Arts audience development and stop marketing to everyone

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Shoshana

It’s Wednesday, which means I have another guest blog post for you.   This time, my friend and colleague, Maureen Carruthers, owner of Low Hanging Fruit Communications, chimes in with some comments as to why it isn’t a good idea to market to everyone.  If you can honestly say that your art offering is for the general public, maybe you could,…

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Audience development and keeping your volunteers happy from the start

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Shoshana

So, I signed up online to volunteer for a nonprofit in my area.  I received a form letter beginning with “Hello!”  The volunteer sign-up form had my name as the first field.  Why didn’t they use my name?  Did they want to start off on the foot that I didn’t matter as a unique person?  They do want me to…

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Audience development diversity, but at what cost?

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Shoshana

Let’s pretend it is Welcome Wednesday just for this moment.  Due to my workload, I was not able to post my guest blog that was scheduled. On Monday I found the following article: Portland introduces new diversity goals for local arts and culture groups seeking public funds http://bit.ly/zgoefv. This article has caused a bit of discussion.  Mainly, most of us…

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Audience development for the arts and how to find the right pillow

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Shoshana

For this Monday moment, I wanted to share with you my hunt for a better pillow.  After months of having a crick in my neck due to having the wrong pillow, I am now on the hunt to find the pillow that is right for me.  I thought this was going to be quite the pillow fight, but I found…

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Showing up and committing to audience development

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Shoshana

As I mentioned in my latest audience development tip of the day: Showing up in the present, I made a suggestion to start focusing on the present moment instead of the past and the future.  The only way we are going to create an audience that reflects people of today is to actually commit to audience development ideas and solutions…

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Audience development for visual artists – How to send better email invitations

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Shoshana

Today for Welcome Wednesday, my friend and artist Annette Coleman had something particular to say about visual artists and their use of emails for audience development.  How can you create better email invitations to increase your audiences?  Without further ado: ************************************************* The Artists’ Voice – Annette Coleman  Visual Artists –  say it with a picture You all know the popular…

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Presidential audience development

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Shoshana

Which presidents in the history of our country do you admire?  Why do you admire them? Most of us admire the presidents that were able to achieve great accomplishments for the people of our country. Many of us are starting to realize that without a team attitude in congress, whatever president is elected will not get a lot done.  There…

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Audience development questions: Why don’t I have an audience?

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Shoshana

Yesterday (I admit) I jumped on my Twitter soapbox and was thinking out loud about why arts organizations and artists are struggling.  Here is the flow of tweets that emerged: The world is getting faster and faster with more and more information, competition. How are you standing out from the crowd? I strongly feel that 2011 was an identity crisis…

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Audience Development and the little appreciations

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Shoshana

It’s time for the Monday Moment.  Last night, I received a call and let it go to my voicemail since I wasn’t sure who it was from.  The person left a voicemail, and it turned out the call was from a board member at a non-profit that we made a donation to.   I was very surprised to receive this…

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Welcome Wednesday for audience development: How to get young people through the door

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Shoshana

Hello and welcome to our first Welcome Wednesday.  I am welcoming guest bloggers to bring other perspectives about audience development to you.  I came across this post via a twitter conversation.  Have you ever wondered how to reach out to a younger audience?  Of course you have, right?  Please welcome Melissa Hillman, Artistic Director of Impact Theatre in Berkeley, CA….

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Barbara A. Hardesty

“I enjoyed the workshop. I liked the history [of the audience] to put it in context and to emphasize that we desperately need to return to participation/interaction. I liked having a hand-out to refer back and a few samples of positive case studies. I also thought the brainstorming session was a great eye-opener for many people - how fast can a small group come up with basic ideas!!” —Barbara A. Hardesty, Founder of Da Vinci Capers

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