That’s why we all love the Arts. Dream Warrior Group has made Arts and Commerce harmonize. It doesn’t have to be difficult, expensive or complicated. But, it does have to work and be smart…and that is Art of it own kind.
(Image Finding Neverland at The Hanover Theatre)
Receiving new funding, raising donations, and even keeping ongoing sponsors for the arts can be a very difficult task. While difficult, it is not impossible. It is important to believe in your vision and that you are serving the public interest. In order to gain the resources that are needed to support your cause and business, there are important steps to take.
Step 1:
Research, know your audience, and ask appropriate questions. What influential people attend your events? What entrepreneurs support your cause? All of this information can be found with a quick search in Google, peeking at your analytics, as well as paying attention to who is actually attending your events.
Step 2:
Network, Network, Network. It is important to network and let people know who you are and what you are offering to the public. Attending conferences and upscale events are two great examples of circulating with the public, distributing business cards throughout the process. A key winning point is to ALWAYS follow up with those you meet along the way.
Step 3:
Next, develop an online presence. Organizations that have created social media profiles have a much better opportunity to connect with influential people online. This will certainly make an organization stand out from the rest of the crowd. People love to be thanked, so reach out after they attend events, and ask them to join the organization’s newsletter.
Step 4:
Showcase your strengths everywhere. Whether your organization is an art gallery or a theatre, make sure to highlight any milestones to show upward mobility. People like to be a part of something that is always progressing. Send out newsletters that showcase your accolades.
Step 5:
Give Incentives and always thank them. When anyone does donate or sponsors you, make sure to say thank you on paper and in person. Offer them a thank you dinner, free tickets to an event or even a shout out on your website or newsletter. When people feel appreciated, they are more likely to keep sponsoring you.
Start by doing what?s necessary; then do what?s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. -Francis of Assisi
I attended INTIX in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel Convention Center with my Dream Warrior Group colleagues Nami our CTO and LaMae our Bossy Pants /CEO. INTIX focuses on bringing ticketing companies, CRM providers and the venues that need them, together.
As a digital website agency, Dream Warrior Group was one of the few developers at the event which I thought was strange. Without a developer to connect all the pieces, from website to CRM / Database to ticketing software, you are not selling any tickets online.
Even the keynote speaker Martin Clarkson (link goes to a similar talk not the INTIX keynote) partner of MC LTD mentioned repeatedly the need for integration in the industry around issues of primary versus secondary sellers, adapting to disruptive influence and accommodating new markets (see Beijing pop. 28.5 million) and embracing the technology to get to 2020. The website is the partner to ecommerce (mobile optimized please) but a silent partner only noticed when it goes down.
With the proliferation of sites anyone can build a website but can any website build your ticketing business?
Spoiler alert, I work for a website company that caters to performing arts and live event producers and
shockingly my answer is no.
Here’s my case:
A self-built website is typically not:
1) Search Engine Optimized
2) Designed to get patrons to purchase in a minimum of clicks and scrolls
3) Supported by a team that can make adjustments (including coding) as needed in real time.
4) Easy to use on the back end. The ARTdynamix™ Content Management System is optimized for the user.
So, we spent our week talking to great live-event, ticketing companies and CRM providers that need to connect and also hanging out with anthropomorphic animals. If we didn’t connect at the conference and you have a question reach out at john@dreamwarrior.com or 310-341-3930.
Look for LaMae and Nami in NYC in for Arts Reach March 17-19, 2016
Part 2 Essential Tools
Some of you may find it hard to believe, but some nonprofits we have worked with are unfamiliar with the essential tools used to promote and monitor the well-being of their site or where to find them.
So here is the run down:
You must own your own domain name:
While that may seem obvious, some nonprofits (and for profits)? that we work with don’t have this information – or at least readily accessible. They have relied on the good will of others to make sure their site is pointing to the right server – and most importantly to make sure they will be able to regain control should it be needed.
Whether it is GoDaddy, Network Solutions, or Hover (among others), you should have immediate access to your DNS. Recommended practice is to make sure that all the detailed name service routing is done on the DNS provider?s server and that your IT support people have access to it.? It is fine and often necessary to ensure that your trusted web partners can access this also.
Always keep a screenshot of the latest version of the DNS page of your site on file (and even back a few).
You must own your own analytic/social properties:
One of the best practices we adopted in the mid 2000?s was to setup a default Gmail address for our clients, and whenever there was a new social media service out, we would use that account as the default email, so our clients have a common mailbox for their social properties. Your marketing director should have immediate access to that account, and the password to that account should be VERY STRONG (8 to 12 characters minimum, with numbers, lower and upper case letters, and if the service allows, use special characters such as @, !, or #).
The same practice applies to your Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and other analytics accounts (e.g.: Marketo) ? we create a separate email just for our client?s analytics and webmaster tools (or an email they prefer) and then use that to permit our default user to grant full access to their analytics.
Is the software behind your site appropriate for your needs:
This subject is one that I can write quite a bit about and in the near future probably will again. But in short, the type of content management system (CMS) that you use to manage your content will affect your site?s ranking and your traffic (not to mention ease of use).
-The First option is No CMS, with a side of code. That is a workable option no matter what kind of site you have, but depending on how large your site is, the site maintenance, edits and SEO can get quite expensive. Out of some 40 nonprofit organizations that we work with regularly, only one is currently running a static HTML site.
-The Second option is WordPress. WordPress is a good software. If your site is informational only or is a blog, WordPress will be as good as any CMS for managing your content. There are situations, however, where WordPress is not ideal – and many of those can have a significant impact.
-A Third option is Joomla/Drupal. Both these CMS’ are robust and they are more appropriate if you have a content heavy site with a lot of events, shows or similar data. At the end of the day, WordPress, due to its inherent coding, is unable to present your DATA as data and thus hurts your Google ranking if you are relying on your show data to improve your site ranking.
-Magento, X-Cart, and OpenCart are all robust environments for e-commerce and are extremely good tools for setting up a shop.
Every week, at least one person is asking me, ?So why shouldn?t I use one of these free content management sites like Squarespace?? The answer is simple: you get what you pay for. These sites are made simple-to-use by removing back end functionality that is essential to your success. In addition, even when you get the paid version, the tools have been modified to accommodate everyone, thus not truly effective for anyone.
Get yourself some proper instruments:
There are some things that you will be using over and over on your site. Newsletters, forms, image storage/video & audio streaming, site security (SSL or Secure Socket Layer), and Social Media are some of those.
There are dozens and dozens of newsletter creation and distribution sites. You should research them and decide on the one that is appropriate for you. Some of the ones that we happen to prefer are Mail Chimp and Constant Contact.
Using forms on your site will improve your visitors’ user experience. Allowing a customer to fill out an online form, instead of printing and hand filling a PDF, may keep a customer/visitor that would otherwise have found another site to get the same thing.
Forms are valuable marketing tools. They allow you to gather information about your visitors and identify potential leads:
– Subscription
– Registration
– Payment
– Contact form
– Giveaway forms
It would be great if you could keep that data somewhere off of the website where you could easily manage it and have it interact with your other software such as your newsletter software.
As with Newsletters, there are many form generation and management sites, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. It is important that you research them. We happen to prefer Formstack for the needs of our customers.
Your site getting hacked is a real and constant threat, which is why it’s so important to protect your website.
If you are conducting any transaction on your site, you have to be sure you have an SSL Certificate installed on your website to keep your data secure.
You also need to be sure that you have daily backup of your site and that your provider and/or? IT department is running a daily Trojan and virus scan on your site.
Another essential item is displaying your social media. There are two ways that you must utilize the social media: one, to provide interaction for the end user and the other to display that you are interacting with the end user.
So what do I mean by that?
First, you must help your visitors help you by providing social media share buttons on your blog and other shareable website content. It is best not to use commercial share tools such as the “Share This” button for this purpose since you cannot guarantee your visitors? privacy. In fact, almost all governmental sites (city and state) that we have worked with do not allow the use of commercial share buttons due to the very same concern.? There are dozens of code snippets, both free and for 5 to 6 dollars, which can provide the exact same functionality, but give you complete control.
Second, you must show your visitors that your social media is active. This is easily achievable by displaying your Facebook and Twitter feeds on your social media or home page. More importantly, Google bots will like you better if you have these on your site.
As a final step, it is best to include social media icons that link to your organization’s profile pages. These buttons can be placed in the header or footer of the site if you are running an informational site, but if your site is transactional (events, shows, e-commerce, etc.) then it is best to have the icons only in the footer. It is a given that you should only display the icons of the social media that you use.
As our work with nonprofit organizations increases, we are frequently sharing information on the same key elements. In this article we will review four of these leading principles; responsive design, user-friendly navigation, colors, and high quality photography.
Part 1 Design Essentials
Responsive Design
Responsive design refers to your site’s ability adjust to fit any screen size, whether the site is being viewed on a desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone. Responsive design is one of the highest priorities for any website today. The importance of mobile search means that your site must be available in an easily accessible, size appropriate form on mobile devices, and tablets.
If the site isn’t responsive, mobile users will have a hard time viewing and navigating, which can result in Google lowering your ranking in search engines.
Google’s recent updates (search algorithm) indicate ?mobile friendly? prioritization
Intuitive, User-Friendly Navigation
Well-thought-out navigation is crucial. It is imperative that visitors can find what they are seeking. Some of the more common to do’s in navigation is to use familiar, logical names and avoiding long drop down menus. (No more than 7 items).
One reason the role of thought out and simple navigation is so fundamental is to allow for easy monetization on your site. When clients visit your site their primary goal is to take action, so the menu items that monetize your site, such as shows, tickets, and donate should come first.
Call-to-Action Buttons
Call-to-action buttons are an important component of your website’s navigation. The purpose of a call-to-action button is to encourage visitors to click to do something (donate, become a member, buy a ticket, make an appointment, subscribe to your blog).
Call-to-action button best practices:
Colors
Please remember that you are building the site for your customers based on your branding, and not simply for your enjoyment 🙂
Make sure you select the colors for your site based on sound design and branding principles.
Color best practices:
High-quality photography
We are all susceptible to visual communication, and the right imagery can have a powerful impact on our behavior. By using high quality photography on your website, you can grab people’s interest and connect your cause/vision/mission with theirs. If you have a show make sure your ?Hero image? (top image above the fold) communicates the eminence of the show
Photography best practices:
According to Techopedia, Deep linking is the process of pointing a visitor to a specific page in a website through the use of that page?s link instead of that homepage.? We all know that it is imperative to make sure your patrons get to the point of ticketing for their specific date and time on the first try. It allows visitors to get the information that they are seeking quickly rather than a list of options that might be distracting.
Deep linking minimizes the click to purchase to increase online sales, helps raise more funds and simplifies the subscription process. For example, if a visitor wants to buy a ticket for a particular show and they search for the title of the show in your area online, they will find a direct link to buy tickets for that specific show instead of clicking on a link to your main page and having to do multiple clicks to find the checkout page. (I?ve heard estimates that you lose 18% of your traffic per click ? that certainly matches our experience)
So, some informal ticketing deep link rules are:
Always link them to a specific event purchase page
When sending email blasts or social media, make sure you link them to a specific appropriate page on your web site (not ticketing site) and then send them to the ticketing deep link.
Include direct links in your email signature regarding any shows you are currently promoting (rather than a link to your main homepage).
As LaMae always says – We are happy that folks get to the web site — they can land on any page they like or find. Then, it’s our job to quickly get them to where they need to be.
