Shift and Share Marketing Brief
The marketing specialist is employed to develop and deliver the Shift and Share
Marketing plan as was specified within the Strategic Touring application to Arts
Council England and is enclosed in this document.
A brief summary of tasks include:
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To update and build upon the existing audience development and marketing
plan
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To share the plan with locality action groups (there are three groups across
SW which meet formally every three months and informally communicate
every month)
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To maintain and develop a spirit of shared, connected working between
Shift and Share SW venues encouraging experimentation with budget
available to test and evaluate different audience development and
marketing ideas
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To deliver marketing interventions for all three tours using specified
audience development budget in Shift and Share and informed by the
locality action group ideas
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To create clear evaluation questions to assess the effectiveness of the
marketing interventions undertaken during the project and work with
Audience Development Agency and Producer on developing these.
Audience Development and Marketing Plan
The project’s Audience Development and Marketing Plan is based on the simple
premise to get artists and venues working more collaboratively to meet the needs
of existing and potential audiences.
Access needs are woven throughout the plan, rather than as additional
collateral/activities.
Working closely alongside the plan, will be The Audience Agency collecting
audience data and undertaking audience research, and providing the evaluation
framework to tie together the analysis and evaluation of the data and testing.
Target Audience
The target audiences for the project are:
 Cross-over audiences from theatre and other art forms
 Participants in social and community dance
 Young people aged 14-25 years living close to your venue but with low
engagement in the arts
These are the groups of people that the action group feels most likely to respond
to engaging, high quality, entertaining dance product. It follows that there is a
wide demographic potential for new dance audiences with the style of product that
is being sought, and as such the Marketing and Audience Development activity will
focus on AAI groups Fun, Fashion and Friends, Dinner and a Show, and Mature
Explorers – a set of segments that represents a populist market, and a wide range
of people.
All Cornerstone and Partner Venues will participate in an audience data exercise at
the beginning of the project, to both benchmark the audience profile, and to
gather the crucial audience information needed (where this doesn’t already exist)
about existing and potential audiences.
Fun, Fashion and Friends (age 16-34) already express strong interest in the arts –
the challenge is to find appropriate communication channels to encourage them to
increase their attendance and finding more opportunities to present product that
correlates with their lifestyle and their interests. This group use the internet to
interact and communicate as part of their lives.
Dinner and a Show (age 25-64) are infrequent attenders at cultural events but do
attend music concerts/gigs and theatre. They are most likely to respond to offers
that position the arts as entertaining, relaxing and sociable – the challenge is to
find product that will interest them and market it in ways which encourage them
through the door by combining bundles/deals that combine mainstream events
with more adventurous ones. This group are engage well online.
Mature Explorers (age 45-64) are engaged in the arts, particularly visual arts, and
they are likely to recommend events that they attend to others. Positioning the
arts as a way to learn something new/enrich their cultural understanding is likely
to work well – the challenge is to broaden their thinking to attract them to
something new as this group know what they like. The quality of marketing
materials and wrap-around information about work will be important. This group
are practical internet users.
The marketing and audience development plan has been tailored to the needs,
interests and behaviour of these three segments, and as the project progresses,
activity will continue to reflect the target audiences.
Delivery
The package of high level support, training, and direct interventions will be
delivered and managed by the marketing and communications specialist supported
by the audience specialist contracted in to provide bespoke expertise to develop
the toolkit and to support venue training.
The Shift and Share marketing specialist, experienced in marketing for both small
scale venues and for dance specifically, will devise and lead the marketing
elements of this plan, bringing in marketing staff from South West venues to
deliver specific training around, for example, Digital Media. This solution
recognises the level of skill and experience in the region and ensures a focus on
building a lasting and strong regional network of marketing and audience
development teams in the Venue Network.
Audience Development (including Participation and Community Engagement) will
be led by an individual with experience of working in the region as part of the local
dance development organisation network. This specialist will work closely with the
expertise that The Audience Agency brings to the area of community engagement.
We believe that by working with specialists who are already committed to the
region, we will build a real legacy for the project in terms of understanding and
collaboration around audiences.
Approach
1. Consistent Expectations
2. High level guidance, support and training
3. Strategic direct interventions
The programme will set out a number of Shift and Share branded expectations for
all 3 tours in order to ensure a level of quality and consistency around marketing
and audience development, and to ensure that campaign ideas can be tested
centrally. All venues have committed to these, and all companies who tour as part
of this project will also need to do so.
The Shift and Share ‘brand’ will remain invisible to the audiences themselves indeed – companies must produce their own print, and companies and venues will
market the show and develop audiences using their own brands, and crucially,
bringing their own style and distinct USPs.
This project’s marketing and audience development package will work at a high
level providing training to venue, company and dance development organisation
staff, and providing guidance and support to venue staff in the delivery of their
campaigns.
The project will also directly initiate strategic interventions activity where it is
strategically prudent to do so, and these are outlined later in the plan. These are
centrally held funds and will not be passed onto venues as a matter of course. They
will be bid for by Action Learning Sets and/or used to deliver agreed shared
elements of the toolkit.
The activities will also be additional to companies’ own marketing and will not
duplicate or replicate this. To that end the project will work closely with the
companies as they develop project proposals and funding bids of their own to
ensure complementary working and not duplication.
The intention is to encourage ways of working that will
1. Embed ways of working within venues and companies that are sustainable in
the longer term i.e. not dependent on additional funding
2. Provide some direct, strategic interventions for this time-limited project, to
support the testing of new ideas that may be outside of a venue’s ability to
resource
3. Encourage companies and venues to work together effectively
4. Encourage consistent best practice and efficient use of resources across
venues and companies, by providing training and guidance
Marketing Expectations
We will be working with 3 companies on the project, and working with them from
the early stages of artistic creation, prior to the likely submission of their own
Grants for the Arts and other funding applications. As such, we will be able to
insist on a number of expectations around marketing material, infrastructure
during the tour to support marketing delivery and audience development
interventions.
The marketing expectations that the Shift and Share brand will realise from dance
companies/artists, in exchange for a coordinated tour with a significant number of
dates, are:
 Excellent images (stock, rehearsal and/or production), of which a number
have been signed off for use in print stock and online by the Shift and
Share marketing specialist
 High quality print for publicity material, including: A5 double sided flyer
(or equivalent), A3, A4, E flyers – up to 100k of flyers and up to 5k A3 and
A4 posters, signed off centrally by the Shift and Share marketing specialist
 Copywriting signed off centrally by the Shift and Share marketing specialist
to ensure accessibility for ordinary real people!
 Direct mail letters direct from Artistic Director / Choreographers, including
large print options
 Filming and editing of a promo teaser trailer
 Digital marketing strategy, linked to the venues own strategy:
Web presence; blog / podcasts / voxpops
Social Media; Facebook, Flickr, Audio Boos, Twitter, Instagram
The website and online activity will be developed in accordance with
the DCMS 10 Principles of Inclusive Web Design
The marketing expectations that the Shift and Share brand will realise from all
venues participating in the project, in exchange for the project’s curatorial
expertise and support package, are:
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Research into knowing who their audiences for dance are, working with The
Audience Agency
Direct mail shots targeted at specific audience segments, including large
print options
Mediation of the company’s input into direct mail copy
An openness to including bundles/offers on ticket deals for certain tours
Commitment to profiling the companies’ digital collateral on their websites,
including signed and audio described podcasts and virals
A Digital Media Strategy for dance audiences – all website and online
activity will be developed in accordance with the DCMS 10 Principles of
Inclusive Web Design
Feedback and input from the venues’ marketing professionals to the
companies engaging in an honest dialogue and helping companies to
produce more relevant print and images
Collaborative marketing and audience development work with disability-led
organisations to reach new potential audiences
Targeted strands of the marketing and audience development campaign to
reach day centres and user groups to encourage attendance
To publicise the work through disability media networks with specific focus
on the accessible and inclusive nature of the product and supporting
marketing materials to encourage wider profile.
Marketing Guidance, Support and Training
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1-1 specialist support for companies from GFA application stage, to the
sign-off points. Regular end of the phone advice to ensure that companies
are supported to reach the expectations of the project.
Bespoke marketing training sessions for venue staff delivered when the
action learning sets meet
Regional Strategic Marketing Interventions
Centrally held fund, reserved for high level strategic intervention and
pitched for by the Action Learning sets. Examples of ideas might include:
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A Facebook group (or similar) to build an online audience and discussion
point for audiences attending dance in the South West region. This will not
be branded as the Shift and Share project, but rather seek to engender and
encourage audiences in the south west for dance, to grow their own online
community – to discuss what they have seen, whether they liked it or not,
what they plan to see next – and so on. This may be managed and accessed
through the new Pavilion Dance South West website
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Centrally delivered marketing activity to strategically support the testing of
ideas. An example of this is the development of a ‘Season of Dance’ brand
across the south west for a number of shows – for wide print distribution
and/or Adshell style advertising. Idea being to support centrally and cost
effectively a number of shows, whilst simultaneously raising the profile of
dance in the region to people more likely to respond to bus shelter/train
station billboard advertising (ref AAI segment research; all target
segments).
Audience Development Expectations
We will be working with 3 companies on the project, and engaging with them from
the early stages of artistic creation, prior to the likely submission of their own
Grants for the Arts and other funding applications.
As with Marketing, we will be able to insist on a number of expectations around
audience development, and infrastructure during the tour to support audience
development activities.
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Workshops, including inclusive and accessible workshops will be included as
an integral part of the offer and be targeted specifically at the project’s
target audiences of 14-25, art form cross over audiences and dance
participants. Companies will be expected to prepare and deliver two
workshops to go with each performance as part of the centrally agreed
contract. There will be an option to deliver these workshops while in the
community presenting the taster performance two weeks in advance to
make best use of time.
Post Show chat – re visiting the traditional model and retaining the focus of
a reflective conversation, but experimenting with new ways to make these
more interactive and more relevant to the target audiences.
Touch tours available pre-show.
Materials and tools, exploiting digital technology, to invite audience
feedback and suggestions on programming and each show’s form and
content, with the aim of listening to and capturing audience feedback and
ideas, and reflecting that back to making process, so that there is real
learning for the companies and artists as well as the promoters and
curators. Relevant to AAI target segment Fun, Fashion and Friends who
engage and interact online as part of their lifestyle. These will have large
print/braille options at venues.
Strong online interactive (moderated) presence targeted at young people
Audience Development Guidance, Support and Training
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1-1 specialist support for companies from GFA application stage, to the
sign-off points. Regular end of the phone advice to ensure that companies
are supported to reach the expectations of the project.
Audience Development workshops x 3) for venue staff
Audience Development Training day
Audience Development And Growth Fund - Interventions
Centrally held fund, reserved for high level strategic intervention, and to be bid for
through Action Learning sets, which may include examples as outlined below.
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A memento to take away to build venue and art form loyalty – “see you next
time”
Voucher to incentivise a return visit
Interactive smartboard in each of the venues that can collect feedback as
well as raising the profile of dance as part of their offer
Community Engagement research programme linked to the work of The
Audience Agency, may result in interventions around taster workshops,
panels, ambassador schemes
Taster performances in the local community two weeks prior to theatre
date. NB we recognise that the cost and logistics of this idea may be
prohibitive but would like to explore the possibility of the concept and work
with certain companies such as Zoielogic, who have a history of interest in
this concept, to test drive the impact through the action research processes
of the project. This is particularly relevant to AAI target segment Mature
Explorers, for whom encountering work in cultural places that they usually
visit may encourage attendance of work in theatres
A series of scratch platforms where companies who are developing work
which will tour as part of the project, present works in progress to reps
from audience sounding boards and marketing and programming
professionals from the venues to secure valuable feedback to be acted on in
the rehearsal and devising process.
Development of Audience Sounding Boards at venues which will be used to
support companies’ creative processes and see and reflect on ideas and
work in progress and will be invited to be part of the curatorial process by
individual programmers, giving audiences a genuine voice in the curatorial
process
As appropriate in certain venues, Sign Language Interpreted performances
and Audio Described Performances available.
The Audience Agency
As a strategic specialist partner on Shift and Share the Audience Agency will
deliver:
Audience Data
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Available audience data (Census, Target Group Index, Arts Audiences
Insight) will be reviewed and shared with the Venue Network in order to
build insight into the target geography and the data management
requirements of the project
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The audience data held by the Cornerstone and Partner Venues will be
mapped and profiled in order to create an audience data benchmark and to
enable the development of a set of data standards with which partners will
be asked to comply
The audience data gathered as the project is delivered across the
Cornerstone and Partner Venues will be used to give performance data to
analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of the Marketing and Audience
Development activities
This process will enable thorough analysis of audience cross-over to dance
from other art forms at specific venues
Audience Research
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An e-survey of current audiences at the Cornerstone and Partner Venues
will act as a benchmark in terms of understanding qualitative drivers to
attend culture and dance. It can also define the impact of communications
and enable systematic profiling of this key set of people
Focus groups will be held to further explore the issues identified by the esurvey – such as how loyalty can be built, and the impact of the project’s
work on development new product
Follow-up surveys will be conducted to corroborate and challenge the
benchmark survey results, allowing the subsequent programming and
marketing activity to be based on these
Community Engagement
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Design and set up the methods to consult with community stakeholders to
scope the potential for taking work to new communities
Community, cultural and leisure infrastructure in areas of lowest
engagement will be explored to find places that can support engagement
work based on dialogue and involvement with communities – this will offer
new relationships with performance spaces and communities for partners to
take work to
Taster sessions, ambassador schemes and community panels are options
that will provide the means to reach out to non-engaged communities and
develop a relevant response from the partners
Feed into the project’s development of responses to new audiences
Evaluation Framework
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The Audience Agency will use its evaluation framework to identify the
assumptions at the heart of the project, in order to build sound research
objectives which will drive the research and knowledge management
processes of the project
The evaluation framework will also demarcate differing and competing
values held within the partners and active stakeholders
The evaluation framework will support the project in timing and structuring
the review and reflection processes so that they happen during the project
and not only at the end.