Tonight I will be giving a presentation on Audience Building for All and the Top 20 Tips for Increasing Everything. If you are in the Boulder/Denver area, check it out and join me! One of the points I will be discussing is the tip to be your artist self and be creative. It is a little ironic that sometimes in attempts to appear business-like, we are ditching our creative selves and instead showing the world a version of us that is not really us. Rather we are projecting what we think people want or “expect” us to look like or be as a business.
An arts business is a business, yes, and we have to run the business like a business. This, however, does not mean that we can’t have a little fun, that we can’t be our unique, visual, colorful selves. In fact, the more we can show our true colors, the easier it will be to attract the right types of people for our audiences. Think about the regular business world. The companies that are standing out are using the arts to make them sparkle. We need to be doing this too!
The good news, we are getting a little better at this. I had done a quick study on orchestra and theatre company sites two years ago. This first round of looking was a little dismal with similar, non-artsy sites. Today, I am starting to see more individual personalities and more artistic natures in the redesigns. Hurray!
This philosophy can be carried through to all that you do. Is your artist self shining through? Is your marketing and branding specifically your artsy you? Do the visuals, colors, and messages you send out into the world speak your individual artistic language? Do the letters you send out have your special tone of voice and artistic feel? Do your programs have the creative spark that set you apart? Buttom line, are you being your unique artistic self in everything that you do?
In the end, yes, we do want to appear professional, yet we also want to impress as the creative artists that we are. This step will help you to stand out and gain the right audiences specifically for you. It may also make you feel good and honor that being your crazy artist self in our inundated business world is a better way to go.
Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana
Shoshana Fanizza
Audience Development Specialists
https://www.buildmyaudience.com
“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart
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[…] Tonight I will be giving a presentation on Audience Building for All and the Top 20 Tips for Increasing Everything. If you are in the Boulder/Denver area, check it out and join me! […]