This is NOT a driver of engagement

If you're making this fundamental mistake, you’re putting an invisible ceiling on your organization’s growth.

Arts organizations too often focus their sales pitches on “cultural enrichment”, citing industry reports or in-house surveys that say it’s a primary driver of engagement.

But those studies asked the wrong question.

Or rather, they forgot to ask the most important question: The follow-up. (The hardest kind of question to ask in a survey.)

“Cultural enrichment” is the easy answer. But it’s an output. Not an outcome. A supply-side idea that ignores the real motivation.

If you want your marketing to resonate, you have to dig deeper:

• WHY did you seek out cultural enrichment?

• WHY did you want the 'real opera experience'?

• WHY do you crave immersive experiences?

Your patrons might struggle to answer at first. It’s not easy to surface these deeper motivations. But the answer, when you get it, will reveal a tangible outcome. A solution to a real-world struggle or need.

And when you meet consumers in their moment of need, you show empathy. Which builds trust. Which lowers the perceived risk of clicking “purchase.”

So please stop settling for shallow. Just because a patron checked a box on a survey doesn't mean you’ve got the whole story.

If you want to grow, focus on the deeper motivations that truly matter—the outcomes that resonate with every consumer. Not just your loyals.