9% Decline in Newpaper Circulation
The New York Times reported today that newspaper circulation has fallen almost 9 percent since the same time last year. 9 percent!
Further evidence that traditional advertising is loosing it's punch. I see this as a call to examine your marketing budget allocations. Here is my advice. Take 9% of your newspaper advertising budget away from the newspaper and invest it in improving your permission marketing.
Social Networkers Still Love Email
Choosing between sending an email to your constituents or updating your org's Facebook status? Probably not but it is good to know that a recent study found that social network users check their inboxes more frequently than those who shun social sites. So most likely your Facebook fans are getting, and reading, your institutional emails. More here from eMarketer Daily.
A Great Email Promoting a Single Production
I think this is a really strong email from Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. They've created a great template to promote a single production. It is simple and effective including a few brief quotes, a strong visual, a succinct overview, visual links to multimedia, and a clear and bold call to action.
Email 2.0 - A Major Opportunity
I think it is fair to say that the performing arts industry is pretty far behind the email marketing curve, operating with email 1.0 technology. New technologies exist to tie email into ecommerce--more email 2.0. Think of email marketing as a conversion funnel where the first step is a user opening an email and the final step is a user purchasing a ticket on your website. Most email programs that arts organizations employ stop tracking a user once they click on a link in an email. All they track are email open rates and click through. New technologies can track much further, following users all the way to purchase or cart abandonment. Email 2.0 systems can be set to automatically send follow up messages based on user browsing and purchasing behavior which can ultimately lead to major increases in sales.
A Video Fundraising Campaign
I am proud to have worked on a video fundraising project at New York City Opera that was a collaboration between the marketing and development departments. We created a video of General Manager and Artistic Director, George Steel, discussing the recent successes at City Opera and sent out email appeals asking patrons to help out with a matching gift drive by donating online. This is the second time we have created an email video appeal campaign and this time I think we did it quite well.
Measuring Email Effectiveness
Last week on his blog Gene Carr of Patron Technology wrote about email open rates. He concluded that while open rates are important, marketers should also measure "cumulative average open rate." This is a measure of how many recipients open emails consistently, how many open sometimes, and how many don't open at all.
Measuring Email Effectiveness
Last week on his blog Gene Carr of Patron Technology wrote about email open rates. He concluded that while open rates are important, marketers should also measure "cumulative average open rate." This is a measure of how many recipients open emails consistently, how many open sometimes, and how many don't open at all.
Creating Effective Emails
People read email differently than they read a brochure or a newspaper. If someone is enticed by the subject line (or very loyal to your organization) they may open your email and skim it, not really read it. Lots of text makes skimming difficult.
Email Collection Must Be a Top Priority
Email address collection can no longer be something that cultural organizations just think about in passing. It must become a top priority for your organization or you are going to be in big trouble very soon. Here's why:
