What Gartner just confirmed

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Why the customer centric business model matters for the arts sector

41%

faster revenue growth

(Forrester)

more profitable

(Deloitte)

more likely to build loyal, repeat customers

(Institute for Corporate Productivity)

3.5x

60%

Latest thinking

Blog

What Gartner just confirmed: active personalization beats passive.

Personalization without genuine customer understanding, says Gartner, can backfire. The solution? active personalization.

2.9x Ticket Conversions: When Marketing Starts with Patron Need

Can need-based intelligence increase engagement and drive higher ticket sales? A 16-week controlled test at the New Bedford Symphony.

Why Customer-Centered Thinking Keeps Getting Pulled Back Into the Status Quo

This happens a lot. A demand-side insight surfaces in the sector, and the product-centric model absorbs it back into the same logic it's always run on.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra's Real Crisis Has Nothing to Do with Andris Nelsons

BSO's 40% audience decline isn't a conductor problem or a financial problem. It's a business model problem. Here's what the data says—and why no conductor search fixes it.

The Wrong Trousers: What the Met Opera’s Crisis Reveals About Strategy in the Arts

The Met is in the New York Times again, searching for another solution to its financial crisis. This time, they brought in BCG.

Built for a Different World: The Arts Sector Business Model Problem

Arts organizations aren't naturally resistant to change. But it feels that way, right? And it’s all too easy to assume that it’s a leadership problem. But it’s the model that creates inertia.

The sentence that unlocks board engagement

The moment you frame the sector's problems as structural, your board stops offering tactical fixes and starts asking the right questions.

What if arts patrons aren’t “different”

What if arts patrons aren't inherently different? What if the traditional arts model makes them behave differently?

Zero-Party Data: How arts organizations win in a privacy-first world

We’re living through the biggest data shift in 20 years, and it's forcing a reckoning for arts leaders: know your audience deeply, or lose them to organizations that do.

Your stewardship strategy is killing your moment-based giving

CEO: Ok, our stewardship is dialed in. Appreciation events, welcome gifts, the works. But donations are stuck. What’s your take?

New CMO: Don’t kill the messenger, but we’re playing one giving game when there are actually two.

The Rise of Experiential Gifting: 5 Studies Arts Leaders Need to Know

It’s mid October. Your patrons are about to face one of their biggest holiday season frustrations: finding the perfect gift. Here are five consumer studies you need to know.

When personalization backfires

Personalization is billed as marketing’s holy grail. But most of what the industry calls “personalization” isn’t personal at all — it’s shallow behavioral tailoring, and consumers know it.

Universal design: How to grow audiences by centering the outsider

Forward-thinking organizations are applying universal design principles to their entire organizational structure, recognizing that inclusive design fosters innovation that benefits everyone.

The blind spot in arts audience research

For decades, arts leaders have been told to focus on people who already love the arts. Here's why that advice is limiting growth.

Burying the Lede: When Arts Recovery Headlines Reinforce Inertia

The headlines are exciting. "Arts sector grew at twice the rate of the total economy!" "We contributed $1.2 trillion to the GDP in 2023!" Here's what's actually happening.

The Classical Music Attendance Paradox: Why 11M Listeners Don't Fill Concert Halls

If listening were a pipeline to attendance, our concert halls would be packed. They're not. Here’s why.

The golf industry has reversed decades of decline. Can classical music do the same?

Golf didn't just stabilize a declining industry—they sparked record-breaking growth by making the sport accessible to people who never would have engaged before.

The secret to your next grant win

Most grant applications follow the same tired formula: Here's who we are, here's what we do, here's why we're great, here's why you should fund us.

10-25%

revenue lift from personalization

(McKinsey)

more likely to confidently complete critical purchase decisions

(Gartner)

of customers expect personalization

(McKinsey)

71%

2.3x

Ruth Hartt 6/27/21 Ruth Hartt 6/27/21

How will cultural organizations survive the next big disruption? Neuroscience and Amazon have the answer.

These are daunting times for the cultural sector. What’s the right way forward for the industry?

Ruth Hartt 6/12/21 Ruth Hartt 6/12/21

Can arts organizations survive the longest-running disruption in history? Opera Australia has cracked the code

Opera Australia increased their sales revenue 28% in eight years and became the only major, year-round opera company whose ticket sales provide more than 50% of its income. How’d they do it?

Ruth Hartt 6/2/21 Ruth Hartt 6/2/21

Does your social media feed ignore your customer?

Here’s a hard truth: the average customer doesn’t care about you.

Ruth Hartt 5/26/21 Ruth Hartt 5/26/21

The California Symphony: Explaining Aubrey Bergauer’s extraordinary success through the lens of business theory

Aubrey brought the California Symphony back from the brink of financial ruin with jaw-dropping speed. The lens of business theory provides an explanation.

Ruth Hartt 5/21/21 Ruth Hartt 5/21/21

10 signs your cultural organization is egocentric

The egocentric perspective infiltrates everything from websites and social media to fundraising and marketing materials.

Ruth Hartt 5/7/21 Ruth Hartt 5/7/21

What opera singers share with marketers

Opera singers are trained to pursue their character’s deepest motivations. A marketer must be similarly equipped.

Ruth Hartt 4/17/21 Ruth Hartt 4/17/21

TikTok + Opera = A match made in heaven?

In the nine months since their first post in July 2020, their TikTok account has gathered an impressive five million likes and nearly 400,000 followers.