Digital Case Study #2: Vetta Chamber Music
As part of our Consultations with members of the arts and culture community, we’ve prepared a series of case studies to help you better understand how to find the solutions to your own digital problems, as well as provide you with resources you may not have considered. In this case study, Vetta Chamber Music consults with digital expert Jai Djwa.
Vetta Chamber Music is facing many of the same challenging issues as other performing arts organizations. This includes recasting their season to be completely online, the decline of ticket revenue to almost zero and the loss of straightforward artistic collaboration. Vetta is planning to present five programs this season online, but wants to stay engaged with their audience. Vetta has always focused on live concerts up until now but are eager to learn what has to be done to engage audiences this new way.
They are looking for some specific ways to engage supporters not only through streaming but also to find ways to keep them connected along the way.
Background
In June, Vetta was hoping to present concerts to a small number of subscribers and patrons, but needed to address all of their expectations and there is no guarantee. Much of the audience would have been reluctant to leave the safety of their own homes, but are craving and missing the concert experience. Vetta had the music and the will to share, just not the tech savvy to achieve that.
Staff have been sending out email letters with YouTube clips and interesting stories about the music, and once sent a sampling of different performances and opinions about them, like a review.
Vetta has also arranged socially distancing rehearsals and is preparing to record clips and send them out in these emails, but they want to learn how to upload to a wider audience to maintain and increase interest in what they do.
They have a variety of different channels that they can access, including their website, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Twitter.
Overall, they are not sure of the best route to go, but have committed to presenting their entire season online.
Luckily, they are proceeding on a number of different aspects that are positive. Overally, the imperative at this time is to keep their audience connected to the organization. And Vetta is attempting to do this.
Let’s face it, the pandemic has created unparalleled challenges for all performing arts organizations. Many organizations are trying to pivot online. This means that there is a significant amount of online activity that creates a lot of potential activities from which an arts lover can pick and choose. How can Vetta Chamber Music be part of this choice?
Recommendations and Best Practices
CRM
First, with the pandemic, the concept of digital infrastructure is critical. No longer can organizations depend on the usual ways that patrons come to live concerts. They are so besieged by activities that it is hard to even remember what is going on. That is why having a Constituent Relationship Manager (CRM) to track supporters can be a game changer for an arts organization. A CRM allows a 1:1 relationship with donors, supporters and subscribers that gives insight and knowledge from the vast amount of data that organizations can collect from just tickets, but also all the other activities that they present. How is Vetta Chamber Music keeping track of who comes to their concerts and how can they encourage them to donate? These are key issues that make having a CRM useful.
Ask the Audience
Furthermore, asking their audience their preferences through a survey, even ten short questions, can provide a lot of information as well as remind their audience they are still around! This can be a great way to plan relevant activities.
Know Your Reach and Buff Up Your Social Media
Next, understanding the reach that an organization has with all the channels is important and increasing that reach is another key in surviving and thriving in these times. For Vetta, their reach is approximately 500 from social media and 700 subscribers to their newsletter. This should be expanded as they will need more people to ensure a reasonable amount of them convert to online viewers. Expanding this is difficult and truly Vetta is behind in this. However, the good news is that their supporters are loyal and will probably convert at a higher percentage than most other organizations.
Given their digital channels, it would make sense to focus on a specific subset. The website, newsletter and Facebook are probably the most appropriate channels to use as they contain the highest numbers of subscribers and have the most opportunity to grow.
One way to increase awareness is to use Facebook. As much as Facebook is maligned because of its political views, it is still very effective in reaching BC residents. A potential advertising effort that targeted 50% of their budget to BC, and 50% to national and looking for classical music lovers would be an interesting and potentially fruitful ad buy. Vetta has started experimenting with Facebook ads. They could use either promoting likes on their Facebook page although signups for the concert is probably the best approach in the short term.
Another potential is Google Search ads. These are ads that appear in the search results for specific keywords. Aa a not-for-profit, Vetta is eligible through Techsoup to get Google’s Ad Grants. This would allow them to advertise for free on the Google platform. Given the steep learning curve, this would be best implemented in the spring, but well worth the investment of time and training. It also takes some time to be approved by Techsoup.
Search Engine Optimization
There are several tools that help understand how people are determining what search terms, or keywords, help in finding similar concerts. Google has their Keyword planner and Yoast has their suggestion tool for long-tail keywords. These help in determining the right keywords for Google advertisements and also for using Yoast.
Yoast is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plug-in for Wordpress. Vetta is using a website platform that is not Wordpress, so they will have to investigate how they can add additional SEO metadata. One key piece that they could add is structured data for their events.
When structured data is added to a website, this gives search engines like Google insight into what kind of concert you have and increase its relevance to searchers. Since search is a key way your concertgoers find performances, this question of structured data is extremely important. This structured data, often called its schema, or overall plan of the data structure is defined as Event schema. An important organization working towards a common arts data schema is the Linked Digital Futures project.
Share and Collaborate
Also, reaching out to similar organizations with membership lists is well worth the effort at this time. The arts are often collaborative and asking to send out concert information to other organizations is a great way to build an audience. Furthermore, asking influencers that are in the discipline is also important, given that they can also pass the information along to potential audience members. Vetta is reaching out to other presenters in BC.
Choosing How and When to Engage
Communicating with all these folks through the different channels is important. Through the initial survey, asking about preferred channels would really help focus Vetta’s activities. Then, keep them engaged through providing them with content that meets their expectations and needs. However, this drip of content has to be related to what I would see as appointment viewing. This means having content that is relevant to a concert at a specific time. So for example, having clips of rehearsals for the specific concert.
Interestingly, concerts at an appointed time still have a place in our on-demand world. It allows people to plan their entertainment and have something to do in the evening. It also allows coordination with friends and family, as the social aspect is still a major part of why people attend concerts.
However, traditionally Vetta Chamber Music concerts have been scheduled at times that are consistent with typical concert times, such as 8 p.m. PST. Today, anyone from Canada could attend, so ensure that the concert times are scheduled so that someone on the East Coast would also be able to reasonably attend.
Registration
Having people register for the concerts by providing their email address or contact info, which are then stored in the CRM, is a great way to build relationships and have further communication. Vetta has started asking for emails to register for free concerts.
Pay What You Can
Based on our experience, asking audiences to pay “what you can” is an excellent way at this point to encourage donations. It seems to be my experience that people will donate generously, especially in this time of the Pandemic. And if their audience consists of older patrons, this is more likely to result in higher amounts. Older donors have been less impacted financially by the pandemic, according to focus groups we have completed. They are not traveling and they mostly did not have “jobs” that they lost. This is also why it is important to develop a campaign for reaching these donors now as they are well positioned to help, but will soon have been tapped out by all the organizations reaching out. Encouragingly, Vetta has found the average donation has been $20 for a free concert.
The Concert Itself
The concert itself can be done in a myriad of ways, but it is crucial that there is a “live” component. This could be reasonably done if the concert itself has been recorded by having a live introduction and then a post-show discussion. Anything that can justify the appointment viewing of the concert is beneficial. Then the entire concert is recorded and paid concertgoers should be able to either see it later gratuit or purchase it via a video-on-demand system such as Vimeo. This has been implemented as Vetta’s plan.
Of course, streaming fatigue in the arts is definitely a possibility, but Vetta Chamber Music has an opportunity to be one of the bright spots on the fall agenda.