Based on research and observation among successful organisations, our Audience Development Playbook is designed for anyone reviewing or resetting their audience strategy.
As I wrote about last year, the concept of audience development as a practice has been with us for over three decades. In that time, we have learnt a lot about what works – and what doesn’t.
We’ve brought together our learning in a new-and-improved version of our popular guide to audience development – a collection of straightforward suggestions to help manage wicked problems.
In recognition of the creativity and agility that lies at the heart of successful audience development, however, this edition is a Playbook rather than a directive guide.
Balancing act
To weather the challenges facing cultural organisations, we need to focus on building audiences with purpose and determination as never before. We need to think creatively about using our tangible and intangible assets to retain existing audiences, adapt to grow new and more diverse ones, and play our part in providing for those furthest from privilege.
To manage jostling financial, social and political priorities without losing sight of our cultural purpose, is a balancing act in which our audiences are the primary consideration. We have to make the most of them as beneficiaries, buyers, participants, supporters, ambassadors – and enable them to make the most of us.
The good news is that a more adaptive approach to audience development can make all the difference. The Playbook sets out a refresh of the old audience development formula, a more agile, hybrid way of working in pursuit of more depth and breadth of cultural engagement.
Recipe for success
So what is the recipe for success? Studies back our experience in the field, suggesting that effective audience development needs a mix of key ingredients, well combined and given long enough to bake. They include the usual mix of planning tools – relatively smart objectives and priorities, relevant audience intel, an action plan etc.
But there are also four main principles which we believe make the difference between a static plan which gathers dust on the shelf and a dynamic approach that drives real, lasting change, building day-by-day.
These principles, formulated by observing and working closely with organisations across the UK and internationally, are at the core of the simple tools in the Playbook. Audience development works when it is:
- Joined-up and organisation-wide: it is an essentially multilateral process, ideally a structured method of cooperation between programming, marcomms, education, visitor welcome, fundraising and many other functions. It can only work when these are aligned,
- Audience-centric: the mix is planned from the needs of particular audience out.
- Evidence–based: using the best data we have available to get beyond assumptions, and organising that intelligence to help us meet the needs of different audiences
- Long-term and iterative: real, sustained growth in audiences, and building more reciprocal relationships step-by-step over time.
These are all things easier said than done, so the Playbook is a curated set of practical, down-to-earth tools and prompts to help organisations apply these principles.
Here are some of the issues it explores.
Tackling the pains and gains of collaboration
Silo working is probably one of the greatest blocks to audience development but overcoming it can be a major challenge. As we know, people are working at full stretch, to demanding and sometimes misaligned targets.
The Playbook puts an emphasis on cross-team collaboration and taking time out to reset and reconnect by focusing on audiences. It takes a leaf out of the book of high-achieving organisations, including playful but purposeful exercises, and ideas like setting up a cross-team task force charged to drive change.
Sustainably ‘audience first’
Although many organisations like to think of themselves as audience-centric, it can be tokenistic. It is about more than having good access facilities and doing some occasional consultation. It means planning everything you do around the needs of diverse stakeholders. In reality, of course, it can be difficult to please all of the people all of the time and to stay true to purpose.
To do so, we need to be clear about what the organisation needs first, how far it is able and willing to adapt, how far our assets and resources can stretch. Part of being audience-centric is being honest and transparent.
The Playbook encourages organisations to consider their own priorities and limitations, side-by-side with the needs of their different audiences, towards a realistic but sound social contract.
Evidence and empathy
In theory, having access to more and better data than ever before means making fewer wrong-headed assumptions about the needs and interests of our audiences. But to achieve this, we must collect the right data and then organise it in a way than enables us to focus on the different needs of different audiences.
Here’s where segmentation, based on behaviours and preferences, comes to the rescue. The Playbook shows how to use Audience Spectrum segments (but it could refer to others) to tailor what you do, and to plan strategically for different kinds of growth.
But there is limit to what ticketing, survey, web analytics and social media metrics alone can do to build a deep understanding. Empathy is a critical ingredient: successful organisations just get out there and talk to people, filling in gaps in their understanding and tuning in to different lived experiences. The Playbook offers tips on bringing the data we do have alive, and how to have productive, empathetic conversations with our audiences and communities.
Innovative design with and for audiences
This combination of quantitative and qualitative insight can and should be a spur to innovation. We noticed that properly audience-centric organisations often adopted user-centred design methods to rethink the way they engaged audiences. The Playbook leans heavily into this idea, adapting established design techniques.
Learning as we go: working iteratively
Another feature of user-centred design is iterative development, frequent feedback, and continuous improvement. One of big differences in the Playbook from previous versions is a move away from waterfall planning, involving a three-year plan (usually abandoned in the first six months) to a more iterative test-and-learn approach, with tips for designing and building in experimentation, as well as light touch evaluation and review as part of day-to-day, month-to-month practice.
Get our free Audience Development Playbook here. It is designed to be used – dipped into and returned to – as your strategy evolves. The challenges facing cultural organisations are real, but so is the evidence that thoughtful, sustained audience development makes a difference. Sign up for our free online launch event on 22 April where we will talk in more detail about the Audience Development Playbook.
If you have stories to share, would like to be involved, or to commission our support, please do get in touch.
News of all new resources and learning opportunities can be found at theaudienceagency.org or by joining our mailing list.
This article was first published on Arts Professional as part of our Editorial Partnership
