Outreach vs. Marketing: Part One
There’s a lot of talk about accessibility for the arts, and with good reason. To attend what we are led to believe is “the best” art at top professional theatres, orchestras, and museums, we can be expected to spend upwards of $75 per person once you factor in online ordering fees, parking, childcare, and refreshments. The cost of attendance edges out low-income individuals, students, or even middle class Gen X’ers who have bills to pay and a few kids in tow.
Meanwhile, small and midsize companies have less infrastructure to gain funding to offset the cost of lower ticket prices, since 60% of funding goes to the top 2% of cultural organizations. That, plus the decline in funding for the arts in general, means that ticket prices are climbing regardless of organizational size. Pricing is an issue that every arts organization deals with, pining for the holy grail where their costs are covered and everyone agrees that the amount they paid was exactly perfect for the product they received. (Hint: That’s never going to happen.)
So how do we reach out to lower income people? Or marginalized populations who feel that the arts do not reflect their voices? Or those families who have student loans to pay for, new mortgages to attend to, and kids to keep happy?
In the arts administration world, we use the term “outreach” a lot. It means the inverse of the word: Reaching out to a broader audience and looking further at the meanings of the piece we’re presenting. Sometimes it can be through a free full performance, and other times it’s previews, workshops, lectures, and the like, meant to enhance the experience.
But here’s the thing: Accessible and free are not the same thing.
I don’t dislike outreach. I enjoy it. It’s important. It’s the educational component of the arts. It does in fact reach people who may not otherwise have access to what we do, and encourages people to dig deeper and enhance their lives in a variety of ways. I don’t have anything against it.
What outreach is NOT is a marketing tool.
THE PROBLEM WITH FREE
Many organizations, and the donors and grantors that fund them, have decided that the answer to accessibility is to provide free or deeply discounted admission. The mindset behind this is that if there is no monetary investment, the unlikely attenders will be more likely to show up.
There are three big problems with that.
1) The assumption that people aren’t coming because things are too expensive is an oversimplification.
Yes, high ticket prices are a deterrent. No doubt about it. But as I’ve written before, there are other types of investment that come from attending a performance or exhibit. The arts are emotional. There is a personal element to participating. People want to enjoy it. They have to be in the right mood. They have to feel comfortable. For too many years, society has seen plays, concert presentations, and museum exhibits curated for a rich, white audience. The voices and the stories do not reflect a wide-ranging population. (And, as is my personal pet peeve, we do the same plays over and over and ignore the advancement of the art form in favor of easy ticket sales).
Allowing people in for free does not solve the problem of their feeling that the event isn’t of interest to them. If we’re going to reach a wider audience, we have to tell broader, more innovative stories. And even that isn’t going to bring them in over night. Just as audiences must be conditioned to see pieces that are off the beaten path, they must be conditioned that theatre has stories for a multitude of audiences, including individuals who have been marginalized.
2) Just because it’s free to see doesn’t mean it’s free to present.
We all heard “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” in our high school economics courses, and it couldn’t be more true in this instance. Many funders are favoring free activities, but they aren’t willing to provide enough money to offset the cost of presenting them. Music Theatre of Madison has done several free performances at local libraries. The amount of money we received from grantors and sponsors did not cover our expenses. Luckily, our donors picked up the slack. But that didn’t cover the amount of time I had to spend writing grants and asking for money, and I took a big salary cut on those shows.
Before you say that’s our problem for being bad at raising money, keep in mind: we’re a small organization, in a highly saturated area, where arts funding is 14 cents per capita. We’re required to fill out the same grant applications as the bigger companies with full time development staff, AND we’re expected to provide free activities with less internal support. Because we remain committed to accessibility, but must also convince people of the value of what we do, we sometimes fall short. How can a company grow or save money when they are repeatedly asked to offer their show, or a significant enhancement project, for free?
3) People value what they pay for.
If you need some concrete data to back up what I’m saying, look no further than arts data wizard Colleen Dilenschneider (whom I hope to meet this November when I go to Memphis to be a presenter at the National Arts Marketing Project conference!)
According to her recent post, data indicates that people who receive discounted admission are less likely to return and less likely to endorse your organization.
So if you’re offering stuff to people for free, don’t expect them to become season ticket holders. It’s just not as likely to happen. And that also presents a problem with funders’ assertions that free offerings are essential. It can be harmful to an organization’s long term sustainability.
Numbers 1 and 3 relate directly to marketing. Number one reflects the importance of communicating the impact of our product separate from what it costs. Number three emphasizes our customers’ perceived value of our product, and our ability to retain our patrons.
Number 2 is a bit outside of the marketing arena, but it’s still relevant to budget, which requires a lot of juggling and creativity when you have to effectively and innovatively market your performance or exhibit.
COMING UP
Next week, I’ll talk about some solutions, how outreach fits into the world of marketing, and strategies to make our events interesting to a broader audience without breaking the bank in the meantime.
