aCue to connect you! Your source for Arts and Small Business: Planning, Management, Strategy, Special Events, Funding and Production in British Columbia!

Sales and the Arts - all to often these two areas of business do not have the intimate relationship that they really should have in my opinion.

Unfortunately 'Sales' comes with a negative connotation for many people, the images that come to mind are door to door sales people, commission sales people who follow you around a store endlessly, and the worst culprit - used car salespeople.

Ok - so its got a bad rap. But EVERYTHING in business is about sales essentially. So if you are wanting to see a profit rather than a loss in your fiscal year end statements, adopting some good sales strategies is a very good idea.

Now how exactly does 'Sales' translate into the 'Arts'?

First of all, lets change the 'Sales' into what it really is professionally - Marketing. Marketing is a very precise tool that allows your organization to essentially pull in income for the product or service that you have by developing a strategy. Any good business has a good Marketing plan in place. In the Arts, I find that all too often this essential aspect of a good business is left out of the whole picture. Why is this?

In my opinion, due to the nature of the way Arts organizations are run, many of these businesses are operated by  one person or a team of 2-5 max. More often than not, this 'team' consists of the Artistic Director, other artists and/or inexpensive hired help. This is just the way things work due to the extremely tight budgets of most non-profit organizations. On the surface, this appears to be a good way to tackle things - but in the bigger picture, essential business practices seem to get left behind, mostly for lack of understanding of the current staff on how to execute them.

So the solution? In my practice, I encourage Arts organizations to hire professional expertise in ALL areas of business. Not for full time permanent positions, that is simply not affordable in non profit. But as temporary Consultants, who are trained, educated and expertly equipped to teach you and your staff effective Marketing tools. So that in the long run, the money spent on this consultant comes back tenfold in the profits you see due to a refined and professional business Marketing Strategy.

What does a marketing expert do? The following are the basic principles of 'Marketing Steps' that a consultant can assist you with:

1. Set Goals: What do you want to achieve with your marketing plan? Goals for an Arts organization will probably include; expectation of number of tickets you will sell for your production, the amount of money you will make (revenue), the amount of press coverage or publicity you will get (articles and media mentions). You will want to set what audience you are targeting - will it be the same returning audience? Or do you want to entice new audience to attend? What is your demographic? Children, Teens, Adults, Seniors or all of the above? And finally what is the image you want to project to these communities as a non profit? Are you addressing community issues?
2. Assess your current status: How strong is your organization currently in it's marketing efforts? Be honest, be brutal. Where are the gaps? Assess the target marks (people) who you have not been able to reach before like new audience members, and figure out what promotional tools that you have used before that have worked and what tools have not worked.
3. Develop a Plan: Marketing is nothing without a good strategic plan. Once you have assessed your current status, you are ready to develop a plan, addressing what works and what has not worked and needs to be changed. Identify objectives, strategies and tactics to achieve your goals. In the Arts the following are very important areas, or objectives to include:

• Encourage repeat attendance - make sure your regular audience is aware of your new show and have been invited to attend. Send e-mails, postcards, or make phone calls. Utilize Social media, facebook, twitter and utube to announce this new event.
• Work on the 'maybe's' - Target those people who often express interest but never come. Come up with tactics that push them just far enough over that edge to commit to coming to your show this time.
• Encourage people who have never, or rarely participated in any Arts Related event to attend - This is a 'new audience' find ways to reach out to your community to invite these new faces. Create enticing motivation for them to attend.

A good marketing expert will be able to guide your organization through all of these steps and put into process a system specifically geared towards your product, or Art. Once you have these systems in place, it simply becomes a good practice to keep using these strategies and continue growing as a business.

So don't cringe at the word 'sales' in the Arts - Embrace it for all that it can do for your company if well planned and executed. You are after all, a business, why not start creating solid and professional business practices?