Amanda Seveland
Review: Arts Marketing Insights
IDIS 410
4/23/10

Arts Marketing Insights, written by Joanne Scheff Bernstein, presents information and insights for effective marketing within the performing arts. Throughout the book, Bernstein emphasizes the need to focus on the customer experience. She concentrates on how to make each moment of customer contact a positive experience. This includes the marketing, the initial contact with the ticketing office, the experience at the event, and any follow-up after the event.
Using case studies and statistics, Bernstein gives examples of how to attract new customers and how to retain audiences even with the ever changing audience trends. She thoroughly discusses the marketing techniques for today’s technology, the changing the arts manager/customer relationship as a result of patron needs, the value of all customers, not just season ticket holders, and the development of a strategic plan and brand identity.
Some of the ideas presented in the book are useful only for the presenting arts organizations that oversee all patron interactions with the organization. In an organization such as the Artists Series, some of Bernstein’s suggestions are not helpful, since the arts manager does not have control of the ticketing system, the box office personnel, the mailing lists, and the ticket pricing/funding. Also in the Artists Series, the board, or committee, does not play an active role. Even though Bernstein’s use the board for word of mouth marketing is a great and efficient idea, it does not work within this particular organization.
Other suggestions were useful to all organizations, such as the use of Internet and the shift away from emphasizing the importance of the season ticket holders. The idea that reappears the most often throughout the book was the importance of the customer experience. Bernstein had a few great suggestions for making sure that every experience is a good one, or at least turns into a good