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 7/11/22 Ruth Hartt 7/11/22

The Art of Gathering: Rethinking tradition

Does traditional concert etiquette discourage diversity? With nearly half of the U.S. population reporting that they don’t feel welcome in our world, it’s time to overhaul our thinking around what a classical music concert should be. Insights on designing more welcoming, more inclusive cultural events.

Amanda Lester 6/30/22 Amanda Lester 6/30/22

Grow your audiences using these market research techniques

For those who have little experience with it, market research can seem daunting, expensive, and superfluous. But the truth is, market research can be simple, and accessible, and incredibly valuable. Amanda Lester of Screen Engine/ASI (and formerly of the LA Phil) joins the Culture for Hire blog to show us how.

Ruth Hartt 6/4/22 Ruth Hartt 6/4/22

The structure of your arts organization is outdated

Compelling arguments from Aubrey Bergauer and Julian Chender that, in order to be more customer centric, today’s arts organizations must move away from the prevalent functional organizational structure.

Ruth Hartt 6/1/22 Ruth Hartt 6/1/22

Audience Surveys: What They Are, What They Measure, and Where Most Organizations Go Wrong

Audience surveys are widely used to understand who attends and how experiences are perceived—but many fall short when it comes to guiding real decisions.

Ruth Hartt 5/28/22 Ruth Hartt 5/28/22

It’s time to speak out

These days, nearly two-thirds of consumers make purchasing decisions based on shared values. Consumers are now trying a brand for the first time solely because they agree with its position on a societal issue. That's huge.

Ruth Hartt 5/1/22 Ruth Hartt 5/1/22

Egocentric marketing: How to avoid it, and why pop stars get a free pass

Without the preloaded context that mainstream culture enjoys, arts organizations don’t have the luxury of taking the easy way out in their marketing.

Ruth Hartt 4/14/22 Ruth Hartt 4/14/22

The next frontier in audience development for the arts sector

Here’s a controversial call to action, but I’m sticking to it.

Ruth Hartt 4/2/22 Ruth Hartt 4/2/22

Where the opera is grand, and so is the style: The power of autonomy

Consumers feel more certain in their decision-making process—more ready to pull the trigger—when they’ve had the opportunity to reject one characteristic in favor of another.

Ruth Hartt 3/21/22 Ruth Hartt 3/21/22

A paradigm shift for arts marketing

Here's a powerful paradigm shift culled from business theory for arts organizations struggling with audience decline.

Ruth Hartt 2/28/22 Ruth Hartt 2/28/22

The marketing strategy that fueled Intercom’s stunning growth

A software company tailored their marketing strategy to correspond with the phases of the customer journey. The results were extraordinary.

Ruth Hartt 2/16/22 Ruth Hartt 2/16/22

Before you pull the trigger on that gorgeous video ad

Before you pull the trigger on that gorgeous video ad; before you click "send" on that brilliant social media campaign; ask yourself this one simple question.

Ruth Hartt 1/29/22 Ruth Hartt 1/29/22

The perfect homepage? Opera Australia is in the running.

Before I saw Opera Australia’s website, I was pretty certain that a truly customer centric homepage did not exist in the arts sector.