This year's Arts Marketing Association conference was held just down the road from Supercool HQ at The REP (plus a drinks reception with our friends at mac birmingham).

In the spirit of sharing and learning and stuff, here're some tidied-up notes on the first session I went to – I thought this'd be a useful one as we have several clients with a very similar core audience demographic to Northern Ballet.

[My thoughts/asides are in square brackets.]

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Adapting your message to reach different target groups

Laraine Penson – Director of Communications, Northern Ballet

– “Focus on the user and all else will follow”Google Truth

– Northern Ballet’s current core audience are middle class, middle aged, white, well-off Telegraph and Daily Mail readers who shop at M&S and Waitrose. 1.9m households in the UK fit this MOSAIC profile so it’s an important demographic. MOSAIC is a good segmentation tool to use as it’s used by corporates – so if you’re looking to partner with corporates, you're making it easy to compare audience/client profiles.

– Print and email are most liked by this demographic; though their presence is growing on social media. Northern Ballet would’ve liked to advertise in Waitrose magazine, for example, but the cost is prohibitive so instead they advertise in car parks near M&S and Waitrose stores. [Think laterally]

– Learning more about the audience included finding their primary reason for attending arts and cultural stuff:
- Captivation
- Emotional engagement
- Appreciation of artistry
- Shared experience
- Visual spectacle
- Anticipation
- The ‘afterglow’

– Northern Ballet have been sending short emails a couple of days before people come to see a performance with info such as character profiles. This help build people’s anticipation, and helps them to feel better informed about what they’re about to see. A huge barrier with ballet [and also classical music] is “What if I don’t understand it?” / “Will I get it?” [I love the idea of giving people these added extra bits of information in advance, so the experience starts a bit earlier. Deeper knowledge = deeper engagement with the company/venue etc. Giving people a clear idea of what to expect also takes away some of the risk of committing – though in this case they’ve already bought a ticket.]

– 5 years ago Northern Ballet rebranded with the main changes being to imagery and tone of voice. They’ve invested a lot in very high quality photography – which Laraine says has really paid off – and they now make sure every show has a professional-looking, high quality set of ‘emotive’ imagery. [The core thought being “show, don’t tell”, which I wholeheartedly agree with.] They also have this sort of info. on their website. Another branding change was to overhaul their copy and tone of voice to be more ‘experiential’ [rather than explanatory and/or salesy].

– To expand audience, they experimented with reaching out to new ACE-defined audiences who should (according to Culture Segments segmentation) be receptive to them; Fun, Fashion and Friends, and Dinner & A Show (nearest crossover with core audience). They ran an ‘experience’ for glossy mag journalists, supported by a range of corporate partners: East Coast trains brought people to Leeds; they had a Great Gatsby-themed make-up demo by MAC cosmetics, lunch at Harvey Nichols, saw The Great Gatsby ballet, and stayed in a partner hotel for the night. It cost Northern Ballet nothing but the tickets, and the time it took to put the package together – everything else was covered by partnerships. They got coverage from every publication invited, including a follow-up piece on Vogue’s website with a competition (to win a ‘package experience’) which reached approx. 2m people.

– The secrets of effective messaging: keep it short (no more than 30 words), truthful, credible, relevant and clear. And repeat it. Repetition makes sure it’s heard, reinforces and reminds people of core message/s. [Repetition makes sure it’s heard, reinforces and reminds people of core message/s …

]

– Consistent messaging across diverse channels = engagement.

[No need to squint – the text from the slide pictured is below]

– Some internet-related stats:

• The average Brit checks their phone 50 times a day
• 46% of 18-24yr olds check their phone every 15 minutes
• 77% of adults in the UK have broadband
• 20% of viewers abandon video after 10 seconds (so put your most important message first)
• YouTube is the second most popular search engine [Hmm. More accurately, it has the second most popular search function on the internet – I dispute it being a ‘search engine’. Though I can be a bit of a pedant …]

– Northern Ballet tried making some 'teaser' trailers, and they didn't perform anything like as well (in terms of views) as trailers or snippets of film of the actual productions. [Again; showing people exactly what to expect is popular]

– Direct mail is still a very effective form of communication – as long as it's well targeted and well designed; specifically for the people you're talking to.

– Provide moments of magic to make your offer the easy choice for people.

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Up next: Notes on Influencing Upwards: Asking the Right Questions by Mark Wright of People Create.