The Face of BC Arts Cuts December 14, 2009

It’s now been about four months since our community experienced a huge upheaval: major cuts to our funding in the arts and non-profit sector. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that I’ve written about this topic extensively, passing along the word about rallies, protests, etc.

Today’s post is not about any of those things. I feel like we’ve been talking about BC Arts Cuts in more general terms: Presentation House Theatre, for example, one of my clients, has lost $38,000. That is a sizable chunk of change for a small organization, but how does it play out?

Meet Vanessa Melle. I did, last week, for coffee, in Gastown. Vanessa’s young–in her twenties–and just got laid off from her first “real” arts administration job: Director of Communications for Out on Screen. She lost her job as a direct result of BC Arts Cuts.

Here’s Vanessa:

I was the Director of Communications for Out on Screen, an organization that produces the Queer Film Festival and gives anti-homophobia presentations in high schools using independent film. The cuts to the Direct Access Gaming Grants left us with a $25,000 deficit and as we head into a new year we anticipate a further reduction to government grants by as much as $50,000. As a fiscally prudent and responsible organization, to ensure that our programs can weather the devastating arts cuts still to come, Out on Screen made the decision to lay off myself and another part-time staff member. It was a dream job and I will most likely have to go on EI before I find another one.

Gordon, Campbell, if you’re reading, I just wanted to let you know: by cutting funding to the arts, you are taxing the system by causing people to have to go on EI.

I have one more for you.

Recently, the City of Vancouver decided to close the Blodel Conservatory and the petting zoo at Stanley Park. It is my belief that this is because the Olympics are causing huge cost overruns, and the City has to figure out some way to make up that deficit. The Blodel Conservatory costs only about $400,000 to keep open. And closing the Blodel will have an effect on another young company that I work with: ITSAZOO Productions. Their biggest show of the year for the past two years is an annual, outdoor, promenade-style show that regularly sells out because it’s fun and takes advantage of a beautiful park setting in the middle of the summer.

Here’s Chelsea, one of the Artistic Directors:

If the Bloedel Conservatory closes ITSAZOO will no longer be able to perform in Queen Elizabeth Park. If any of you have seen and/or been involved with one of our outdoor summer shows in the park and you know how magical they are. It would be a great loss for us as well as for the community if we were no longer able to do this. It would also be a great loss for all of Vancouver, for many reasons, if the Bloedel Conservatory were to be closed down.

Chelsea asks that folks send an email to the mayor at gregor.robertson@vancouver.ca, asking him to please not shut down the Blodel.

: : : : : : : : : : :

For more information on what you can do to help restore arts funding, click here.

How to Measure Effectiveness of Your Marketing Campaigns (Guest Post by Gagandeep Singh) December 7, 2009

Measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns is imperative to determine how successful it is. But still, most business owners don’t track their marketing campaign results and keep on spending their money, without knowing whether the campaign is effective or not. Measuring the accurate performance of any marketing campaign is very difficult but with the following tips you can easily collect enough information from your marketing campaigns to take informed decisions.

Select Metrics: First of all, you need to specify which metrics you will use to measure the success of your campaign. These are determined by the objective of your marketing campaign. For example, if the objective of your marketing campaign is to increase blog readership, then number of subscribers should be used as metric. But if the objective of your marketing campaign is used to promote your Brand, then you could use surveys as a measurement to know about the improvement in popularity of your Brand after the campaign.

Predict Results: It is impossible to predict the results of a marketing campaign unless it is completed, but you can speculate what results which you think can be achieved at the end. Many business owners just say, “we want to increase blog readership, let’s place ads.” This is a very unscientific approach which could create difficulty in measuring effectiveness at the end. Be specific with your predictions. For example, say “we will increase blog readership by 30%.”

Divide and Measure: Each marketing campaign targets various locations and uses different sources like online ads or local newspapers to promote. Divide your Marketing Campaign on the basis of locations and then divide them further in to various means of Marketing and measure the results. This technique can provide you with lot of hidden information.

Here’s an example: you are promoting a product in Place X and Y, both online and offline. After seeing the results, you conclude that online modes of marketing work better in Place X, and in Place Y, offline ads convert very well. So in the future you won’t be wasting money on Offline Promotion in Place X or on Online Promotion in Place Y.

Calculate ROI: ROI also defined as Return of Investment. It is measured by Value of Customer divided by Customer Acquisition cost Multiplied by 100. For example, if your marketing campaign costs you $5,000 and you acquire 10 customers where each customer generates $1000 in profit for you. Then Your ROI would be 10,000/5,000 * 100 = 200%. Higher the ROI, the more effective your marketing campaign is.

Eliminate Unmeasurable Actions: Each marketing campaign contains some parts which can’t be measured directly. For example, if you place an ad on a billboard, you can’t count how many people saw that billboard. To help track this, issue a discount coupon code for your customers and track the success of such ads with the help of these codes. The success of any such ad would depend on the number of times a coupon connected to that ad would be used.

Test, Tweak and Retest: Keep on analyzing results of your campaigns and then make required changes. Sometime a tiny change in headline can make drastic improvement s in your ROI. So keep on testing your campaign unless you achieve desired results.

Gagandeep Singh is an Internet Marketing Executive for Fortepromo, which helps Small Businesses promote their brand with high-quality promotional items.

: : : : : : : : : : :

When your artist and your marketing department are at odds (guest post by Alfred DePew) November 23, 2009

I’m a writer, a writer of fiction. Fiction contains dialogue. People talk to each other in stories. We all know that. What took me some time to realize is that the conversations going on in my head about my own life were holding me back—as a writer and in my business.

About 10 years ago, I began to transition out of college teaching jobs and into my own coaching and consulting business. And all too often in the last 10 years, the Writer in me has been in conflict with the Businessman.

Many artists are in a business directly related to the art they produce. My business has nothing to do with who I am as a writer. I love my business, and I love working on this new novella. And yet these two energies still sometimes work against one another.

I went from the academic world, which promised a marginally safe living for writers and artists, into what we call the Private Sector—a kind of free fall into the market economy. Many of my first coaching clients were in my tribe: writers, painters, actors …. I loved working with them. I still do. They understand coaching principles right away. They know they’re naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. They consistently make powerful changes in their lives and work in three to six months. And they can sustain these changes. They’re some of my favorite clients.

Again and again, I hear these artists describe the conflict between the part of them that created the work and the part of them that needs to “get the work out there.”

While still teaching English at the Maine College of Art, I began running seminars for visual artists about “marketing” but which were much more about tapping the energy of what most inspired them and speaking about what they did from that place. Here’s what I noticed. In my clients and then for myself. Or I should say selves. For there are a lot of aspects to me: painter, writer, executive leadership coach, organizational change facilitator, son, brother, lover, friend. It’s easiest to think of them as roles we play in the world and to ourselves. In every marketing seminar, I heard the lament: “But I’m an ARTIST! I hate marketing.” So I began to play THERE. How to enroll the artist in the marketing department? How to recognize the creativity in marketing? How to call it something else? Sort of like putting the castor oil in chocolate milk. It kept working—but not so well.

I began to realize that these were very different functions, needing, at times, a similar kind of energy. Marketers and sales folk ARE incredibly creative. I work with sales teams all the time, and they’re inventive beyond belief, willing to take all kinds of risks.  It’s the same kind of energy we need in the studio or the rehearsal hall. But the energy is expressed in two very different roles. So I had to hold the Writer in me as distinct from the Businessman (the guy who suits up for networking events and gets on planes and talks to other guys and women in suits)—people whom the Writer part of me sometimes mocks and disdains.

You get the picture.

And that’s how we often are with ourselves. The Artist won’t condescend to speak to anyone in the Marketing Department. The Marketers dismiss the Artist as a flake. And the Accountant isn’t even allowed in the room. The inside of our heads begins to sound like a terrible episode of the Office—without any jokes at all.

So I say invite them all onto an imaginary stage and see what they have to say to one another—see how they relate to each other or choose not to. Get curious about the unconscious agreements they seem to have made with one another. Actually have them engage in dialogue—with each other, and—most important—with you. You’ve the one in charge. What kind of agreements do you want to make with these aspects of yourself now? How might they begin to work as a team? What does the Artist need from the Marketer? And vice versa? What’s at stake? Why is it important for them to work together? What can they count on from each other and from you? And how do you want to hold each other accountable?

Take some time with this. Listen. Make some notes. And most important: follow through on the agreements you make with these figures. Do what you say you’re going to do. And see what happens when the Artist part of you and the Business part of you get the chance to collaborate.

Alfred DePew is a writer, painter, and a Life Coach. His weekly column in the Vancouver Observer is called  Just Between Us (Notes of a Migrant Cultural Worker).

Relationship Matters (Alfred’s blog)

And Twitters at:@alfreddepew

For information about facilitating inner collaborations, contact Alfred at adepew@earthlink.net or call (604) 568-3621.

: : : : : : : : : : :

On Going it Alone… October 23, 2009

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the business we are in and how hard it is to continuously be motivated. As artists, we are one-man-shows, chief cooks and bottle-washers. For the most part, when we write that song, sketch out that painting, work on our novel, we do it alone. The arts can be very solitary.

I talk to people all the time to who struggle with this. Forced to have a job to support themselves while they build their art practice, they find themselves too tired/burnt out/uninspired to focus on their art practice at the end of the day.

The answer is just to show up. To treat your art as a job that you carve out time for every day, and show up to. It works because you no longer have to worry about inspiration or quality. Just by producing your work in sheer quantity, you will eventually come up with something great, or be inspired to create.

Still, like going to the gym, it can be tough to have the self-discipline to make yourself do it. So I suggest you get an art buddy.

Find someone who does what you do, or someone who doesn’t but is still an artist, and make a pact with them: you will both spend ‘X’ amount of time on your work over the next day/week/month. And then phone each other, send each other emails, or meet to discuss how it went. Having someone to be accountable to outside of yourself can be a very powerful motivator.

I’ve used this method many times in my life. It started when I worked at the SEARCH program, a self-employment program for artists. We would regularly create “Success Teams” out of groups of graduates who were encouraged to meet after the program was over to share ideas, help and motivation. The first few times I tried to get through The Artist’s Way, I was unsuccessful, but by going through it with a group which included weekly meetings, I got through it and I got lots out of it. Currently, I belong to a small business support group. We have been meeting bi-weekly for two years, now, and this group has been a great source of assistance–both by cheering me and kicking me in the butt.

So, whoever you are, whatever your art practice, I encourage you to not go it alone. Find someone, or a group of someones who are like-minded individuals, and create your own support group.

You can learn more about how to create your own “mastermind group” here.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Creating an email signature October 7, 2009

Last week, I got an email from Simon. This, in and of itself, is not strange, given that we work together. A lot. What was new was this spiffy signature:

I took a screenshot and converted it to a .jpg, so you’ll have to believe me when I say all links are clickable.

Email signatures are a powerful tool. They’re like the digital equivalent of a business card. As we become more and more active online, there are more and more places to connect with us, or points of entry. You might meet someone on LinkedIn that you didn’t know through Facebook, or vice-versa. So it’s important to allow your clientele to connect with you in whatever way they like the best.

So, first of all, if you don’t yet have an email signature, create one. Most email programs will allow you to do this, even the web-based ones like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.

Your signature should include any below that are applicable:

• Name, position, company
• Logo
• Address (ONLY if you have an office, not your home address)
• Phone number
• Website URL
• Blog URL
• Ways to connect with social networking: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

I came across a cool little program that writes the code for you, called Sig22.

Special thanks to the lovely and talented Janet Baxter, who sent me this article from CNN Business on how to create a digital business card.

Maybe if you ask him nicely, Simon will tell you how he did his.

: : : : : : : : : : :

It’s a social media revolution! September 9, 2009

Last month, I shared with you a really cool video that demonstrated the power of Social Media. In the same vein, I share with you this video, about Socialnomics:

Kinda puts things in perspective, huh?

: : : : : : : : : : :

Local arts community rallies in the face of massive cuts August 29, 2009

This always happens when I take a vacation. Something big.

The arts community, including many theatre companies here in Vancouver, rely heavily on gaming for funding. What that means is, non-profit organizations (which includes many arts organizations) get grants for operating and projects from revenue that the goverment makes off of lotteries, bingo and the like.

On August 14,  the government instituted a freeze on this money, pending a review. This freeze was lifted on August 24, but yesterday, many companies learned that grants that they were relying on for the next year or two have been cut.

You can read more about this story:

The Georgia Straight

The Westender

The Alliance for Arts and Culture

Plank

A press conference/rally has been called for tomorrow at Spencer Hebert’s office (Spencer is the opposition’s Art critic).

Here’s the information, courtesy of Jessie Van Rijn, who’s the GM at Carousel Theatre, and yesterday’s letter from Spencer:

A press conference will be held Sunday Aug. 30 at Spencer Herbert’s office. He would like as many people there as possible – arts organizations, arts lovers of all kinds, and particularly those who were on multi-year Direct Access agreements. If you are on a multi-year agreement and would like an opportunity to speak at the conference, please come a half hour early. And please pass this information along to everyone you know.

PRESS CONFERENCE
SUNDAY AUG. 30, 12:00 NOON
923 Denman St (btw Barclay and Haro)
Doors open at 11:30 a.m.

28 August 2009

Dear Friends of Arts and Culture,

Today is black Friday for our province’s arts and culture industries.

We are learning today that most arts and culture organizations who did not receive their gaming grant before the BC Liberal’s instituted their unannounced freeze will likely be getting zero dollars this year.
For some groups that can mean they will lose up to $100,000 in funding, and the money will likely not be there for organizations next year either.

Some groups will fold, others will go into massive debt, and others will lay off staff and cancel programs.
Some organizations had been guaranteed 3 years of funding by the government, and were waiting for the second year of funding after spending on the programs the government guaranteed them would be funded – and are now told they won’t receive it, and will have to re-apply.

This has come about because of the government’s budget lie.

They said the deficit would only be $495 million before the election despite top economists, and the Official Opposition’s warnings and now after the election acknowledge it will be much bigger.

One month before the election campaign kicked off I asked the Minister responsible about the province’s commitment to arts and culture and he said ‘there is no reason for the member to suggest that funding that has taken place in the past is somehow or other in jeopardy in this next fiscal year. It is not in jeopardy. This is assured funding during very, very challenging times.’

He also said in response to my first letter to the arts community about the government’s
plans to cut arts funding by 50% ‘The member goes on to say in this letter to the arts and culture community: “After the election, the budget will then decline by about 50 percent.”

That also is just wrong, and the member has no substantiation for saying that.”

The Minister’s statement is now proven to be a lie, and a lie that will cost us all economically, socially, and culturally.

From government reports we learn that BC Gaming’s investment in arts and culture is going from 19.8 million to somewhere in the area of 10.9 million, although none of this will go to people who have applied to gaming as it’s being used for the first time to pay for the BC Arts Council’s usual programs whose funding has been cut.

The government’s direct Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and the Arts budget is set to decline 50% next year, and possibly more depending on what comes out in the budget on Tuesday. on the whole it looks like a nearly 75% cut to arts and culture investment in BC. We’ll know more on Budget day, and I will let you know when I hear anything.

Can you pass this e-mail on to all of your contacts, and let me know what you are receiving from Gaming, and the BC Arts Council? Also please let me know if you are on multi-year funding, and were supposed to be getting your grants, but are now not and what this will do to your organization.
I will continue to stand for a strong creative economy, and support arts and culture organizations province wide.

We know that for every dollar invested by the province the province makes $1.38 back in taxes. That is sound economics.

: : : : : : : : : : :

Wanderlust August 21, 2009

My parents were gypsies.

Okay, that’s not technically true, but it’s something I joke about all the time. You see, I’m the youngest (by far) of five kids. And by the time my older siblings were old enough to have jobs and be in high school and cook thier own Kraft Dinner, I was all of 9. So my itchy-to-travel parents had to take me along. Pretty much any time there was a break in school, Christmas, summer vacation, we were gone. I had seen the entire country twice before I even hit double-didgets.

To this day, I have a very strong wanderlust. Some days I just want to get in my car and drive. Being on the highway gives me a thrill. Going on a ferry makes me happy. I just got back from two weeks in Greece, and I have taken plenty of solo camping trips.

Traveling is expensive, and we didn’t have tons of money. Not to mention taking time off of work means no income coming in. But we always figured it out. It was a priority. So, while every scrap of clothing I wore for my entire first 12 years came in the form of a hand-me-down from my cousins or my next-door neighbour, I got so spend Christmas in California.

This gets me to thinking about the theatre. If I take my son to the theatre, just as a matter-of-fact, as “normal,” will he grow up to crave the theatre in the same way that I crave the highway? Our community often worries about the audience of the future–where will they come from? Is this the answer?

I get that theatre, especially big-ticket shows, are expensive, and buying tickets for a family of four is daunting. Perhaps some of us can implement (or already have) family passes, where they give a discount for a small family group. If we want to build an audience for the future, we have to be part of the solution.

I also get that, to some degree, the stuff that we are producing (particularly in indie theatre) might not be appropriate for younger audiences. But I also think that we might under-estimate what our kids can handle, or what might or might not be appropriate.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Are you involved with a theatre company that is trying to reach out to a younger audience? How are you making that work?

: : : : : : : : : : :

Please don’t call me a “social media expert” August 17, 2009

I recently did an interview with Corwin Christie for the Technology in the Arts blog. As you know, in June, I launched my e-book: Getting Started With Social Media for Artists and Arts Organizations. Since then, the good little marketer that I am, I’ve been exploring every avenue to promote it, so I was totally jazzed when Corwin found me and asked to do an interview with me.

I have to say, those were some some tough questions, but I like a challenge. You can read the final post here.

The back says "because this t-shirt says so"

In the introduction to the post, Corwin rightly goes on to reflects on the term “social media expert”, which is a term that I have always felt uncomfortable applied to myself.

Really, anyone with a Twitter account can call themselves a social media expert. I mean, there’s nothing to stop them. There is no professional association of social media experts, no university or college certifications. Our world is so new, we are literally making it up as we go along.

What alarms me about the term “social media expert” is, people who are just jumping on the social media bandwagon may come across a self-professed “social media expert” and purchase services from them: a course, some consulting, or yes, an e-book. And it’s really buyer beware. Just because you call yourself a social media expert, doesn’t mean you are Gary Vanderchuck or Guy Kawasaki.

So, here’s  a couple of ways to tell if someone is really an expert or not.

1.    What are the numbers? Check out their profiles on Facebook and Twitter. How many friends do they have? What is their Twitter follower-to-followee ratio? Do they have a Facebook Fan page? And if so, how many fans? This point is about sheer quantity.
2.    Do they offer value? Check out their posts on Facebook and Twitter. Are they all personal? Are they all links to cute YouTube puppy videos? Or are they links of value, linking to their own blog, or someone elses’ about the latest and greatest in social media?
3.    Do they have a website? Is their website entirely dedicated to selling, or are there some freebies or useful information? Is there an about page so that you can get to know a little about them?
4.    Do they have a blog? How long have they been blogging for? Does their blog have an about page? A blogroll?

These are all useful criteria for judging expert status.

Personally, I’m uncomfortable with the term. I prefer to think of myself as someone who is learning about this stuff, but I’m just a little ahead of the curve. And maybe a couple of people along the way can benefit from my experience.

For a bit of fun (and some solid info) on the topic, check this out.

: : : : : : : : : : :

I’m on a Teleclass! July 24, 2009

This week, I did an interview with Jason Drohn, who is an online small business coach. We met through Twitter, and he is an avid blogger. He does a series of teleclasses, and my interview with him is  one of them.

Our conversation includes the topics:

• How organizations who rely on promoting their through the newspaper should be marketing in new media.
• The secret of promoting video through social media
• How and why you should be engaging customers through all sorts of mediums – audio, video, text
• How to sell 1-to-1 through social media
• How to create ambassadors for your business
• How your blog should integrate with your social media stream
• The strategy behind developing a plan for social networking
• What you shouldn’t do to promote your business with social media
• What the true cost of social networking is
• What you need to be careful about concerning brand management
• The truth on what Twitter marketing is actually about
• How to find clients and business through Twitter
• How to cross promote everything – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc.

And more!

Click here to listen to the MP3.

: : : : : : : : : : :