Connecting with the community
There was a lot the Lawrence Batley Theatre didn’t know about their audiences, making it difficult for them to build a comprehensive fundraising and marketing plan for the performing arts.
Their mission is to reach out, build relationships, and serve a population the size of a small city. With a comprehensive view of audience behaviours across marketing, fundraising and sales activity, the team uses Spektrix to track data more closely, identifying trends and driving decision making.
Using automated email programs in Spektrix and Dotdigital, the team will deliver more bespoke communications and target potential members with dynamic content designed around their interests. They know there are people who would be willing to support the theatre’s work, but their existing membership scheme has proven too laborious to administer in reecent years. With more targeted communications and closer audience relationships, a tiered membership scheme - and a parallel programme for under 30s - is at the heart of the theatre’s audience marketing strategy, with an ambitious target of £10,000 in membership revenue within three years.
As a theatre built by and for the community, the impact of better audience data doesn’t stop at communications. That insight will inform future artistic programming, helping the team build attendance and develop new genres. Ultimately, they hope to make their audiences more representative of the demographics of Kirklees and measure the impact of their artistic and community work against their overarching mission.
