Recession Special

First, let me express my sincere condolences for friends and colleagues who have lost their jobs, and artists who have lost performance contracts, in this financial mess. I joked when Lehmans closed shop that finally the economics of the arts and the rest of the world had evened out, but…it’s all gotten progressively less funny.

Though we never had much money to spend in the arts anyway, these months have been especially tough. I touched on some of these ideas back in July here, but, in honor of the recession, let’s think about arts marketing on the cheap.

Marketing your album.

• Have a local artist or student artist donate the album art. Credit them on and in all press releases and ads concerning the album. Cross-promote the showcasing of the original art at a gallery (or even their/your apartment) with an album release party. Take out ads for both prints of the artwork and the CD together.

• Identify sure-thing audiences and advertise to them and them alone. For example, if you’re releasing a contemporary classical music disc, advertise on new music blogs like Sequenza21, a site that gets thousands of hits per day from people already interested in what your selling. Advertising on Sequenza21 is the deal of the century, too: $150 per MONTH for smaller ads (45×145) and $300 per month for larger ads (145×400).  ArtsJournal, where you are now, is also very reasonable, as is Violinist.com.

• Send your disc to college radio stations.

• GIVE YOUR MUSIC AWAY. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Find an artist who has the audience you aspire to have, and offer your disc as a free gift along with the purchase of their album. No, you won’t make any money, but consider it an investment – like, opening for someone on tour. Give away a free track in exchange for signing up for your mailing list. Make sure you get names, e mail addresses and zip codes, so you can target future e mail blasts to areas in which you are performing. Reach out to music blogs with high readerships and pitch exclusive free track downloads. Bands have been doing this for years, and there are a lot of classical music blogs out there.

Marketing your concerts.

• Get on the horn with other arts presenters in your area and work out media exchanges. That is, X Choral Society gets advertising in Y Chamber Orchestra’s playbills and, in exchange, Y Chamber Orchestra gets advertising in X Choral Society’s playbills. This is not the time to think of other presenters in your town/city as competitors, but rather as colleagues for broader strokes of audience-building for the performing arts. Think about some kind of joint discount program, for example, if you go to ten performances in one city of participating organizations, you get an eleventh free anywhere you chose. Co-promote “your perfect weekend” packages on various organization’s websites. If the Choral Society has a Christmas concert on Friday night, and the Chamber Orchestra has a concert on the Saturday night, joint-encourage community members to buy both.

• Advertise concerts on Facebook.

• Work with local restaurants. Their business is bad, your business is bad. Offer 10% off all meals (excluding booze or whatever) when people show their tickets or ticket stubs from that night. Restaurants and performing arts organizations alike can advertise the deal. Beyond a boring but effective 10% off, think creatively about fun promotions: folks who produce their Nutcracker tickets get a free coffee, fruit platter, gingerbread cake or cookie, marzipan candy or torte, candy cane, or cheese platter. (The cheese platter, of course, would be an homage to The Mouse King. Come on people, keep up.)

• Embrace recession terminology. Instead of offering “discount” tickets, advertise “sales”. That’s what we’re all getting used to seeing everywhere, so why not send e mails to your lists highlighting the sales, that is, discounted, badly-selling concerts, for the week.

• Connect with national service organizations like Chamber Music America and Chorus America. They have members across the country and, I assume, are always looking for membership perks. Set up ticket discount programs in exchange for them blasting out about your concerts to their members in your area.

• (I’m not sure how much money this will save, and I always keep my programs, but maybe) print the evening’s program on posters in your lobby and e mail it (along with program notes) to all ticket buyers. That way, you can encourage audiences who would leave their programs on their seats not to take them, and start printing less. If you’re concerned about losing program advertiser dollars, include banner ads in the “program” e mail you send out.

• Stream all concerts on your website live and for free. Let your community know that they can still see performances even if they can’t afford tickets at this moment. When they can afford tickets again, they’ll remember your organization’s gesture, as well, presumably, as how much they enjoyed the performances. If you don’t want to stream live concerts for free, offer a reasonable monthly subscription or pay-per-view for all concerts streaming online a la the Met Player.

Increasing your donor base: not my specialty, but a form of marketing nonetheless.

• Let people know how little they can donate. I recently became a MOMA member for just $75 – I spend at least that in museum admission every year, and previously didn’t know membership was so reasonable. Pull an Obama campaign on your community – $20 makes a difference, $50 makes a difference. Advertise donor perks on Facebook.

• Pay-what-you-want dress rehearsals. Open up all dress rehearsals to the public, but ask for a donation – can be $1, can be $50 – at the door.

• Think creatively about new work commissioning and concert-sponsoring. I’ve spoken of this before here, but reach out to your community to create new works. $100 buys you 30 seconds of a new piece, and you’re credited for that just like a major donor would be for an entire piece, along with all the other donors who made the piece possible. Create a new series that’s entirely sponsored by donations under $100.

• Create a matching gifts program with one of your (remaining) major donors. That is, said major donor will match the amount raised by exclusively new donors to an organization in a week’s time. Reach these potential new donors through local colleges, public schools, churches, restaurants, libraries, stores – everywhere you can think of – with a cheap but expressing-the-urgency flyering campaign. Neon paper, big black letters, and an under-$100 photocopying bill. Have your entire organization – from intern to artistic director – take an afternoon off and cover the community with the flyers. (…and get local press to cover that.)

Surely there are many, many cheap marketing ideas I haven’t thought of, so comments are encouraged here, as always. If someone steals (”  “) your great, money-saving idea across the country or across the street, WHO CARES.  We certai
nly all can’t afford marketing consultants and branding firms, so let’s start sharing some ideas.