Digital Marketing Strategy
One of the longest running jazz organizations was in a major transition. They had just lost their Director of Digital Marketing, who had managed their digital marketing strategy and sales for their last 18 seasons of shows and concerts. As a $3.5 million dollar organization, their 30,000 audiences, members, and staff depended on a great season, which was only 2 months away.
Ticket sales for the new season were completely neglected. The engine was running, but nobody was at the wheel. They needed someone to come in and drive, while also preparing the strategic role of “Marketing Director” for long-term success.
After 4 months, the season was saved with higher than previous year sales, the advertising budget was cut by nearly 50% while proving to be more efficient for sales, the marketing processes were fast and more efficient, new partnerships were in place, a new Marketing Director was hired to successfully manage the role, and the board of the organization rallied.
I transitioned onto an extended project with a new team, which would go on to help the organization increase it’s audience and sales revenue — but looking back, a few key moves made this transition successful.
1. Assessing the customer. Understanding the customer that was driving the organization’s revenue streams was at the core of improving the efficiency of marketing tactics, advertising decisions, and ticket sales. Digging into historic channel data, which was primarily email, social media, website, and press/media oriented, the organization had access to knowing which customers were real buyers. However, the previous leadership had never reported which marketing channels they were buying from and what communities they were active in. By developing personas of real buyers, noting buying patterns to re-design the buying process, and maximizing resources towards the channels, communities, and personas that were high-value, the organization was able to build a real marketing strategy for the first time.
2. Assessing the advertising budget. The marketing spend was expected to be 25% of total ticket sales. From an ROI perspective, this annual allocation of spend was valuable to the organization, and the cultural barriers around keeping this expectation in place was high enough that the CEO never fought to change or reallocate, so long as ticket sales were reaching their goals. Through a series of conversion testing, where the actual conversion (impression to sales) was measured using a series of short-run advertisements, I was able to reallocate nearly $70,000 of spend from traditional media to digital social channels, which improved the direct sales of the overall marketing budget by nearly 40%. The cost savings paid for another role that was able to double the operational size of the marketing team, leading to higher-quality assets, more intentional and aware customer service, and new, low-hanging partnership opportunities that were a result of long-term social capital and an increase in man power.
3. Stakeholder management. Active communication of these changes with board members and the internal operations team, while they were happening, helped the project in the short-term and long-term. Not only fixing the numbers, but inspiring the culture, helped the overall team to begin trying new things. As the organization moved forward to hire a new Marketing Director, they knew how to look for the right know-how, creativity, and care — that went beyond merely operational. As the board and leadership hired the new role, I continued to work with this organization, it’s new Marketing Director, and community, as we extended the organization’s brand reach into a new, brick-and-mortar restaurant and event space in Downtown Columbus.
