently connecting to and engaging with.
And so that can often mean geographic expansion.
It can mean simply putting more resources
into different kinds of marketing communications,
tactics, all depending on who that target audience is.
For the deepening,
that often is as much product- and program-driven
as it is more traditionally what people think of as marketing
in terms of the communications or the promotions,
so really figuring out how to build that relationship
in an authentic but more long-term way
with audiences that they currently have.
For the diversifying,
it often requires really thinking about
what it is that the organization has to offer
through its artistic products and programs
and how that fulfills a need
for a very different kind of audience
than you're currently reaching
and then thinking about how they as an organization
can be flexible and invite and engage
that new audience in their work.
It may require going outside of their usual venue,
going into different neighborhoods,
or doing their artistic productions or exhibitions
in a different way
with different community partners
to really build that relationship.
- The Arts Learning Xchange Program here in the Twin Cities
will provide travel grants to personnel,
to staff of local arts organizations
to cover 100% of the costs for people
to attend a future conference.
What makes attending a NAMP,
a National Arts Marketing Project, conference,
a great opportunity for arts staff these days?
- Well, first of all,
it's a great opportunity to network with colleagues
from different communities.
Sometimes it can feel like
there's a little bit of a competitive relationship
with other arts organizations in your home community,
because even if you're attempting to be collaborative,
the fact that you're all going after the same resources,
it can sometimes be a barrier
to truly sharing successes and failures with each other.
Whereas when you're meeting with your national colleagues,
you don't have those same kinds of relationships with funders
and other supporters.
And so it's a much more open environment
for sharing and getting new ideas.
It is a great place to steal new ideas
of things that have worked in other communities
and figure out a way that it would be appropriate to apply
back here in the Twin Cities.
And it's tremendous access to some of the top marketing minds,
not just in the arts but in general in the country
who are the keynote speakers every year at the conference.