PR and the Arts: Ten Tips

Whilst our publicist has been on leave this week and last, I took the unusual step of filling in for her. Usually this role goes to the Marketing Coordinator, when backfilling is required, but a couple of circumstances conspired to send the role towards me for a change. It had been five years since I last did PR on a virtual full time basis and it was surprising how quickly it all came back. Before it all leaves my head again here's ten tips for being a successful publicist, especially in the arts.

1. We outnumber themAcross most industries PR and Comms people don't just outnumber the journalists, they do so in great numbers. Also media companies, especially old media are bleeding, they are cutting staff, working their remaining staff harder and standing around scratching themselves trying to work out the name of the new media truck that hit them 15 years ago. So the media, your chief clients, are stressed, over worked, on deadline and they just want you to cut through all the noise from all the other PR's and make their lives easier.
2. Invest time in writing your media release
   The old staples still hold true, inverted pyramid, get all the crucial info into the first paragraph in case that's the only one they use, active language and NEVER, EVER send a media release out without a good usable quote. A great KPI for most arts industry PR's is how many media releases have you had this year that suburban press have run verbatim? 
3. You're a PR, your job is to say yes then make it happen!
   Service, service,service - you are the ultimate service provider, you provide a service to the media, you provide a service to the colleagues at your work, in the arts you also provide a service to the production companies and actors/key creatives as well. You MUST walk a tightrope and balance the competing interests and make people feel like they are all getting some of what they want. It can be frustrating but that's what wine is for at the end of the day! Or yoga or jazzercise - whatever you need!
4. Confirm, confirm then confirm again.
   Here's a tip, if you think an interview is locked down after three phone calls, you are wrong! Make the calls, double check that you have the right details, confirm with EVERYONE via email, update the interview schedule, re-send that, think of stuff that would help the journalist and then send them an email "Hey here's an updated bio, for your interview with that actor you have TOMORROW!". "Oh and in case case anything goes wrong, here's my mobile number, the actor's agent's mobile number, my manager's mobile number etc, etc...". But do it cleverly, make both the actor/company representative and the journalist feel all-important and over-serviced, which you are also doing, but in reality you are doing whatever you can to make sure it doesn't screw up.
5. In spite of that it WILL SCREW up
   Sorry sometimes things just do. So long as you have done everything you possibly can, then don't get too upset about it and keep calm. At the end of the day a good PR can control everything EXCEPT the outcome.
6. The harder you work the luckier you get
   People like to talk about good PR's as having almost mystical skills - media whispherers. Rubbish! I can be very blunt and sometimes the antithesis of a smooth talkin' PR guy, but I was good at it! Why? Work ethic and honesty. Just like telesales, I knew that if I wanted six good story outcomes in a city like Melbourne, I needed to pitch to about 18 journalists.If people don't return your calls one day, wait until tomorrow and send them an email, no response, wait another day and leave another message, keep working on a lead until you either get the story up or get confirmation that it's dead.
7. Be honest, direct and polite If the reason you really, really need an actor to do breakfast radio and they just don't want to get up is because ticket sales are tanking then tell them that. don't try and cajole them with fluffy bullshit reasons about Goulburn Valley FM being great for their profile, just say, "Sorry, I know it's early, but sales are tanking and we need every interview we can get". A bit of honesty will also get you points with your media friends too ie "Off the record, the rabid-leftie actor said no to your interview requests because he JUST doesn't like AM commercial talk radio, he thinks you are all like Ray Hadley, sorry".
8. Have a head for new news
   Has your upcoming show's season in Sydney just sold out, has the play just been green-lighted for a movie, did you just find out that your lead actor worked in your theatre's town for six months as a teenager, have you just got some new pictures from the company. do your research, be across these developments and use them where they will benefit you most. New news is currency, spend it wisely.
9. Have a picture in your head about what a successful media campaign will look like before you start
   Don't just send the media release out, call your few closest journo buddies and say "wanna do a story" and be surprised by the outcomes. Sit down at the start of a campaign and decide what stories you are going for, build it like you would a media buying campaign, "I want this interview here, this feature there, a cover story piece in Saturday's liftout". Write it down and start chasing. Don't make me quote Kevin Costner.
10. Stage Manager's are your best friend
    When a cast is touring Stage Managers are THE #1 gatekeepers, make them your best friends, love them, do whatever you can to make their life easier. Make up a schedule of interview requests, update it, re-send it. Say please and thank you. Remember that they have a squillion other things to do apart from confirm interview times for you, like sobering up drunk actors who can't remember their lines. (Note not all actors are drunks. That's a stereotype..... Just the good ones!)

Oh and finally I know I said ten tips but here's one more!

If you as the PR are not your organisations expert on social media - why not?
Seriously why not, you have access to all the great artists, all the great stories, rich media happening live right now that you can tell people about. http://www.thetaooftwitter.com/ will get you started if unsure.

That's about it from me tonight the only other thing is that great PR's are like great sports referees, the ones who are doing a really good job are virtually invisible because it just seems seamless and easy. Now go out they and work your butt off to make it look seamless and easy!

Subscription Seasons: An answer but what was the question? Part II

OK so last week I outlined my longer term and strategic worries about season subscriptions and their hold on the Arts Industry. But what are the upsides? What are the alternatives I hear you ask?

Well isn't it lucky I just happen to be sitting in front of a computer to answer your hypothetical questions you imaginary reader you!

So the first thing is to acknowledge the power of the status quo, subscriptions seasons are very entrenched in the industry mindset, and the physics of inertia say it's a lot harder to get a body of mass (or in this case an idea) off the ground than it is to just keep the existing system rolling.

From my research most of the venues I've found that offer memberships instead of subscription seasons are either small regional venues who found the cost and effort of producing a season and marketing it for a few hundred people just too draining and the risk of swapping a couple of hundred subscribers to the unknown quantity of members was justifiable. Others who employed this model were start-up venues who took the opportunity to try something new, whilst others were really large capital city venues who cede the ability to offer a season because their major hirers all book the venues over the course of a year for their own seasons, they just didn't have the product to offer up for a season. Of course memberships is how galleries have been working for years!

Also currently for most people subs seasons still offer good marketing ROI, using the rough figures from my current work as an example the cost per ticket sold for marketing a subs season is $8 dollars for every ticket sold. Most individual ticket campaigns hover around $10, so you'd be a brave marketer to just get rid of the subs season idea on those numbers regardless of the longer term concerns.

So the dominant alternative seems to be a membership, a patron pays a fee at the start of the year and this gives them entitlements including access to discounted rates over the year as they book. It puts the power back in the patrons hands, they can come when they please, they can apply their discount to a greater numbers of shows over the year and for the marketers and programmers it removes a massive annual project that needs to be resourced.

Other ideas include a premium membership, this is a package of added value servicing - dedicated box office line, dedicated lines in the venue, seats always put on reserve in case they need them, a members lounge, free car parking. Now you have the beginnings of a package that patrons might actually want to pay MORE for rather than less.

Three signs you should think about ditching your subs season?

• Is your long term (five years plus) season ticket trend going up or down?
• Is your cost per ticket ahead, the same or behind your single ticket campaign cost per ticket?
• Do you own enough of your yearly capacity to offer a genuine membership per ticket purchase discount if you moved in this direction?
• Are you able to source product all year round outside of the Government imposed annual funded tour announcements?

If you are trending down. if it doesn't make financial sense and you can actually build a membership package with the product that comes to your venue, then what's the next step?

I would say that you then do some semi-pro focus groups, get a few subscribers in and talk to them about your idea, see how receptive they are. If it seems positive you can then carefully work across your organisation to build a great package.

The sum total of all this thinking myself has me considering if we can make it a contractual obligation for hirers to offer a members price and the logistics of running both campaigns side by side for a few years.

That's it from me for now and if you have case studies of Subs Season to membership transformations I'd love to see you comment about them.

Subscription Seasons: An answer but what was the question? Part I

It was a massive week last week here in mARTsketing land with the launch of my theatre's annual subscription season and although it was widely lauded as one of our best ever both in terms of programming and marketing execution, it got me thinking....

Exactly what need are we filling here, what idea is a subscription season the answer to?

I 'think' the question being asked is "I love the theatre, I come often, how can I feel more a part of what is going on here?", in response the industry says "OK here's our season for next year, commit to coming at least four or five times, commit to coming on a set day i.e. the second Thursday next November, pay up front and we'll give you a discount and do a few other cheap things over the year to make you feel a bit special."

Basically purchase your culture in bulk and we'll give you a discount... Costco-ulture!

Now it feels to me that this is a strange response to our audience, it feels like we are asking a bit too much. Why are we selling a premium product like a commodity? And why for heavens sake are our most committed patrons paying less money instead of more?

There's a side issue here too in that most venues and theatre companies in Australia survive with government funds, so what do we do? We take that support and use it to sell cheap tickets to our core patrons - i.e. rich old white people. Doesn't exactly gel with my sense of social justice. But I digress. (This contradiction will form the basis of a future article)

I mean the whole notion of such a commitment, in this day and age of instant publishing, 3D live telecasts of Opera from New York, on-demand TV viewing, seems out dated and unsustainable. Whilst we might still have a good number of older folk who are prepared to make this time and date commitment to us so far out, we are trading on their loyalty too much.

Now I'm the last person to peddle the line "Our patrons are getting older, when they get too old to come, all will be ruined" because I do believe that people graduate into different arts forms as they mature, so the audience segment maintains its base. But what I'm not sure about is whether the consuming patterns of  people aged in their mid thirties and younger will going to change as they age to make them think a subs season ticket is a good idea..

I mean I like Dr Who, but I'll be blowed if I'm going to make an appointment to watch it Saturday evenings, AFTER I know it's premiered in the UK earlier. No I'll watch it online whenever I want to.I mean thanks to VHS I've been time shifting my viewing since primary school, these are long established patterns of arts and entertainment consumption.I just can't see lots of fifty somethings in twenty years time willing to purchase performing arts in the way we are currently asking them to.

So what should we do? We'll save that for Part II because I've rabbited on for long enough already AND well I need to research some case studies!

Welcome and Rogues Gallery

Hi and welcome to my first ever blog post, as my rather clumsy but I hope affably charming moniker hints at this is a blog drawn from my experiences as a marketer of over fifteen years' experience and my nine years specialising in the arts and entertainment field. 

I find marketing in the arts and entertainment fields to be a peculiar experience, on one hand you have high falutin' government subsidised capital C cultural organisations and institutions and on the flip side you have an array of small to massive commercial operators out to turn a quick buck. 

In future blogs I'll detail the extremes to which each side of the industry operate, but firstly I thought I'd make a plea for greater ethics from the commercial side of the game. In my role I am often a gatekeeper between the audience and the marketing efforts of commercial producers and although some belong to the industry body Live Performance Australia, many don't. It actually matters not in this particular case as whilst the LPA has a code of conduct for ticketing, they don't have one for marketing and advertising probably figuring that the laws of land do an adequate job. Well I got news for you they don't!

Time and time again I've seen commercial producer blatantly lie in their advertising, misrepresent product and seek to vary the terms and conditions of an offer after advertised. Here's a rogues gallery of unethical conduct that I've experienced for real:

“The award winning show direct from the Edinburgh fringe” – I checked not only did it not win an award, it was never even staged as part of the Festival!

 “Direct from New York” – not it wasn’t it was filled with local dancers and musicians.

 “We want to raise tickets for door sales but not tell anybody in the advertising” seriously they tried, I said no.

 “These are the published terms and conditions of the offer but here’s what I want your Box office staff to do” Ummm no, our Box Office staff will adhere to the advertised terms and conditions that you just advertised otherwise why did you advertise them???

All this would be funny if it wasn't so well illegal! And amazingly many producers get away with it, why? well I suppose it's the arts so people are used to seeing the lily gilded with heavily chopped quotes and dubious awards, but does it make the untruthfulness any less wrong? I think not.

But what can we do? Firstly I think that the LPA needs a code of conduct for marketing and advertising in addition to it's code for ticketing. which is great for keeping LPA members in line, but what about commercial producers who aren't members? We can't stop people from hiring venues and putting on shows no matter how dodgy they are. 

Many years ago I worked in and around the recruitment industry and they had a similar problem, their answer was to encourage members organisations to publish their membership of the industry body on all ads to clearly separate the legitimate practitioners from the dodgy ones and then promote this logo as a sign of quality. Once the LPA get their head around a code of conduct for marketing they need to do the same develop a logo as a badge of credibility in an industry that still has a lot of cowboys to weed out.

Anyway that's about it for my first post, hopefully I've sparked some debate.