Gene Carr's Patron Technology Blog

Kindle & Digital Newspapers? They Still Don't Get It

It seems every day we hear more and more bad news about newspapers, so it was with some excitement that I read about the introduction of the Amazon Kindle, in The New York Times last week. It's more or less the same device, with a much bigger screen.

For a long time when people asked me what I thought newspapers should have been doing differently in the last five years, I told them that building the Kindle would have been a good idea, as it would convert folks like me from paper to digital. Now it turns out that Amazon beat them to it, and partnered with The New York Times, and a few other papers.

But buried deep within the article was the a sentence about pricing that stunned me.

Three newspapers, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, will offer a reduced price on the Kindle in exchange for a long-term subscription, but only for people who live in areas where their paper editions are not available.

Isn't this backwards? Shouldn't they be pricing this aggressively to woo folks like me from paper to digital? I guess they still don't recognize that their paper printing days are numbered, and their strategy is to milk existing subscribers like me for subscription fees until we leave on our own accord.

The danger in this strategy is that competition will trump them. What will happen when some clever entrepreneur does a mash-up of the Times and other newspapers for the Kindle that I find better than the Times itself?  It could happen, and probably will. And if the Times blocks such a venture (as the AP is trying to do with Google right now) they only shoot themselves in the foot.

What I learned in B-school decades ago was that the first question every business needs to answer is "What business are we in?" Clearly the Times has answered that question: We are (still) in the business of printing paper and distributing it. If their answer was "news distribution" then I'd think they would have a very different approach to the Kindle DX - like giving it away for free to print subscribers in return for a long-term fee-based subscription.

Vox PoP Redux: Actually By More Than Half

Thanks everyone for participating in my little test marketing survey in my last post. You can read all the comments from viewers here.

The verdict on my little test proves my point. Some commenters already knew what Vox was, but putting those aside, all the rest (including me) only had a vague notion of what this video was all about. One commenter strung the missing pieces together and concluded that this was some kind preview of the NYCO's next season. That seems to be a logical conclusion. Only that ain't what this is about.  

Here's the answer, which interestingly enough came in the form of an e-mail from the Skirball Center, which hosted the event:

The partnership between New York City Opera and NYU Skirball Center continues in 2009 in celebration of VOX's 10th Anniversary with free performances of 10 bold new works from both established and emerging composers.

Guess what - it's a TWO DAY FREE FESTIVAL!!! Free. Did anyone hear me say "free?"  Darn. Wish I knew that weeks ago, I would have reserved a ticket.

Look, I give the NYCO kudos for producing a really interesting video. But in my book it wasn't marketing. It was a self-indulgent promotional piece that served those who already knew what Vox was. (Maybe I'm missing the point entirely; maybe the secret is that this event is so popular they can get away with obscuring the sell.) 

But, given that the NYCO has publicly stated that it's betting its future on rebuilding its mission (and replacing its current audience) by doing new works, it seems to me that this kind of promotion does the Opera a disservice. I think the NYCO ought to start building its new audience by wooing folks in, not preaching to the converted.

That means clear, crisp, direct marketing messages that communicate a "value story" to the prospect. This is B-school Marketing 101: Communicate directly the benefits of your product and consumers may buy. I'm reverting to hardcore marketing jargon - because in these economic times, I think arts marketers need to get back to basics. 

NYC Opera: Too Hip by Half? Take My Marketing Challenge

Last week I got a curious brochure in the mail from the New York City Opera. This is the same group that lost its high profile French leader only months ago, and turned to New York's own forward-thinking George Steel to rescue the institution and redefine its mission.

It's also the same group that, according to an article in last week's The New York Times, "had raided its endowment of a total of $23.5 million to pay off debts and right the troubled company’s finances, leaving little left in its coffers."

So anything new coming from the City Opera caught my attention as a harbinger of things to come. And indeed, this print brochure looked like something much more likely to come out of an Indie film festival (or a comic book store). In fact, it was so hip, one of my staff said, "Why did they do this in print at all? Why not just create a Web site?"

Indeed, they did create a Web site, and the URL in the brochure takes you to an amazingly creative and enjoyable video:

Now comes my challenge. Please do the following.

1. Click through and watch the video.
2. Don't click on any other links on the site.
3. Return to this blog, and click "comment" to tell me what *exactly* they are promoting.

Let's see what you come up with, and then in the next post, I'll give you my reaction.

The End of Newspapers -- This Soon?

I assume you all heard about the threat our local paper, The New York Times, made this week -- to shut down the Boston Globe. Who knows if it was merely a negotiating posture with the unions, but just the mention of that kind of threat damages the Times' own reputation, so one has to believe they are seriously on the ropes.

When I wrote about the demise of newspapers a few weeks ago, I ended by saying that it was my guess that the folks that run newspapers don't get it, and they will watch as their enterprises sink into the sea.

Well, last night I read something on Huffington Post which I had to share, written by Jeff Jarvis (whose new book What Would Google Do I ordered from Amazon.com just last night).  Jeff's take on the newspaper industry is far harsher than mine, and I think it's a must read.

It's titled "To Newspaper Moguls: You Blew It" and he makes the indictment with a dagger.

I know folks in the arts community in Boston are scrambling to understand the potential of their city without a major newspaper to review their shows and a place to put their ads.

It may just be that the biggest economic crisis the arts are going to face in the next year is not financial at all -- it's editorial.

So, as I've said for years at my seminars (now sort of a mantra to arts marketers), when you think about marketing online you should make yourself into the publisher. With e-mail and Web sites, and now RSS, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, *you* are the publisher -- and in some cases this may be necessary sooner than you think.

 

Are Arts Managers Worried About the Wrong Bad Thing?

I realize that my persistence in writing about newspapers threatens to turn this blog from one about online marketing into something quite different, but arts marketing and the health of newspapers are completely intertwined. I don't see why more people in the arts marketing field aren't in as much of a panic about the imminent demise of the newspaper industry as we know it as they are about the economy.

Every day now on Facebook I read friends' posts who work for newspapers and are worried about losing their job, or fearful that their papers will go under entirely.  There's even a "Don't Let Newspapers Die" Facebook group that has 69,000 members. Amazing. It seems like this noise level about this kind of thing is changing from a din to a cacophony, even in the last few weeks.

Look, the moment big cities lose their only major newspaper is the moment that arts marketers are on their own -- meaning, you're now 100% in the world of direct marketing. (Let's set aside radio and TV as practical options for most organizations.) In this scenario, those that haven't built a huge e-mail list will be faced with the unfortunate realization that traditional direct mail is not a viable alternative. 

I'm turning up the volume here because yet another article in today's Times has foreshadowed exactly what I'm talking about. The most telling line of the article: "But no one yet has unlocked the puzzle of supporting a large newsroom purely on digital revenue." That's the issue. There will be news. It just won't be produced by major newspapers that dominate the information landscape in each city.  

I encourage you to read the Times article, as I think it offers a balanced view of what's going on as well as some quotes from pretty smart VCs about what kinds of news sources may replace a major newspaper.

As the tectonic shift in our economy is happening in front of our eyes, this newspaper thing seems to be equally as significant. And, frankly this is what I've been saying for about seven years now, and why I wrote three books on this topic. It's exactly what our Patron Technology is all about: If you build a direct relationship with your members and donors, you don't need an intermediary any more.

And the ability to build this relationship isn't based on technology alone. Yes, you need great technology. But you also need expertise (and non-profit expertise doesn't come from the cheapest systems).

What you need is to deeply understand how e-mail and digital marketing works -- what techniques are best for building your list at your venue, when to send e-mail to your patrons, and how to get them to click on your "Buy Tickets" links. And since technology changes every six months, you need to keep up with it.

This is why we give over 30 seminars a year, and this is what we'll be talking about this weekend at the ArtsReach pre-conference on Saturday. If you're in New York City and you're not signed up yet, I hope you'll come. I'm giving a hour-long talk about my vision of how the next five years of technology changes will dramatically improve not only arts marketing, but arts management as well. And Michelle Paul, our resident Facebook expert, will explain how to connect with your audience on Facebook -- something that is quickly turning from a side-show into a big deal.

Technology is a tool -- not a technique. Technique and tactics come from education, case studies, and expertise -- something I hope our industry recognizes sooner than later.

Facebook Your Organization

Perhaps partly as a result of the launch of our Facebook application for the New York community, i'll go!, more and more of our clients have been asking us for advice on what they should do on Facebook. They want a basic understanding of some of the complexities of Facebook, or to know if they should they have a Facebook page, and how to get started.

We're beginning our response to these questions with a series of newsletter articles written by Michelle Paul, who is our product manager for i'll go! If you're struggling to understand how Facebook can work for your organization, I would like to recommend the article. Though it is not technical, it will give you an overview of what your options are and how to begin, and next month she's going to write a follow-up article with even more details.

Needless to say, here at Patron Technology we're fans of Facebook -- and I expect we'll be doing a lot more with it in the coming years. It's becoming more and more popular with older audiences right now, and that's good news for arts marketers.

Here's the article, titled "Fans are Better Than Friends: Your Organization's Presence on Facebook." 

Arts Revenue Survey: Surprising Results

There's a lot of press every day about how our our economy is doing, but not much information about how arts and cultural organizations are faring. Last December, in partnership with TRG (Target Resource Group), we decided to undertake a survey of arts managers to try to understand how the just-finished holiday season turned out, in terms of revenue. We sent out nearly 8,000 surveys and got back over 300 responses, a large enough sample to get some good directional indicators. The results, which we are publishing today, were at once surprising and somewhat obvious.

The big learning was that 47% of the organizations that responded indicated that they had done better than budget, and another 10% reported that they had met budget. This kind of result has been mentioned to me in casual conversation with many of you in the last few weeks. It seems that despite the economy, audiences are not cutting back in a dramatic way, at least not yet.

The main fact that didn't make it into the report is that our industry seems to have now embraced online marketing. Fully 89.6% of respondents indicated that they used some form of e-mail marketing, and about 30% said that they sold at least a third of their tickets online.

You can download the full report by clicking here.

The End of Newspapers Coming Sooner?

In my end-of-year post, I wondered about the demise of the newspaper industry and specifically about how arts coverage would suffer.

I though you might be interested in reading an article from The Atlantic that caught my eye today.

The sentence that really stood out was, "Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?"

It's a thoughtful and compelling article that goes way beyond my thinking and lays out the details of a world without The Times. I can't say I find this scenario that implausible.

You can read the full article here and I hope you do.

Meanwhile, the facts and figures back this up, and today's eMarketer has a story titled "The Shrinking World of Newspapers," which reports that newspaper revenues were down 16% last year. Carol Krol of eMarketer writes, "But they face the same transition problems that plague other traditional media, such as TV, and so far they have not been able to crack the code."

Here's that article which includes charts and graphs that tell the story in numbers.

A Taste of Arts Marketing In Spain

I've been away from this blog for a while as last week I was in Europe speaking at a conference sponsored by the Sociedad General De Autors y Editors (SGAE), an organization that focuses on publishing books on arts management. The conference was on marketing the arts online, and took place in Valencia, Spain.

This photo shows the massive and impressive Valencia Opera house designed by Santiago Calitrava. It's a actually a cultural complex consisting of four separate theater spaces, which I was grateful to have been able to visit. This kind of massive funding for the arts truly boggles the mind. I was with the noted British arts marketing consultant Roger Tomlinson and we were both amazed at the sheer size and extravagance of the structure.

This kind of building stands in contrast, however, to what I learned about how the arts are marketed in Valencia. I learned a lot about how the arts are managed in Spain — more than I did about how the arts are marketed online. I got the feeling that online arts marketing is not as fully developed as it is here. But I also came away feeling that the concepts we pay attention to here, such as opt-in e-mail, list segmentation, and relevant content are universal. There's a lot of interest in Spain about social networking, too, not only on Facebook but also on a similar Spanish site called Tuenti.

But what surprised the most was how difficult audience development is in Spain, compared to the U.S. I realized how fortunate we are here to have direct access to our patrons, even though some organizations don't mine this data as well as they should. You see, in Spain, the government has organized the arts in such a way that the banks pretty much control all ticket purchases. So if you are a concert producer, you can drive traffic to your Web site, but ultimately tickets for most cultural events are purchased through the bank. Indeed, in many cities in Spain there are small concert halls within the bank itself.

The problem is that the banks control all the patron data and they don't share it with the producers. So it is nearly impossible for a producer to analyze marketing efforts and track back either online or offline promotions to ticket sales. There's no such thing as a ticket-buyer database. I heard over and over how frustrating it is for arts organizations to build audiences in conditions such as these, and how desperate they are to forge better relationships with the banks for their mutual benefit.

Of course this makes the notion of direct communications through e-mail that much more important. If you can't know who your ticket buyers are, you can at least know who your e-mail subscribers are, and that list is probably a  pretty good proxy for ticket buyers.

Finally, the other distinction in Spain is the degree to which a large number of concerts are marketed at what we would consider the last minute. An announcement is made in the paper or with posters, and the event happens a few days later. The audience has been trained to respond immediately, as opposed to our American procedure of long ticket-selling timelines. I pointed out at the conference how effective e-mail is to getting the word out for last minute ticket-buying.

I came away from the conference impressed at the professionalism of the arts marketing community, and its desire to adopt to new media and take advantage of all that it offers.

Announcing a new arts marketing tool on Facebook

Sometime last February I noticed that basically 90% of my staff was on Facebook all day long, doing their Patron Technology work in between games of Scrabble. This got me thinking that either I had to ban them from being on Facebook all day - or do the opposite. 

So I started thinking about whether there could be a way to harness Facebook as a marketing tool for the arts. I knew that arts organizations could create a "fan page" as a profile for their organization, but those pages don't do very much other than replicate your existing Web site content. What we really needed was something that takes advantage of the amazing power of the social networking capability of Facebook.

We put together a team here that conceptualized a new application for Facebook, which we are very proud to have launched today in beta version.

Here's the scoop, in a nutshell: 

i'll go! is a free new Facebook application that enables New York arts organizations to take advantage of the power of social networking by listing their events and offering exclusive discounts to Facebook users.

i'll go! provides:

• A way for Facebook users to identify events they want to attend, and to invite friends to go with them.
• A way for Facebook users to broadcast their interest in going to cultural events to their network of friends.
• A way for arts organizations to offer discounts directly to Facebook users, to motivate first-time arts attendance.

We are testing this out in New York now, and assuming it works, we'll roll it out in other cities across the country in the months ahead.

First of all, if you're on Facebook, please go download it and take a look.

If you're an arts organization in New York and want to add your events to it (it's FREE), you can read all about it at the Web site, illgo.patrontechnology.com. And since you're obviously the blog-reading sort, there's a link to the official i'll go! blog on the main page.

This is a completely "Web 2.0" program, which means that its success depends on arts organizations participating by listing their events (did I mention it's free?), and Facebook users engaging and using it!