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Groups form an essential part of the audience base for many arts organisations, yet relatively few spend much time and effort cultivating them. Adrian Phillips explains why marketers are missing a trick.

If you were to take a good look at the list of patrons that had brought a party of say ten plus to your venue you?d probably see Mrs Jones from the local WI, Bob from the Round Table and Ms Timms from Saint Mary?s Junior School. These and many other types of group are a valuable element of the audience, and deserve to be nurtured; but some groups can be very demanding, as anybody who?s ever dealt with them will tell you. Last minute changes to bookings, trying to pay with bags of 10ps on the day of the performance and requests for backstage tours in-between a matinee and evening performance with a very tight turnaround are common. So why bother? Well not only do you get the obvious financial benefits in terms of ticket sales, but groups increase the effect of word of mouth ? in other words they can be among your best ambassadors.

What do they like?

? Free tickets ? some organisers like them as a reward for all their hard work, but others spread the benefit amongst their party. A buy-10-get-1-free ratio is quite common.

? Understandable discounts ? display the deal in terms if £?s off not as a %.

? Plenty of notice ? many groups, especially schools, book six months or more in advance.

? Ease of booking ? dedicated booking line/priority booking period.

? Personal contact ? they like to be known and know who they?re dealing with.

? Help with transport ? this applies more to schools. Cost of transport, not ticket price, is one of the major bars to them attending your events.

? Flexible booking periods ? if you want groups to book well in advance (and why wouldn?t you?) don?t expect the money in straight away. It takes time to confirm numbers and collect money, so try to accommodate.

How to communicate with them?

Post: Mailings are the traditional method of letting your groups know what?s going on, but bear in mind that many of these organisations will receive information from a multitude of venues and companies so be careful not to rely on them solely. These need to have a long-ish lead time, as discussed above, so don?t be afraid to supply advance information, even if you don?t have all the details to hand, such as precise performance times.

Telephone: By telephoning these groups shortly after you?ve mailed them you can focus their attention on your programme and find out more about them. One technique that?s worked very well in the past is Teleprompt, piloted at Buxton Opera House and now being rolled-out with other organisations (and featured on the Arts Marketing Association?s website). Essentially devised to retain first time attenders, Teleprompt can easily be adapted to communicate with organised groups.

Email: Many groups now have an email address - so collect these. Being able to send offers and information in this format is cheap, fast and can often generate a bigger response rate than traditional direct mail.

Face to Face: You might also want to consider organiser evenings, especially good if you?re trying to attract new groups. Invite them in, make a fuss of them, ply them with a bit of food and drink and TALK TO THEM. You probably already do this with the press so just spread your net. You could also be pro-active and make appointments to go out and talk to groups about your venue and events.

When is a group not a group?

You may have high expectations of what you could achieve with groups because of the size of your database, but be wary. Just because you?ve got 350 records that have booked ten, fifteen, or whatever number of tickets constitutes a group booking in your eyes, it doesn?t mean that they are all ?real? groups. This is particularly true of Christmas productions where many people who fit these criteria are actually families. These ?disorganised? groups won?t respond in the same way as their ?organised? counterparts and certainly won?t book as early. Clues to look out for so that you can differentiate include a company or group name in the first address line, and what they?re booking for ? if it?s only ?Baker Bert and His Magic Cat? plus the Christmas pantomimes, then they?re likely to be a family.

Data, Data, Data

This leads me on to talk about another vital element of working with groups ? the information you keep on them. We all know how important it is to keep databases clean and up to date, but this is even more so when it comes to groups. Contacts change frequently whether it is a teacher, sports and social club organiser or youth club leader. Mailings often don?t reach their intended target because the named contact left six months before ? many of these will get binned with no further reference. Likewise, avoid at all costs sending out materials to The Head Teacher or Social Secretary ? these people have names so put the effort in and get them.

Building up lists

Quite often organisations have to start from scratch when building a group?s database. There are several ways you can do this, but they all take time, effort and money and some work better than others.
? List Brokers ? it?s tempting to rent a mailing list, but in my experience they can be costly with little in way of return. This is mainly to do with keeping these lists up to date as described above, but also because few of them have been gathered with reference to people?s interest in the arts.
? Chamber of Commerce ? often a good port of call when trying to find companies that may have a sports and social club.
? Local Authority Web Sites ? a wealth of information about clubs, groups and associations can be found by surfing some targeted sites.
? Education Authority ? for the building up of a schools database.
? Other venues ? I know that many may flinch at the idea, but talk to each other and don?t be afraid to exchange data (if you?ve got Data Protection Act (DPA) permission that is).

Whatever route you take you?re still going to have to spend time getting to know contacts and their needs, and building a rapport; but believe me it really will be worth it ? honest!


Adrian Phillips is Account Manager for Phone Box, The Phone Room?s Box Office Solution. He works with arts organisations across the country to help generate
group bookings t: 01865 324000; e: adrianp@phoneroom.co.uk; w: http://www.phoneroom.co.uk