Audience Development

Engaging new audiences and deepening connections with existing ones.

You Probably Need To Be Spending More On Overhead

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For decades now there has been a belief that the lower the ratio of non-profit’s overhead expenses to program expense, the better run the non-profit is.  As a result, a low overhead ratio has been viewed as something of a virtue and non-profit organizations have used all sorts of accounting tricks and parsed terminology in an effort to  redefine what constitutes an overhead expense. Likewise, funders have rewarded non-profits who can exhibit low overhead expense ratios or they disallow the use of funding for overhead altogether. This has created what many have … Read more

Maintaining A Consistent Brand Requires Change

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When things have been going poorly for an organization and they seek a fresh start, (perhaps upon emerging from a national epidemic), the impulse is often to rebrand. However, in a Marketing Week piece, Mark Ritson, argues for a revitalization rather than rebranding.  Ritson argues that even if you feel public perception is so bad there is a need to start over from square one, there is actually quite a bit of solid foundation you would be abandoning in a rebrand. Rebranding – in which we not only attempt to change the … Read more

Show Me What You Love About The Arts Without Using Pictures Of The Arts

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Advisory Board for the Arts sponsored a webinar discussing how Utah Symphony shifted its marketing focus to emphasize emotional factors and shared values.  Karen Freeman, Executive Director of Research at Advisory Board for the Arts, observed that this approach can be effective because “people make choices based on emotional factors but justify it with rational considerations.”  Essentially, how this might manifest is you may choose what car to purchase based on an emotional association but decide it is a good choice based on things like gas mileage, dealer incentives and utility to … Read more