Launch effective campaigns that grow your revenue and demonstrate value with this customisable theatre marketing plan template.
One of the biggest questions arts marketers grapple with is how to prove their theatre marketing strategies create a clear return on investment. So, what can you do to drive revenue and measure the impact your work has for your organisation and its audience? Start with a theatre marketing plan template that helps you see exactly how each opportunity can drive engagement, attendance, and revenue for your organisation.
First, know what you are measuring and make sure all of your audience data is in order. Next, define a connected content strategy across your website, email marketing, and social media. Then, create secondary spend opportunities – add-ons such as catering or merchandise that can drive additional revenue alongside tickets. By being strategic at each step, you can set your team up for long-term success.
Theatre marketing plan template: KPIs and success metrics
The first step to building a theatre marketing plan is establishing how you will set goals and measure success. You need to be clear on what you are measuring before you can dig into the how.
These key performance indicators (KPIs) are examples of metrics that can help arts, culture, & in-person experience organisations understand the impact they are making with their time and resources.
Customer retention
The number of first-time audience members who make repeat visits within the two years following their first visit and how your theatre marketing campaigns influence that behaviour. See more ideas on how to avoid customer churn and improve reattendance in your theatre marketing strategy.
First-time audience members
First-time audience members
Alongside growing audience retention, are you consistently bringing in new audience members? Track the numbers closely, then dig into who they are, how they are hearing about your organisation, and which theatre marketing channels are working hardest for you. This speaks volumes about where your current revenue is coming from and where there might be opportunities to expand audience engagement and revenue.
Web sales
The majority of your audience members book tickets online, so tracking web sales is critical to understanding what leads to purchases and setting targets for earned revenue.
Advance ticket sales
Getting audience members to book early can help guarantee income, maximise the value of your inventory, and avoid last-minute discounting. It is also a direct way for marketers to measure the success of their theatre marketing campaigns.
Customers adding a donation
As most theatres rely on donations and fundraising, not just ticket sales, their impact cannot be ignored – especially not by your data reporting. Keep a close eye on how many audience members are adding a donation, as well as any characteristics or behaviours associated with them.
Customers adding an upsell
This is key to understanding whether your secondary spend campaigns are working. More on that below in the section on secondary spend opportunities. From upgrades to merchandise sales, track whether your add-ons are gaining traction with your audiences and which ones are proving the most popular.
Understanding your audience is key to deepening your relationships with them. As you flesh out your theatre marketing plan template, look at all of the places where you are collecting audience data, consolidate it into one place, and use that connected data to make strategic decisions.
For example, this could mean using your integrated fundraising and arts marketing software to cross-reference audience members’ ticket-buying habits with their donation history and find opportunities to upsell them into members or higher-level donors. But it doesn’t need to stop there. Experiment with other data pairings and see what insights they can lead to. For instance, do local audience members have different spending habits than visitors coming from further afield? Do first-time visitors book earlier or later than regular audience members? Do comedies drive more secondary spend than tragedies? Every query is another chance to sharpen your theatre marketing strategy and strengthen audience engagement.
Content marketing
Telling meaningful stories about your organisation can help arts marketers break through the noise in a crowded inbox and strengthen relationships with audience members.
To grow your content marketing strategy, take stock of what content your organisation generates and how you channel it to engage your audience online and in print. Whether it’s finding production photos that could take a more central role on the website, creating a video strategy to urge social media followers to book tickets or starting a weekly blog column from resident artists, theatres have wells of interesting stories to choose from.
Make space to plan out your content for your theatre marketing plan, so every story supports your wider goals.
Blog
Your blog is the living, breathing part of your website, and it comes with endless opportunities to help your audience get involved. Plan regular content that highlights the here and now of your organisation and draws audience members and potential audience members to your site.
Website and landing pages
While it may be less fluid than your blog, your website is not a one-and-done project. For every show that your organisation puts on, you’ll need to make sure you have a virtual home for it. Meanwhile, evaluating your user experience and making updates should be a continuous process that’s integrated with your marketing plan.
Email marketing
Sending out a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly email newsletter is an essential part of keeping in touch with your audience. But your email marketing strategy does not have to stop there. Get specific about which audience segments you want to send targeted email marketing campaigns to. In addition, think about how to move your KPIs forward with every email you send, from confirmation emails to reattendance campaigns.
Social media marketing
Social media is now a major entry point for your audience. Be deliberate about how you want to engage with them and where you want to draw their attention in your social media marketing. Make sure that you do not just share sales-focused content. Instead, aim for a mix of content that entertains, informs, and invites connection.
Programmes and brochures
Your printed programmes and brochures are a unique opportunity to teach your audience about your organisation. They can be a chance to turn a newcomer into a regular audience member, or a regular audience member into an enthusiastic advocate. As someone thumbs through the programme in those minutes before curtain, you can show them your organisation’s impact, cross-advertise different events, or provide incentives for them to return.
Secondary spend opportunities
One of the most overlooked and effective ways for arts organisations to build revenue is by maximising ways for existing audience members to deepen their experience and spend more. Adding online upsells that let committed audience members deepen their experience is a great way to maximise revenue through secondary spend before event day. Think about offering:
- Food and drinks.
- Merchandise.
- Package offers such as meal deals or drink vouchers.
- Parking.
- Pre- and post-event experiences such as talkbacks, workshops, or celebrations.
- Ticket upgrades or exchange protection.
These opportunities tie back directly to the way you’re making use of your data. By identifying and understanding your audience’s behaviour, you can harness audience segmentation to provide the right upsell to the right person in a way that genuinely enhances their experience.
Get started with our quick theatre marketing plan template
Having a clear plan goes a long way. Use our theatre marketing plan template to jump-start your process. With it in hand, you will know what you are aiming to achieve with every initiative you take on, while showing leadership how you are growing revenue and building long-term audience relationships.
