2010-02-10

Thinking About Audience Research? Four Rules for the Perplexed (Part 1)

We just had a planning retreat with some of our board members, and they asked us questions about our audience that we couldnt answer. So we realized we need to do a survey...

As a researcher who works with arts organizations and museums, I get that call or email frequently. The marketing director of a theater, classical ensemble, dance company, or art museum will get in touch, often passing along a detailed request-for-proposal for audience research, and sometimes already armed with a list of survey questions that she and her executive director brainstormed together.

We know what we want to know about our audiences, shell tell me. We just dont know the right ways of asking them, or how to analyze the responses.

My job at those moments? To slow the train down a little and be sure the arts manager is thinking strategically and holistically about research. Her questions and plans may be the right ones. But unless she and her colleagues (including those impatient trustees) consider research in the broader context of institutional goals and strategies, the information they gather is unlikely to be truly useful to their organization.

And useful in this case means: able to fuel positive change. Research is about improvement. If youre not going to program, market, schedule, fundraise, price, package, interact, design, educate, budget, plan, or something differently based on what you learn, then why bother asking your audience questions in the first place?

An article by Peter Linett, National Arts Marketing Project, Washington, USA