Gene Carr's Patron Technology Blog

What Can the Arts Learn from JetBlue?

I'm delving into the subject of the customer experience today. The customer experience Isn't marketing  –  it’s what happens after marketing. This been on my mind a lot recently, and I don’t think we think about it nearly enough.  If you go to pretty much any arts marketing conference these days, you'll hear all about churn. Everyone is recognizing that we spend a lot of money bringing new patrons to our theaters, and most of them don't come back.

I think one of the keys to licking this problem is fixing the overall customer experience. This includes (but is not limited to) what goes on on the stage itself.

I’m going to talk about this in a roundabout way by focusing on the airline industry. I've been traveling around the country going to conferences for last few weeks, so this is fresh in my mind.  If you've been reading this blog from the beginning, you’ll know that JetBlue is one of my favorite airlines.  I'll get to JetBlue in a moment, but first, let me tell you about last week, when I had to fly on American Airlines.

Everything about that experience was a downer. The planes looked haggard and the seats were frayed and dirty. The staff seemed unhappy and it was clear they were doing their jobs because they had to, not because they wanted to. I don't doubt American Airlines is going through tough times, as are all airlines. But the experience from the consumer perspective wasn’t doesn't make up for that. Truth is I didn't have any major complaints. The plane left and arrived on time. Everything was ultimately done in a competent manner. But if had to identify something great about American Airlines that would motivate me to travel with them again the next time I fly, it would be hard to do.

Let's contrast that to my experience last night on JetBlue. I was on my way out to Seattle to the Americans for the Arts Conference, and I was at the spacious, clean (and very quiet) JFK JetBlue terminal for about an hour.  Near the gate was a dining bar – a sort of eating and work station where I could plug in my computer. (At this dining bar, there was also a fixed computer screen in front of each customer where I could order a sandwich and a drink which would then get delivered to me.)

Sitting across from me in the terminal was a pilot. It turns out it was the was the pilot for my flight and he had already been in a conversation with a backpack-laden student who was sitting next to me, so I joined in on the conversation. It turns out he's been working for JetBlue for eight years and he immediately wanted to know what I thought of the airline. He apologized for the famous Valentine's Day fiasco some years ago, and was genuinely interested in my comments and thanked me several times for flying on JetBlue. "It's customers like you who keep us in business."

 At one point there was an announcement on the PA about the fact that our flight was delayed, and he got up to go find out what was going on.  To my surprise, a few minutes later, he came back to our to us to explain that the inbound plane had arrived late but that flying time to Seattle was going to be shorter than published, and that we would in fact arrive on time.

He didn't have to come back to tell us what was going on, but the fact that he did definitely made me feel special. Then when I got on the plane, he recognized and waved at me, and when the flight was over, I saw him at the front of the plane and he shook my hand and said, “Hey, only five minutes late.” I felt like I was talking to “my” pilot! 

Needless to say this isn't an experience that all customers have. But it's indicative of a mindset of the airline and it's employees. And, if you've flown on JetBlue you also know that once onboard it has the most legroom of any airline, leather seats and a ton of music offerings and DirectTV at every seat. The planes are new and the flight crew almost never interrupts with PA messages during the flight. And, before you take off, the pilot comes out from the cockpit stands in the front of the cabin with a microphone and addresses the passengers directly, talking about the flight to come.

Needless to say, there’s a direct analogy to our field. Ultimately these two airlines got me from point A to point B. Only in the JetBlue case, apparently everyone involved (up to and including the pilots) understands that the customer experience is the key difference. That experience is what is going to get me to rebook the next time, and go out of my way to fly JetBlue over another carrier, and to blog about it.

Notwithstanding the fact that a great performance can remain with you for a long time, I’ll bet that a big reason for so much churn in our business is that people aren’t treated specially in the theater or concert hall.  I don't think we focus on the small details (like the line in the rest room) or the smile on the face of the person handing out your program? 

And can someone please tell me why in an industry in which the average age of patrons is over 50 in most cases, the font size of the programs is tiny? What's the point of handing out a program with minuscule printing when you require 90% of the audience to fumble around looking for their glasses two minutes before the curtain goes up? (In fairness I have seen some venues offer large-type versions of their programs - printed out on xerox paper. Isn't that a bit backwards?

I think this is a big deal. Clearly JetBlue gets that it's in the hospitality business as much as it is in the travel business. And, if you believe that arts are (if only partially) part of that industry as well, I think the arts field needs a new mindset and commitment to focus on this aspect of the business a lot more if it truly wants to build audiences for the future.

Putting Things In Perspective - Digitally, That Is

Folks, sometimes facts are very friendly.

I happened upon a chart today from eMarketer.com, which I think contains all that you need to know about prioritizing your online marketing. The data looks at the behavior of folks who are already online. 

Looks like big and old media still rule the day. And "search engines" (which really means Google) get the top slot for digital involvement.

The most interesting thing to me is that the very next Web-based medium referenced is, ahem, e-mail newsletters. Yup, way ahead of social networking or even regular Web sites.

I've been saying this for, oh, about seven years now, and finally there's data to prove this in context. That's why we also say that sending out e-mail newsletters isn't merely about "doing" it, but about doing it well.

That means great strategy and flawless execution. You need to dig into the field, learn about what others are doing, adopt best practices, and get into the minutiae. That's what will make your efforts stand out, and that's why we offer so many webinars, seminars, and training sessions to our clients. Sending e-mail is easy -- and people pay attention to it (as you can see below.) That's why it's doubly important that you do it well.

My advice is to recalibrate the ratio of your digital budgets (both your time budget and your financial budget) according to what you see below. 

The Newspaper Transition: A Personal View

As I write about and think about the economic crisis that the newspaper industry is in, I'm paying a lot of attention to my own personal transition from news consumption in print to online. I'm a long-time reader of The New York Times, and have had the print edition delivered to my apartment for years.

Until the advent of e-mail, waking up and grabbing the Times and flipping through it was pretty much the first thing I did every morning. But, like most of you, I now check my e-mail first. And more and more frequently, I now check the Times online, even before I grab the paper edition at my doorstep.

I check the Times during the day from work, and often on my Blackberry between meetings. Those articles I don't have time to read at home, I save for when I'm waiting for a bus or grabbing a sandwich for lunch.

Of course there's an entire generation of readers that hasn't ever (and won't ever) buy the print edition, but that's not my focus.

My main observation is that I think many of the Times most loyal readers (folks of my generation) are in a transition. They are not reading exclusively online, nor are they ready to give up the print edition. There's something about the print edition that gives me more -- I skim articles in print that I wouldn't otherwise take the time to click on when reading the online version. In other words, I get a more broad news experience from the print edition than I get online -- and that matters to me.

Having said that, I am increasingly frustrated that when I do get the print edition, I've already read at least half the articles online, or at least noticed them. Because the Times includes articles in the print edition that have already been online for 12 or more hours, this reinforces my notion that the print edition is dated -- making it feel like I'm looking at some historical document, not the news, which is the whole point of a "news" paper!

There is no easy solution here for the Times. The issue is that the more people like me consume their news product online, the more the print edition seems old and tired. That's a big conundrum since we know that despite Marc Andreessen's suggestion that the Times simply shut down its printing presses (see my last blog post), if the Times did that, it they would be forced to lay off a huge part of its workforce, essentially cannibalizing its own product just to stay in business. Unlike the automobile industry, which can produce the same quality car but just fewer of them, you can't have the same quality Times with half the staff.

It seems to me that the Times (and by reference other print papers) ought to be pouring tons of research and development dollars into creating a viable solution. Who knows, maybe they are. If they would simply rethink the notion of print vs. online -- and create two different news experiences, one for online and one for print -- I might remain a print subscriber. Thus they would protect the print advertising revenue that drives their company.

I don't see that happening at the Times, nor anywhere else, and as a big fan of the Times I hope they figure it out soon, but somehow I suspect "creative destruction" will win the day. 

One reason to be optimistic

Last night I managed to catch most of a really fascinating interview on Charlie Rose (disclaimer: the Charlie Rose show is a PatronMail client) and his guest was Marc Andreessen, who is famously the founder of Netscape, which evolved into Firefox.

I don't think I ever fully grasped why Netscape was such a success until I watched this interview. This guy is truly brilliant, and if you want a reason to feel optimistic about how technology is going to continue to revolutionize our lives for the next 50 years, watch this show.

As you probably know I've been thinking a lot about newspapers and the demise of that industry, and Andreessen minces no words on that topic. He also talks about the next generation of the iPhone and the how the Kindle and products like it will change how we read books.

Here's a link to watch the interview on the Charlie Rose Web site.

Let me know what you think.

E-mail Stays Steady

As I talk with arts & non-profit managers, it's clear that  the scope and depth of the current recession is beginning to be translated into real budget cuts and changes to staffing and strategy. Nearly every day, I'm reading about another organization that's cutting back its season in some way.

However, as I talk with my colleagues in the technology field, many of them are not feeling the pinch as much. Indeed, there's an article in The New York Times today that reports that as the economy got worse, Amazon.com did better. Consumers are now more invested in the online world than ever. eMarketer reported on an USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future study showing that in 2001, the average weekly time spent online for at home consumers was just 3.3 hours, and by 2007 it had jumped to over 15 hours per week.

I think that lifestyle change has become ingrained in everyday thinking, and managers are indeed shifting their strategies and cutting their budgets. But unlike the past, it's not simply an across-the-board cut. Now they are revising their tactics about how they are spending scarce marketing dollars.

Those who haven't done so already are taking a fresh and hard look at the ROI for their direct mail and print efforts. As a result, managers are getting more and more serious about online marketing. A small personal benchmark: I've gotten two calls this week asking me about e-marketing consulting, compared to zero calls for all of 2008.

What's also fascinates me is that e-mail always seems to be the poor step-child of e-marketing. It's been around a long time, it's been tainted by being called spam, and it's decidedly not new and sexy, like Twitter and Facebook are.

That said, consumers have basically "baked in" e-mail into their lives in a way that is remarkably consistent. This chart from the direct marketing firm Epsilon shows that overall open and click rates in the corporate community have not changed very much, despite the vast changes to the online medium.

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As someone who has focused on the stability and effectiveness of e-mail as a bona-fide marketing tool for seven years, this data does a great job in demonstrating exactly why tough times require a solid, cost-effective marketing tool like e-mail.

...And Apparently for College Kids Too

As a follow-up to Monday's post, I thought this bit of research would be of interest as well.

I wish I had a dollar for every person that said to me "e-mail might be important today, but it won't be long before it dies. After all, college students don't use e-mail, they only send text messages."

Wrong.

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In an August 2008 study conducted by Harris Interactive for Alloy Media + Marketing, we find that not only does e-mail beat out text messaging by 2 to 1, it also beats Facebook and other social networks college students visit. 

E-mail Is Still King for Boomers

One of the things that attracted me seven years ago to building a business based around e-mail marketing was my belief that as technology developed, e-mail would shed its then bad image as spam, and would take its rightful place as the most valuable and effective marketing tool for non-profits.

Over the years, the market has validated this and today nearly everyone understands that e-mail is an important component of your marketing strategy.

What often irks me is the propensity for "flavor of the month" thinking. A few years ago, people were telling me that RSS would kill off e-mail: once people adopted RSS, they would stop wanting opt-in e-mail. When that didn't happen, next it was text messaging: "Nobody wants e-mail! The cell phone is the device of the future!" was the cry. But neither of these technologies have killed off e-mail and I doubt that they ever will.  

That said, what's important to me is to highlight the relative interest in these technologies by the vast majority of arts patrons -- those between 35 and 65 years old.

Check out these numbers below -- these are from a recent study that asked people HOW they want to receive communications. The numbers tell the story even better than I can.

Rich Time Online

My favorite research site has done it again. The latest research report to catch my eye dramatically demonstrates what we already know, but in a very compelling way.

The more affluent the Internet user, the more time they spend online.

What's also interesting is that as income goes up, TV usage drops a lot but radio does not. I suspect that is the NPR factor at work.

One of the things that I tried to stress last week at our conference was that more than any other communication device, your Web site must be the very best and most updated place to get information about your organization. And, if you care a lot about raising money, it looks like your most wealthy prospects are spending a lot of time online.

Big Companies are Getting E-mail Now

What always amazes me is how much money non-profits spend in direct mail marketing, when the evidence shows that e-mail works better, costs less, and is easier to do. I don't fully understand why making a significant investment in e-mail marketing is something so few managers are willing to do. In my conversations, there always seems to be a reluctance to break away from the tried-and-true. So it is for those of you among my readers that I direct this post.

Apparently the word about e-mail marketing has gotten out to America's biggest corporations. Last week, a report was released by Direct Partners. It was a study of responses from 30,000 surveys sent in April, to senior executives at companies with 2007 revenues exceeding $100 million. 28 percent of respondents said that e-mail works most effectively for them, with 24 percent reporting that direct mail does the best job.

Here's the entire article, which is worth a read.

Of all people, I am the last to admonish non-profits to "act more like a business" -  but in this case, corporate America seems to be "getting it" a lot faster than we are.

Senior Web Users Continually Surprise

It seems I'm on a roll with how the older audience uses the Web. Since the average age of our the audience that responded to our 2008 Arts Patron Tracking Study is 49, I like to focus on that age range.

This morning I noticed a small piece of research that had something in it that jumped off the page at me. Tell me if you see what I see:

  
OK, perhaps the green circle gives it away, but I find this a bit shocking. According to this DoubleClick study published in eMarketer, promotional emails are more effective in influencing adults over 55 to make a purchase than search engine result pages.

My theory here is that older adults don't do Google searches as frequently, nor are they perhaps as adept at them. If either of these are true, then e-mail marketing has become an even more important tool to use to market to an older audience.