Archive for January, 2012
Super Subscribers: Saving the Day, Seeding a Loyalty Initiative
An instructive case study of soliciting donors from subscribers at 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle from TRG Arts.
Facing a funding shortfall in 2009/10, 2010/11 subscriber were approached to become “Super Subscribers” and make a donation to “enhance their theatre-going experience“.
This is explained as follows: “Instead of requesting help for the organization, the letter invited patrons to enhance their theater experience with a tax-deductible gift that included experiential benefits: a backstage tour, a one-time guest pass to the major donor lounge, and a show poster of the subscriber’s choice from the upcoming season. Their gift would also support scholarships for the 5th‘s upcoming summer camps, but the primary focus of the ask was on the subscriber’s experience.“
40% of donations came in response to just the direct mail campaign without the need for any follow up calls.
The campaign brought in 453 gifts and a total of $51,189 at a 10% cost-of-sale and analysis by TRG was very interesting:
- “Most Super Subscribers were relatively new to subscribing. 65% included first timers, subscribers of five or fewer years, or patrons returning after letting their subscription lapse.
- Super Subscribers were primarily new donors. 70% had no previous giving history; 30% were lapsed donors.
- Super Subscribers were twice as generous. The campaign’s average gift size was $113, more than double 5th Avenue prior new gift average of $53.73.”
24 January, 2012 at 7:50 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
“A Good Decision is Based on Knowledge, Not on Numbers” – Plato 400BC-ish
Ticketmaster has hired “data guru” John Carnahan to head up it’s new Data Science group as the executive vice president of data science and engineering.
Ticketmaster looks inward to mine for gold, hires data science expert (exclusive)
I am sorry, but is it just me? A ticket is a means to an end. There is no demand for a ticket per se, there is a demand to attend an event that a ticket is a licence for and a seat – a location from which to experience the event.
Carnahan says “we don’t know what the value of a seat means to a user,”
“His goal for the Data Science group is to dig through Ticketmaster transaction data to understand the value of a ticket,“
Good luck with that …
20 January, 2012 at 12:56 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Audience Development may yet, not be, a “non-job”?
A colleague, Jerry Yoshitomi of MeaningMatters, put me on to this article. I find this quite exciting for the future of Audience Development and the development of meaningful consumer models – Voter data crucial to Romney’s victory
No, I am not going to bore you with a regurgitation of the seemingly endless US election process 
I am, however going to wax lyrical about the use of data to segment prospects and inform relationship marketing.
“A central factor in Mitt Romney’s impressive win in New Hampshire was a sophisticated and relentless voter contact program that locked in supporters early and turned them out to the polls.“
Romney’s team “mined reams of consumer information — from the number of purchases voters made at Williams-Sonoma to their range of financial investments — to build a model that would allow them to find and identify potential supporters.“
They used data to prioritise prospects and then implemented an ongoing structured program of communication developed a loyal core.
“Romney operatives expanded a list of 5,000 solid supporters in New Hampshire from his 2008 campaign to more than 25,000 whom they believed they could rely … while also turning out with friends, relatives and colleagues.“
Just imagine if we had audiences on which we could rely and they turned out with friends, relatives and colleagues. Although I am not sure that we would aspire to this approach in the arts?
“In the end, the Romney team credited its successes to persistence — finding those undecided voters leaning their way and just inundating them,” said Romney’s New Hampshire director, Jason McBride.
Let’s hope that the arts can learn from this constituent development and use similar data mining tools for substantive audience development. Maybe we can then put to bed the accusations of nay-sayers like the recalcitrant Eric Pickles who variously called audience development an “non-job” or a “pointless post”.
13 January, 2012 at 10:54 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
What do you reckon about the likely impact of these Marketing Trends on CRM in 2012?
Here are some more predictions of marketing trends that will impact CRM in 2012 according to Judith Aquino of CRM.COM in 5 Hot Marketing Trends (not surprisingly, mobile is at the top):
- Mobile Marketing
- QR Codes
- Voice Of Customer (VOC) Monitoring
- Social Media Marketing
- Video
Finally, she suggests an additional trend with the ‘news’ that Groupon and Daily Deals sites have fallen to earth and are no longer seen as the ‘answer’. Surely, you would have to suggest that they were only ever good for pissing of existing and loyal customers with unfocussed discounts in the guise of prospecting for new customers – BUT without gaining any personal details with which to build an ongoing relationship with those new prospects?
2 January, 2012 at 5:47 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
1 January, 2012 at 9:54 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
