Transform your arts marketing without spending a penny

This blog post is a companion to podcast episode #8.

Imagine with me for a moment that you were on the marketing team for a meal delivery service like Sunbasket or HelloFresh or Blue Apron. Let’s imagine that you were tasked with creating a direct mail flier to entice lapsed customers to resubscribe to the service. What headline would you feature on this flier?

Maybe your copy read something like: "Healthy organic food! Delivered right to your door! Ready in minutes! Chef-crafted recipes! Save time and skip the grocery store!”

Well, I got a flier in the mail from Sunbasket this week. And the headline mentioned none of these things.

Here’s what that Sunbasket flier actually said: 

“Reignite your health routine.”

Why didn’t Sunbasket lean into all of the great features that come with the product and service they provide?

Sunbasket knows that the most effective copy centers around a customer's desire for progress—not around the features of the product itself.

The features of their product, while they are indeed great, don't highlight the benefits or outcomes that are going to speak to today's consumer. They don't get at the deeper why behind a consumer's decision to sign up for their service. They’re not specific enough to the customer’s real life context, to be relevant to them.

This is such a great example of how the business world is leveraging principles of customer centric marketing in their pursuit of growth.

And in today’s digital world, where competition for consumer attention is fierce, arts organizations really need to pay attention to this.

In the arts and culture sector  reclaiming relevance and unlocking audience growth means crafting compelling narratives that resonate with your target audience's aspirations and motivations—not yours.

This flier from Sunbasket perfectly illustrates the difference between product-centric marketing—which has become completely ineffective in today’s world—and marketing that centers the customer.

So what does it look like for an arts and culture organization to be customer centric in their marketing? And why is a product-centric approach so bad?

In a product-centric approach, the focus is primarily on the features and attributes of the product or service. Marketing messages emphasize what the product is, what it does, and why it's superior to competitors. 

It’s like going on a first date with someone who talks about themselves the whole time and never makes an effort to get to know you. It’s easy to see in this example what a turnoff this approach can be, right?

The trouble with this approach is that it fails to connect with consumers on an emotional level and overlooks their underlying needs and desires—it overlooks their deeper why.

There’s a quote from the great marketer and business thinker Peter Drucker. He said, “People rarely buy what the company thinks it’s selling.”

In other words, consumers don't always purchase a product or service for the reasons that a company assumes.

Companies often focus on promoting the features and specifications of their products or services, assuming that these are the primary reasons why consumers will buy from them. But in reality, consumers make purchasing decisions based on their own needs, their own circumstances, and their own perceptions of value.

This is why it’s so important to understand, embrace, and center the customer’s perspective in your marketing.

So what does that look like?

The founder of the Revlon makeup brand, Charles Revson, based his company’s marketing approach on a similar philosophy to Peter Drucker’s. Revson said, "In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the drugstore, we sell hope." 

Revlon ads are designed to trigger customers to purchase the potential for beauty, love, and romance. They don’t go into how the product is made, or what makes it great. 

Because that’s not what their customers are buying. 

Their customers are buying hope.

What might you discover if you applied this framework to your cultural organization? What is your audience buying? 

In the language of Clayton Christensen’s “Jobs to Be Done” framework, for what progress or transformation are your audiences “hiring” you and your art?

And here’s a hint: It’s not always purely to experience art. In fact, it’s probably most likely to be something else. The answers you uncover become powerful tools that help to create deeply empathetic marketing.

The reality is, the value of your product is determined solely by your customer’s context. 

You may think what you are offering the world is priceless—but if it doesn't resonate with your customers' needs, or circumstances, or perceptions of value, it simply won't hold the same significance to them. It just won’t be relevant to them. 

So understanding and adapting to your customer’s perspective is essential for successful marketing and long-term growth.

And here’s where it starts to get fun.

When you truly understand what your audiences are buying when they purchase a ticket—when you uncover the underlying motivations and their deeper why—you’ll walk away armed with insights so powerful that your marketing will write itself. 

That’s the power of customer centricity.

Centering the customer in your marketing means organizing the information based on its importance and relevance to the target audience.

It's about prioritizing the most critical information first. And the most critical information to your potential patrons, the information that will resonate most, isn’t necessarily the name of the piece of art, or the artist, or the conductor—no matter how famous they are.

Rather than opening with the information that you as an Insider might find most critical, you need to first answer the question that is ever present in the mind of the customer: What’s in it for me? 

Focus on the benefits of attending your event, the transformation the customer might experience when engaging with your art, or the impact on the community—rather than solely promoting the product itself.

By carefully considering the hierarchy of information in your marketing, you ensure that your messaging effectively communicates the value that resonates to the broadest audience, not just your Insiders. 

Take a look at the marketing that your organization has produced this season. Are you primarily focusing on the features and attributes of your product or service, or are you considering the deeper needs of your target audience?

How do you do this? Put yourself in the shoes of these customers. What are their aspirations, motivations, and pain points? What struggles do they encounter in their daily lives? What progress or transformation are they seeking in their lives? And how can your event help them make that progress—and what’s the best way to communicate that?

Here’s a really tangible example for you. Classical Uprising here in Portland Maine has a concert coming up on the Saturday a few days before the solar eclipse. This concert will feature choral works by a slew of incredible contemporary composers. But in the hierarchy of their marketing messaging, this information comes last.

Here’s what they lead with in their recent Facebook post: 

"Eclipses are seen as a time of personal transformation and collective renewal. I designed Room to Breathe as a secular ritual—an immersive sound bath, an artistic wellness ceremony, a musical meditation—for this moment, using music and evoking rituals to awaken the spirit and observe the inner self as a reflection of the cosmic universe."  — Dr. Emily Isaacson, Artistic Director

Join us for Room to Breathe with Oratorio Chorale to tap into the eclipse's power to engage your sense of wonder, find balance, and get rid of that which is no longer serving you.

Talk about being relevant to today’s consumer!

Remember, the key to successful marketing lies in empathy. And this kind of work pays dividends. By centering your efforts around your audience and their needs, you'll be better positioned to create meaningful connections; to resonate with a broader audience; and to drive more long-term engagement.

What I love about this pivot from product-centric marketing to leaning into messaging that will resonate with your customers, is that it is absolutely free! You can transform your marketing without spending a single penny. It’s a pivot that’s accessible to any arts organization of any budget size. 

So if you weren’t able to join the first cohort of my customer-centric marketing course—A Path Forward—in January, I’m gearing up for a second cohort which will start on July 9th. 

It’s going to be bigger and better than ever—I’ve got a dedicated learning platform, a community forum, plus more downloads and more practical exercises to help you apply these ideas to your own work in real time.

This course is packed with insights that countless companies have used to build rapid growth.

Listen, transformative insight that helps your arts organization move forward and thrive shouldn’t have to break the bank. And it doesn’t need to take a full-length consulting project to start leveraging these innovation frameworks.

If you’ve listened this far into the podcast, I have a homework assignment for you:

As you go through your world this week, pay attention to the marketing that you come across. Start paying attention to which ads successfully center the customer and their needs and their desire for progress—and which ones are still ignoring the customer and prioritizing the information that the company thinks is valuable—rather than the information that will resonate most with their target audience.

Let me know what you discover. Send me the ones that you think are outstanding examples. I have a feeling your marketing will be changed forever.