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Sharon, to begin, tell us about your role as Landmark's Executive Director and some basics about the organization.
I’ve been Landmark on Main Street’s Executive Director since February 2004 with the responsibility of managing the beautiful 425-seat Jeanne Rimsky Theater and a gymnasium. In addition to having a significant rental program for both of these spaces, we offer a full season of programming in the theater that ranges from children’s shows like the Paper Bag Players, family specials like our upcoming “Sleeping Beauty” ballet, our WFUV-radio sponsored Folk Series, specials like the recent Evening with Jorma Kaukonen and our approaching spring concert with The Limeliters, cabaret performances featuring Broadway stars, our upcoming show “Opposite You” starring Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley and free panel discussions and author talks – like best-selling authors Nelson DeMille and Susan Isaacs.
Landmark has hosted sold-out performances of such world-renowned artists as opera legend Marilyn Horne, composer/musician extraordinaire Marvin Hamlisch, violin prodigy Sarah Chang, Broadway's Brian Stokes Mitchell, Latin-Pop star Raul Malo, and folk icons the Kingston Trio, Tom Paxton, Richie Havens, Roger McGuinn, Jean Ritchie, John Sebastian, Janis Ian, Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky and Judy Collins. Our annual budget is $809,000 and we have six employees.
You’ve been doing e-mail marketing for almost two years now, and your e-mail list has more than doubled in size in that time. What techniques have you used to encourage your patrons to sign up? Which have been most effective, and why?
Our programming has become more diverse over the last few years, appealing to a wider audience demographic. Increasingly, the public is learning about our upcoming events through their favorite performers’ Web sites, and when they contact us for tickets we invite them to provide their e-mail address so they can get program reminders and updates.
It’s been our most effective way to grow our list - we’ve grown by about 350 new e-mail addresses just since January 1st! It’s so interesting to track how people who sign up for our e-blasts through the Web site have learned about Landmark. 25% of new e-mail addresses come after they’ve received our season brochure; so, while they are not yet ready to commit to purchasing tickets, they are interested in our programs and want to maintain communication with us so we’ll remind them to buy later.
Another 17% join after hearing about Landmark on Main Street through word-of-mouth. Another 16% sign up after attending a program here – and they obviously want to keep hearing about new shows so that they can come back.
As a member-supported organization, how have you used e-mail to promote your membership campaign, and how well has it worked?
We consistently see our highest open rates for our e-blasts in late June and early July as we begin “teasers” for the next season. While our average open rate is about 19%, that number jumps to 27-29% in the summer.
We position our membership drives around the excitement of the coming season. In the spring you can become a member for next season if you contribute over $100 to our annual appeal drive or you can become a member at lower levels starting in July, entitling you to order tickets a full month before the general public and discounted tickets.
Our e-blast readers respond to our call for members and are buying their tickets early. In 2006, 65% of our membership dollars ("Friends of Landmark") were contributed in July and August. For the sold-out Dar Williams concert in November, over half the audience were members and nearly 75% of the tickets were sold in August.
Another good example is our Jorma Kaukonen show - he performed on February 10th, but the show was nearly sold out even before the general public sales began in September. Just under half of the audience were members who bought tickets before general public sales began after Labor Day. These are high numbers for us - most audiences compositions are more like 30% from members.
You recently added online donation capability to your Web site. Tell us about the options your patrons have for supporting Landmark, and what kinds of results you’ve seen from the online donation options.
We added your PatronDonate forms to our site, and they have really enhanced our fundraising efforts. It allows us to accept general donations, annual appeal donations, membership contributions, sponsorship pledges and sell advertisements to our playbill, bricks and theater seats.
We promote the online giving feature both in our e-newsletters and our written materials. In the nine months since we’ve implemented the online donation feature, we’ve received thirty-seven member contributions, two advertisements, one brick and one theater seat.
All in all we’ve totaled over $8,000 in online contributions and we’re looking forward to this year’s annual appeal campaign!
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