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Organize a Database that Packs the House
How long can a theatre last without repeat customers?
Yes, it’s rhetorical, but the fact is theatres can always do more to
fill seats. So the true question is: Are you squeezing your patron database
for all that it’s worth?
After 10 years of arts management, Shoshana Fanizza recently
founded Audience Development Specialists, in the business of marketing and
development guidance and customer service training. She’s enthusiastic
about arts marketing and explains that audience development should be personable.
“Instead of your audience being simply ‘cheeks in seats’ that
you hope will come back, through audience development they become individual
people in your seats that you know will come back,” says Fanizza.
First off, employ friendly box office staff who, through their pleasant and
professional demeanor, can elicit customer information. There’s no excuse
for not asking.
“Pre-printed note cards and golf pencils should always be available,”
says Christopher Caltagirone, AMS Planning & Research Corporation’s
research director, “and if there is space in the lobby, have your IT
people set up a computer kiosk that links to a short survey where respondents
can complete this information.”
Have incentives for people to take a little time to fill out your questionnaire.
The Z Space Studio in San Francisco uses surveys that double as raffle tickets.
Someone wins a promotional item, and the theatre gets more marketing information.
Once You Gather Information, Keep it Clean and Functional
Data should be stored uniformly to avoid duplicates and segmented into informative
categories, some for inventive marketing ideas. Fanizza says, “You want
a list that you will be able to obtain all kinds of information about your
patrons and be able to segment out any trends that you see. If you input their
birthday, wouldn't it be interesting to find out that the majority of your
patrons are born in October? What a special offer you could have that month!”
Limit the number of people who have access to your list. Tom Holm, vice president
at Enertex Marketing says, “The more people that get involved in a list,
the less pristine. Have either one dedicated person or take the time to develop
a style menu, ‘here’s how you add patrons to the database.’”
This helps avoid duplicates, which cost money in terms of handling, materials,
and postage.
DCM, a telemarketing firm based in New York, hunts for duplicates because
they can also undermine a company’s marketing. “Duplicate accounts
have always been a problem and are hard to eliminate because one household
may have an account under the wife’s name, another under the husband’s
name, and a third under a second address,” says Pauline Palkovic, director
of client services and senior account executive at DCM. “Because key
information is different, it is hard to know that those accounts should be
merged, yet that household may feel like they are contacted too frequently
because they get three of everything.”
Palkovic says, “We are also finding that this is becoming more widespread
with the advent of online ticketing, since most online programs indiscriminately
create a new account for anyone purchasing a ticket online, regardless of
their history with the organization.”
Using Spreadsheets
Deb Cooperman, director of marketing and public relations at the New Jersey
Theatre Alliance, says most of their associate members still rely on basic
tools for data management. “Some still use spreadsheets and peel-off
labels for mailings,” says Cooperman.
Though there’s nothing wrong with spreadsheets, you have to consider
whether it meets all of your needs. Can it handle the number of patrons in
your list? Tom Holm recommends shopping for new database storage once you
hit 5,000 patrons.
If you opt to use a spreadsheet, there are a few tricks to make it functional.
Fanizza recommends one sheet with the complete patron list and then create
tabs to segment the information. She also recommends using codes for certain
segments you intend to target in the future, such as children’s events.
Select Software That Will Grow With Your Theatre
Theatres, though, do have a large variety of software packages from which
to choose; the best are those that multi-task. “I recommend any cost
effective software that incorporates all the database needs of an arts organization
into one: box office, volunteer, management, membership/subscriptions, and
donor management,” says Fanizza.
In choosing new database systems, keep several questions in mind. How many
staff members will have access to the list? How large is your budget for the
software and staff time for conversion and training? What are your growth
goals—in terms of ticket buyers, donors and events?
Caltagirone says, “Another factor to consider is scalability. Is the
system flexible enough to address growth of both the organization and its
data resources? Spending less money may be a favorable option in the beginning,
but if you have to replace the system in two years because the organization
has outgrown its capacity, was it really worth the investment?”
Get quotes from at least three software companies and schedule vendor presentations
when key theatre staff can attend. If board approval is needed, include them
in the decision-making process early on. Ask questions about computer hardware
requirements, training and support, transferring data from the old system.
Outsourcing
Since not every theatre has the budget for IT or marketing personnel, outsourcing
patron data management is wise and even cost-effective.
Ticketing might be your choice for outsourcing. The first interaction with
your theatre will be the box office; make sure anyone, including outside box
office agents, treat your customers well and are not shy about asking questions.
For theatres outsourcing ticketing operations, Caltagirone advises organizations
to be sure from the beginning that they have full access to their customers’
records. “Organizations should insist on having any customer records
obtained through ticket sales returned to the organization on a consistent
basis.”
If the marketing and development takes too many in-house resources, choose
a company that can work from your database. As always, there are lots of different
routes depending on your budget and your goals.
Since DCM focuses solely on arts groups, Palkovic says they are attuned to
their challenges. “The needs of arts organizations are very different
from those of other organizations and for-profit corporations that may be
doing telemarketing,” says Palkovic. “And the scale at which we
operate and the budget constraints our clients face make it necessary for
us to be extremely focused and effective at what we do.”
Cleveland’s Great Lakes Theater Festival has been getting ready to move
into its new home, the Hanna Theatre. Part of the publicity includes pooling
their mailing records and patron purchasing histories with other Cleveland
arts organizations into what they call the Collaborative Marketing Database
(CMD). This data is then managed by the Elliott Marketing Group. “It
is from the pool of collected records and patron purchasing histories that
each organization selects their best prospects based on the firm’s recommendations,”
says GLTF marketing and public relations director Todd Krispinsky. “In
many ways it is like the Amazon.com model; if you liked this product then
you will probably like this (other) product.”
The Big List
Pooling databases has been around for years. Tom Holm remembers when the first
“Big List” was created in Miami 20 years ago. “It fell by the
wayside because there was turnover with the people in charge,” says Holm.
But the Big List took root in other regions and now there are six: Boston,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, Orange County, and a smaller version
in New York called the GEMS Big List, short for Gotham Early Music Scene.
Theatre Bay Area in San Francisco enthusiastically started their Big List
this year with the help of a grant from the Wallace Foundation and has 69
arts organizations as members, with plans to expand to other parts of the
Bay Area. Clay Lord, marketing and advertising manager at TBA says the Big
List is a “powerful tool at a relatively low cost to each company. It
allows larger companies to access patrons who are younger and still on their
way through the smaller local companies and allows smaller companies access
to the older, more affluent attendees at the larger companies.”
BATS Improv found an immediate use for the Big List. “The first item
of business was to run our own internal patron list through the Big List for
clean-up, as the task was too daunting to do on our own,” says executive
director Brent Sverdloff. About 18% of the addresses wound up getting updated.”
The list is managed by Enertex, which pools the data and cleans it up of duplicates,
the deceased, the wrong addresses, and the “do not mails.” Then
Big List members can request specific lists for direct mailing. “The
idea about creating a big list is to make people’s lives easier and to
make it more efficient and to have access to data they didn’t know was
out there,” says Holm.
Cristobal McKinney, administrative coordinator for Z Space Studio in San Francisco,
says, “In all my pulls from the Big List, I’ve focused significantly
on pulling the names of audience members who show up on two or more theatre
companies’ lists, demonstrating that these people like theatre and want
to attend more. These people won’t get upset at receiving more theatre
information in the mail.”
“For any direct mail, we’re tying to help people mail the smallest
number of pieces and that’s the trend nowadays,” says Holm. “You
go through 10 different steps to drill down to people who are close to the
organization, and then you can get into different enhancements like geography.
So instead of doing a 40,000 piece mailing, they can do an 8,000 piece mailing
and that’s a sophisticated, more effective campaign.”
Lord says, “Our next major goal as an organization is to improve and
expand our patron-focused outreach, both for our companies and as a revenue
stream, so the Big List fits nicely with that effort. It will allow us to
dip into a substantial and well-researched pool of patrons regularly, with
more precision than we've ever been able to get before.”
Many are suspicious about sharing their lists, especially the donor lists,
which are precious to any nonprofit organization. Krispinsky says the Great
Lakes Theater Festival keeps this portion of the list, and those that indicated
that they didn’t want to be contacted, to themselves. For some, the concern
is that their patrons will be inundated with mailings.
“Generally speaking, the patrons don't experience a huge up-tick in the
amount of mail they receive, and the ones that do get more mail are usually
the most ‘promiscuous’ arts consumers, so they find the increase
in mail a positive experience,” says Lord. Plus he says, “Companies
don't lose patrons—the patron may attend more art because they're given
more opportunities, but they generally come home to the organization they've
chosen to give their information to.”
To discuss database dilemmas in detail, visit the DramaBiz Magazine
forums at www.dramabiz.com.
