Comments (2) Today we publish a “How To” Guide to assessing and maximising the potential of your arts organisation in the area of Cultural Tourism. This guide has been prepared by Annette Nugent, marketing consultant, who has worked extensively in this area, and mentored the participants in our Build Your Audience scheme. The guide is here.. Cultural Tourism How To Guide.
Arts Audiences is seeking a Projects Manager, for one year initially, to manage programmes and events for its activities. If you know a good arts event manager and administrator, please let them know about it. This is an exciting opportunity for a person to develop their skills on a broad canvas, as well as contributing to the building of significant capacity across the arts.
View Job Spec in your browser -> [Project Manager PDF]
Download the job spec as a word file [download word doc]
Mary Dowling of the Chester Beatty Library outlines below how her project worked and what was learnt through the mentoring programme.
Chester Beatty Library
Our aim:
Our aim was to raise awareness about the Chester Beatty Library’s membership programme and to take a ‘back to basics’ look at the museum’s website to see what potential was available. We hoped to put together an online strategy that would allow us to communicate more effectively and to use tools like Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter etc. to generate sales.
Why:
The Chester Beatty Library does not charge an entrance fee, so the membership programme allows people to learn more about the Chester Beatty Library’s diverse and internationally renowned collection while at the same time providing valuable financial support for the museum. We had been working on new initiatives for the programme including the setting up of a Member’s Book Club and a Member’s Film Club, but with no marketing budget we were looking for ways to get the word out and tap into a large audience.
Timing:
The Chester Beatty Library’s blockbuster summer exhibition The Art Books of Henri Matisse was due to open on May 26th until 25th September 2011. We saw this as the perfect opportunity to feed off the publicity being generated for the exhibition in order to maximise our online profile. As Henri Matisse is a very well know artist we hoped that the exhibition would attract many new visitors to the museum and that the website would be an important communications tool with huge potential for the membership programme.
Mentoring process:
After speaking with and meeting our Mentor, John Tierney, it soon became evident that the Chester Beatty Library itself needed a coherent online plan, and we decided that the membership programme should be looked at as part of that overall plan. Our first move was to work with John to apply for a Google Grant. His help and guidance meant that our application was approved in no time. With the Grant in place we now had access to very generous funding for our Google AdWords campaigns.
In mid June, just after the exhibition had opened, we began to develop a number of targeted Google AdWords campaigns, each selecting relevant keywords linked to the Matisse exhibition in order to draw visitors to the Chester Beatty Library website. We regularly selected and updated new keywords, and by doing this on a regular basis we were able to ensure that the ads were performing well and getting the maximum return. We ran generic campaigns at the same time to keep up the profile of the Chester Beatty Library.
With the help of Google Analytics we regularly reviewed and monitored the data and the allowed us to ‘tweak’ our campaigns and calculate the value of our campaigns.
The results:
Our Google AdWords campaigns for the membership programme were run in tandem with other promotional tools including a dedicated “Membership” desk and a number of specially designed posters and flyers displayed at the entrance to the Chester Beatty Library. We made use of additional signage in the museum’s gift shop and updated the content of the Chester Beatty Library newsletter to include text advertising the membership programme.
Statistics:
53,933 visits to the website from May 1st until 30th Sept 2011 (compared with 41,055 the previous year). 37,189 were unique visitors. A number of peaks were recorded which were associated with media coverage received for the Matisse exhibition.
65.58% were new visitors to the website
4.56 pages viewed per visit with and average of 2.50 minutes spent
Geographic analysis – Irish visitors were our main group but we also had large number of visitors from the United States and the United Kingdom. This information allowed us to set up specific ad campaigns to target these groups. We had a number of visitors from continental Europe so our Google Mentor helped us to set up ads in French, German, Dutch and Italian. The Analytics data will allow us to monitor these figures and we can consider translating aspects of the website in the future.
4.71% of visits were from a mobile device including smart phones. This compares with 2.20% in 2010. We have a limited mobile website at the moment but as this traffic is increasing we will consider adding more content.
57.44% of traffic arrives via search engines so this highlights the importance of Google AdWords as a tool to increase visitors to the website, and thereby increase sales of memberships.
24.03% traffic is coming from referrals from websites including Wikipedia – we will monitor this and keep these sites informed of activities taking place in the Chester Beatty Library.
572 page views of the membership home page and of these 74.83% were unique page views. We have amended the content and added a ‘join now’ button. The content is being looked at on a continual basis and as we now have access to our own content management system we have more flexibility. We are currently updating links on the most popular landing pages so that visitors are encouraged to visit the membership pages.
AdWords stats:
Advertising led to 3346 additional visits. This activity would have cost the Chester Beatty Library almost €1,000.
Number of new memberships received:
63 during the run of the Matisse exhibition (value €3,000)
The challenges:
- staffing – with the large volume of memberships to be processed and the with the initial set up of the ad campaigns and updating content on the website it has been hard to keep on top of things.
- we found that membership was not being searched for on the search engines so we have decided that it would be better to use other promotional methods including Media Relations to generate interest in the programme. We would then need to make sure that the membership programme had better positioning on the Chester Beatty Library website and on popular landing pages. We hope to work with the media to get publicity for the Book Club and Film Club.
Our plans for the future:
Our next temporary exhibition China through the Lens of John Thomson 1868-1872 will open on 17th November 2011 until February 2012. We will implement Chinese and photographic themed AdWords campaigns as well as keeping general Chester Beatty Library brand campaigns working for Irish and overseas visitors. We will aim to be more proactive with Analytics so that we can amend keywords and add negative keywords in order to fine tune the ads.
Book club and Film club promotion – we will update our dedicated website pages with interesting content and links to engage with visitors and to encourage them to sign up as members.
Website landing pages – we will add content that will encourage our visitors to keep coming back to the website and to reduce the bounce rate. We will monitor the links to the membership pages and analyse if the hits are converting to sales. We will set up Goals in Analytics to track information about how visitors are getting to the membership pages.
Google places – we will take ownership of our site and make sure the content is up to date with links to current exhibitions, events, membership, gift shop etc.
Site links – we will monitor these and expand them to include the Book Club and Film Club.
Social media – we have a Facebook page and a small presence on Twitter. We would like to be more proactive on both and to use them to build relationships and in time generate sales.
Note about Google Mentors:
John has always made himself available by phone, email or in person to answer questions and to offer advice and suggestions. He broke down the systems for me in a manageable way so that I could understand and take advantage of the opportunities each tool offered.
The regular ‘meet ups’ with other Mentors and Mentees gave the opportunity to discuss issues and progress, and to give feedback and ask for advice. We also had great support and encouragement from Una and the meeting with Derek Hill was very useful as Derek could explain his use of the Google products and how they fit into his daily work routine.
Conclusion:
The Mentoring programme has been a resounding success for the Chester Beatty Library. The Google products are allowing us to spread the word about the museum and about the membership programme. We have had a chance to test the products and through trial and error we have been able to maximise our online presence. The challenge for us in the coming months will be to use the limited amount of time that we have in the best and most productive way possible. We have a long way to go yet, but the signs are looking very positive.
For the future, we plan to:
Riverbank Arts Centre received mentoring in use of new media and Google tools over the last number of months from Google, as one of Arts Audiences’ four projects. Linda Geraghty’s report is below and makes interesting reading for anyone interested in improving online marketing strategies.
Riverbank Arts Centre,
Newbridge, Co. Kildare
Original Aim of the Project:
Since its re-launch in 2009, the team at Riverbank Arts Centre have been working to expand its audience and programme across a range of genres. With a new website, and using social media sites Facebook and Twitter, we have been working to drive more traffic to our website (www.riverbank.ie) and increase our online presence.
To date, our advertising has been mainly offline, with a focus on reaching out to new audiences through local press, outdoor advertising and so on.
With a desire to improve and develop our online strategy we applied for the Google Mentoring scheme with Arts Audiences.
We wanted to widen our advertising scope and felt that Google Adwords and Analytics could make a big difference in widening our marketing opportunities online.
Having set up a Google Analytics account, we had taken a tentative step into the vast world of Google tools. However, the common cry ‘I’ll do that when I have more time’, ‘as soon as this programme is up and running’, or ‘it’s just too time consuming’ prevented us from really delving into all that these tools could offer us.
At the beginning of this year, we installed a digital cinema system at Riverbank. This upgrade has dramatically improved the range of films available to us, and the quality of the cinema experience for our audience. We now needed to raise awareness of this new facility, attract new people and target film lovers in County Kildare and surrounding areas. With the call for applications to take part in the Google Mentoring Scheme, we decided we would narrow our focus and hone in our cinema programme.
Our cinema runs every Monday night with a selection of quality art house films. However, while audience numbers will surge for popular titles, we would like to see an increase in our regular Monday night audience, to reach out to the high number of commuters in Kildare, and develop a comprehensive online marketing strategy to raise awareness of the Riverbank CINEMA.
Getting Started
At the first session, on meeting our Google mentor, Michelle Byrne, it was clear that we had a lot of groundwork to do before we could focus on the stated aim of the project. Initially, the key area to focus on was the connection between our accounts and ensuring that all aspects of the Riverbank Google account were linked up and administered under one account.
Basic things such as ensuring that our Google account was set up under a general Riverbank Arts Centre name rather than through a staff member’s account would ensure long-term access to statistics, reports and year-on-year analysis.
We then set up an Adwords account and ensured that Analytics, Adwords and www.riverbank.ie were all linked up and operating under one ‘roof’.
With all the dots finally joined up we could turn our attention to the next stage of work.
Google Grants
With arts budgets always tight, it was extremely beneficial to learn about Google Grants and gain access to a generous monthly budget of $10,000 provided under this grant scheme. See http://www.google.ie/grants/# for more.
With Michelle’s help we applied for, and won an ongoing Google Grant to assist us with Google Adwords. This will prove invaluable in helping us to improve our online profile and try new things, without the financial risk.
Google Analytics
The amount of information available through Google Adwords and Analytics is impressive and extremely interesting. On first exploring the results available here, we found that the time required to decipher everything was off-putting. The temptation to wander off in a tangent of reports and insights is difficult to resist.
Once you identify the key areas of importance for you, it reduces the time commitment dramatically. Admittedly, we are still a little dazzled by the wealth of information available, but using the Dashboard page as a daily touchstone gives an adequate overview and allows you to monitor progress in a timely way. Other reports can be examined as, and when, you need them.
Inspired by Derek at the Gate Theatre, a past google mentee, we have now introduced daily monitoring of Google Analytics as part of the Box Office routine. We always ask customers where they heard about a show on booking and at box office, staff are perfectly placed to monitor the effectiveness of our online campaigns and gauge responses from customers.
Google Adwords
With Google Grants and Analytics in place, we began to build campaigns in our Adwords account. While Michelle provided us with guidance in the set up stage, there are also a large number of webinars and online guides to helping you get started.
I would strongly advise that you set aside a dedicated period of time to Adwords at this early stage. The overall process is not difficult once you get comfortable on the basics and regular monitoring can become quick and easy but only if you get the foundations right from the beginning.
With a very busy period at the centre, we made the mistake of trying to snatch time here and there, giving Adwords short bursts of attention rather than a focused block of time. In the long-run this makes the set-up longer and more complicated than necessary. Once up and running with a good structure on the ads, the time commitment reduces dramatically.
Going back to our original aim of promoting the cinema at Riverbank, we realized that with few businesses advertising cinema in general, there was great potential for our ads to gain good placements and attention.
And, so began the task of getting to grips with creating concise, effective and targeted ads.
We began by setting up separate ‘campaigns’ and ‘adgroups’ for each of the areas we wanted to focus on. One of the biggest challenges at the beginning was learning to hone the keyword selection and create ads that are concise and directly relevant to a customer’s search. It can be tricky initially to get into the ‘google mindset’ and we are still working to improve the structure of our campaigns but with regular monitoring we are beginning to see what is working for us.
Results
From our campaigns to date we have seen that our brand is working most effectively for us with a higher level of traffic coming though brand searches. We have decided to focus a campaign specifically on this area to help attract more visitors and customers to our site. Our season campaign, highlighting individual upcoming events is also proving to be a success for us also. However, our ads for cinema are still very much under review as we strive to improve their structure, key words and effect.
The key metrics that we are concerned with are Click Through Rate (CTR)- traffic to website and Conversions- sales generated by an ad.
In order to track the entire journey of a customer from ad to sale, we learned how create a conversion tracking code. https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86283
This piece of code was embedded in the ‘Thank you’ page of our booking site. As with many arts centre our booking section is an external website but, on request, the company were able to embed this code for us.
The campaigns continue to be a work in progress and, while we have seen an increase in click through rates/visits, we hope to improve our conversion rates in time.
In the course of this project, we have also identified some issues with our website. The site has a high bounce rate, and although it is a relatively new site, we now realize that it needs further attention to pinpoint problem areas and improve our overall results.
Overall
Participation in the Google Mentoring Scheme has provided us with the opportunity to step back and really evaluate how our online marketing is working. It gave us a reason to put a spotlight on our online presence, recognize the problems, the positives and target areas for improvement.
We now have a clearer focus for our online strategy, and the project provided us with the key tools to monitor, analyze, and develop our online presence with greater precision and effect. Through Google Grants, we also now have a good budget with which to experiment and expand our profile.
The new report on Arts Attendance in Ireland drawn from the Target Group Index data is published today.
The report follows broadly the same format as last year but updates the information and looks at some trends. The main sections of the report deal with demographic attendance at different artforms (age, gender etc) and with media usage and behaviour regionally. If you are involved in marketing the arts, this is required reading.
Click here to access the report.TGI Arts Attendance in Ireland 2010 2011
news from the Arts Council News from TBCTPanorama theme by Themocracy
