Winter Nights Digital Marketing Plan
Programmatic Digital Marketing Plan | Arts Marketing
For this project, I was tasked with designing a programmatic digital marketing plan for a fictional arts organization of my choice. I completed this project as part of my Master’s in Arts Leadership and Management. Images used on this page are stock images.
Winter Nights | Instinct Arts
Digital Marketing Plan
Company Profile
Company: Instinct Arts
Description: Instinct Arts is a fictional mid-sized, nonprofit arts organization in Omaha, Nebraska. Instinct Arts engages in both producing and presenting, and hosts a variety of theatre, music, and visual art events. Instinct Arts strives to be a hub for new work in the Omaha area. The majority of Instinct Art’s audience comes from the Omaha/greater Nebraska area. While working to be a leading voice in the arts in Nebraska, Instinct Arts also hopes to grow to be a notable regional organization. Like many arts organizations, the audience of Instinct Arts skews to the 50-and-older population, but the organization is working to grow its younger audience. For the purposes of this assignment, Instinct Art’s product will be shows/ticketed events, whether those are theatre productions, concerts, or art shows.
Digital Marketing Plan
Campaign: Winter Nights
Winter Nights is an upcoming event at Instinct Arts.
I. Goals, Objectives, and KPIs
Organization Mission Statement: The mission of Instinct Arts is to build a vibrant community of artists and audience members alike by empowering the innovative work of artists, producing stimulating, cross-disciplinary experiences for the community, and inspiring all people to follow their artistic instincts.
Organization Business Goal: The business goal of Instinct Arts is to grow our community by producing engaging, artistic events that drive increased ticket and membership sales.
Winter Nights Campaign Objectives: Increase online ticket sales by 20% in the two months leading up to the event in comparison to the previous year’s ticket sales for the same event.
KPIs:
Increasing total number of tickets sold and total revenue from ticket sales by 20% over the next two months
Increasing the percentage of conversions from email newsletter recipients by 20% over the next two months
Increasing the percentage of conversions from website visitors by 20% over the next two months
Increasing the percentages of referrals to the website and conversions from organic social media by 20% over the next two months
Increasing the percentage of referrals to the website and conversions from digital advertisements by 20% over the next two months
II. Target Audience
Demographics:
Age: Young-middle aged adults, ages 25-45
Gender: All genders – Instinct Arts is an inclusive and accepting environment.
Location: Greater Omaha area
Problems & Pain Points:
Our target audience is already seeking out leisure and entertainment activities. Much of our audience’s leisure time is centered around shared experiences with friends, and they are willing to spend money on good entertainment. They seek entertainment, inspiration, and community. Much of our target audience is busy with work, education, dating, starting families, etc. so they want entertainment options that are easy, low-stress, and worthwhile. They already find entertainment options at home through social media, gaming, and streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Instinct Arts needs to show that our events are an even better option than the entertainment they are already seeking out, and we must prove that our events are worthwhile, fun, and even relaxing.
Where they spend their time:
In the real world, bars, restaurants and clubs are popular gathering points. In the virtual world, our target audience is social media savvy, and most have accounts on multiple platforms. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, and YouTube are all in use. Most of our audience subscribes to multiple streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Disney+, HBO, etc.
What they consume & how they learn:
Our target audience turns to social media for both entertainment and information. Twitter and Instagram are both playing large roles in getting news. TikTok and YouTube provide hours of entertainment, and some of our audience spends more time watching videos on these platforms than on streaming services. Instagram and Pinterest both are places our audience find inspiration with the highly visual content that appeals to creatives. When our audience has a question, their primary response is to use a Google Search on their smartphone. On Facebook, our target audience has a presence but is not as active as on other apps; however, they do seek out information, inspiration, and community in Facebook groups based on specific interests.
Why, where, and how they buy:
When it comes to entertainment, our target audience expects and plans to pay for some sort of entertainment. However, many want to be entertained on their own schedules with lots of options available. For this reason, many readily subscribe to streaming services. If something looks intriguing and is decently priced, they are likely to take a chance and pay for it – because unsubscribing is an easy option. Our target audience is highly motivated to watch shows, read books, etc. that their peers have recommended to them. Also, they are more likely to engage with a more expensive form of entertainment if it is something they can share with friends.
III. Digital Marketing Strategy
Content Marketing
The overarching content strategy of Instinct Arts is made up of several series that create a framework that can be used for various events. Unique content is generated for each event within this framework.
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This content will include photos, videos, press releases, descriptions of the event, bios about the artists, etc. All of this promo content will strive to be vibrant, eye-catching, and awe-inspiring. This content will be geared toward building awareness for the event, establishing interest and intrigue, and answering logistical questions for the audience. The series will include the official show graphic designs, a trailer video, a set of high quality photos, and standard copy that can be tailored to each of the channels.
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This content will give glimpses into rehearsals, show the artists at work, capture highlights of the creative process, and ultimately, get the audience to think “Oh, this looks like it’s going to be cool! I need to see this!” The content will include photo, video, and audio that can be combined in different ways and tailored to each of the channels.
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This content will be a deeper dive into upcoming artists. The series will be geared towards building a personal connection and educating audiences so they can enjoy upcoming events to the fullest extent. At the center of this series will be an interview with upcoming artists that covers their background, creative process, past work, and any other unique things. The series will also include Instagram/Facebook stories takeovers. The series will result in video, photos, and copy that can be combined in different ways and tailored to each of the channels. Meet the Artists content may be combined with curated content from the specific artist’s past work.
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This series will be “human” content from the thought-leader of the organization. The focal point of the series will be a weekly/bi-weekly podcast hosted by the Artistic Director that touches on the latest news from the organization, the greater arts world, the creative process, the Artistic Director’s own work, insights into upcoming events, and interviews with artists and staff. The series will serve as the centerpiece of the employee-driven marketing content. The content from the podcast will be repurposed as blog posts, soundbites, and social media posts.
Organic Social Media
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We will use organic posts that include tailored content from each of our different series that feature lots of photos and video. We will also have periodic artist story takeovers. Additionally, we will use Facebook Groups to create an ongoing community of Instinct Arts patrons and artists for sharing ideas, sneak peaks, and relevant content.
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Similar to Facebook, we will use organic posts that include tailored content from our different series. Periodically we will have artist/staff story takeovers. When the show has begun its run, we will encourage audience members to take the iconic “Playbill selfies,” post them and tag us. The Winter Nights event will feature a signature, wintery cocktail that will lend itself to a shareable moment. We will use the hashtags #WinterNights and #FollowYourInstincts.
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Organic content on YouTube will include multiple, longer versions of our promo trailer, interviews from the Meet the Artist series, and multiple videos from the Behind-the-Scenes series shared at progressive stages of the creative process leading up to the event.
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Our organic content on TikTok will feature upcoming artist and staff members. Upcoming artists might sing an original song, do a dance challenge, or share another form of their personal, creative content – generally, building awareness of them as an individual and for the organization. Staff might create TikToks of fun office shenanigans, take part in trends, or give sneak peaks of preparations for upcoming events… think that challenge with the makeup brush where the person totally transforms, but instead a blank stage turns into an elaborate set.
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If the artist is willing and the event lends itself to it, we will create organic content for Pinterest pulled from the Meet the Artists Series. The content will draw from the artist’s specific kind of work and be geared toward inspiring audience members to make their own work.
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We will use bits of content from each of our series tailored for Twitter.
Social Media Advertising
For this campaign, we will only use paid social media advertising:
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
These platforms offer us the widest reach and the strongest ROI. The content for these ads will be pulled from our Show-Specific Promotional Series. All three platforms are well-suited for our ads because much of the value of our product is communicated through visuals. The ads will be inherently eye-catching, entertaining, and inspiring – and hopefully these glimpses will draw in customers to find out more. We will make use of image, video, carousel, and slideshow ads. These ads will link to the ticket sales page for Winter Nights on our website.
Influencer Marketing
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Leading up to the opening of the event, we will empower the freelance artists we work with to be influencers. While the Instinct Arts brand will be overarching, the personal brands of our artists are equally valuable. We want the artists we work with to bring their own following to our events, and consequently, their following will become part of our community.
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Additionally, we will partner with community leaders in order to build awareness for Winter Nights and Instinct Arts as a whole. We will invite them to our event, and although we may ask them to post beforehand to build excitement, the more important part of this campaign is them posting about their experience during/after the fact. We want the public to see their community leaders and peers being a part of Instinct Arts – and thus drive future engagement. Potential influencers might be local business owners, civic leaders, community activists, university student leaders, or athletes. Looking to the long-term, we hope that by inviting these prominent community members to an event and providing a good experience, they will develop a lasting, personal interest in the organization that goes beyond an influencer “transaction.”
This campaign will include several emails, including our routine, organization emails and show-specific emails. Content will be drawn from all our different series, and every email will link to the ticket sales page of our website. Outside of this campaign, Instinct Arts will be launching a separate campaign to grow our email list.
Website & SEO
As part of this campaign, the Instinct Arts website will contain specific pages for Winter Nights and serve as the hub of all the Winter Nights content. The website will be a place that customers can research upcoming events and purchase tickets for those events. Important information, such as schedules, event details, ticket prices, and information on arts will be readily accessible. It is important to note that the website is the only digital channel in which customers can complete a ticket purchase, so all of our content will be designed and linked to bring customers to the website. A specific ticket-purchase page for Winter Nights will be the landing page for ads. All of the content from our various series will also be available on the website. We will strive to meet all digital accessibility best practices. As the new Winter Nights pages are added to the Instinct Arts website, SEO best practices will be kept in mind and implemented.
Google Ads - Search Only
For this campaign we will use Search Ads. We will not use Display Ads because the objective of this campaign is not to build general awareness of the organization. With our search ads, we will target people that are looking for things to do, upcoming events, and intending to buy tickets. We will target the greater Omaha area, and use keywords including “Things to do in Omaha,” “Omaha events,” “Omaha theaters,” “Omaha concerts,” and “Omaha nightlife.”