What donors want: You might not like it

Why do people go to the opera? The Mission Paradox Blog looks into the question at What if it ain't what you think it is?

Apparently some research into the reasons people attend the opera showed that opera company staff believed people go because of the reputation of the opera, the singers, and the composer. In reality, the audience said they go to the opera for two reasons:

1. Because it is date night and they want to do something romantic.
   
2. Because they want to appear classy and cultured.
   

That must just drive opera professionals nuts! Those reasons are cheesy, ignorant, low-brow, and, well, just wrong.

We're all entitled to our own opinions about other people's motivations. But if we actually want to be persuasive, we'd better speak to those motivations, like them or not.

Nearly all arts marketing is built around the beliefs and felt needs of professionals and insiders, not the public. So you have to wonder: How many people have never been to the opera and will never go because the marketing focuses on things they don't care about? Is it any wonder the "high arts" struggle to survive?

Same holds true for many other nonprofits. The experts know what's important. The simple-minded beliefs of non-experts are beneath them. So they produce marketing and fundraising that aims at their own understanding, perhaps in hopes that this will spur benighted would-be donors to "evolve." Or maybe they're hoping to keep out the riff-raff. They're all but saying, "If you're going to be ignorant, we don't want your money."

Organizations with that mindset have chosen to limit their fundraising effectiveness and their revenue growth. They'd rather feel good about their messaging than be successful. Their elitism and arrogance are a ball and chain.

Why not reach people where they are -- not where they "should" be? I can almost guarantee that many of the people who go to the opera for low-brow reasons grow in their understanding and sophistication as they experience opera. They may never reach the exalted level of the professionals, but they'll make a lot more progress than they would if they never entered an opera house in the first place.

Technorati Tags: marketing, opera

Comments

[Sandy Rees]

I think you're right that you can't assume you know why people support a particular organization. I remember talking with a major supporter of a food bank once and she told me that the thing she liked the most about the organization was the fact that we were keeping food out of the landfill! Had nothing to do with people going hungry or not.

I learned my lesson that day and I have never assumed again that I knew why anyone does what they do.

[Travis J.]

I think this raises an issue in sore need of discussion, but I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. Let's say you begin marketing to these "low-brow" donors as "low-brow" donors. In an age of marketing literacy, my donors would see this from a mile away and probably be turned off. More importantly, I would alienate my donors who DO come for the programming (and give more money).

I guess my point is: marketing is part of the programming package. If people go to the opera because it makes them feel cultured, they will respond to marketing that makes them feel cultured. Pandering is very transparent and will make donors feel as if they are being talked down to. I'm not horrified by a "Come to the opera--you'll look classy!" tag line from a programming or institutional perspective. It horrifies me as a donor.

[Deb]

What I want to know is how on earth they were able to elicit "true" answers from the opera goers! Most surveys would beget the pat answers you'd expect about the excellent performers, or the outstanding program, etc. I'm surprised most respondents would even know - let alone admit - that looking classy was a primary motivation.

[Harlo]

I agree with your argument mostly, except you do not acknowledge the psychology behind opera companies' marketing strategy; a strategy which relies on this very alienation you describe. While your typical opera company has a deep appreciation for the art, their marketers understand that opera's high-brow mystique is a large part of the reason why people buy tickets. (Meaning, in addition to buying tickets to a great performance, audience members are *also* buying another product: the opportunity to view themselves as an aesthete, as enlightened, cultured...) Marketing must keep up this appearance, or they'll lose that segment of their audience.

Yes, it does seem to alienate other segments of the population, but luckily, marketing can capitalize on that, too. They can repackage the product to another group of potential consumers. By introducing outreach initiatives such as youth programs, discounted tickets to matinées, etc., marketers bring in potential audience members lying outside of their reach and expand their base of support.