Making change HAPPEN – and keep happening – Business Development for Individual Artists and Arts Organisations

What is the SWITCH System?

We wanted to ensure the system was as easy to remember as possible.  We wanted to make it memorable.  The SWITCH System discovers the Self that defines your way forward by getting your audience Involved.  By telling your story, you will Create a movement that makes change happen repeatedly.

S – defining your SELF, who, why and what you do

W – finding the WAY, sharing your uniqueness & your work

I – getting your crowd INVOLVED, find out who they are

T– TELL your story that engages people to what you do

C – CREATE a movement, move your crowd

H – Making change HAPPEN, and keep it happening

Making change HAPPEN – and keep happening

The last part of the series on the SWITCH System looks at making change happen but not just once – again and again and again

Making Change Happen Again & Again
 

Measure | Results | Modify | Review

What we are going to be looking at is the metrics, so what we can Measure | the Results we are expecting to see | how we can Modify the programme to get better results or even in some cases get results | and finally Review the process, can it be implemented again and again – do we expect the same results and why?

To understand this better we need firstly to go back to the very beginning of the series – in defining your self we looked at goals, motivation and values – as we’ve said on numerous occasions since our crowd will only align themselves with us if their goals, motivation and values are met as well. So what was it that we set out to achieve? What was the goal we had and the expected outcome? How are we going to be able to say whether we met that goal or not? – unless we understand how we can measure success or failure then we have no way of knowing if we really achieved our goals. 

Now I know this can be difficult, especially as we sometimes deal with engagement, and typically the engagement of our crowd.  But remember your crowd consists of people want to feel a part of something; they want to join in and share in a world that reflects their values and interests. So think about what you can measure in this context to see if you have achieved your goal.

We spoke about this a little in getting your crowd involved , saying, “Just because you can measure just about anything these days, doesn’t mean that you should.”

At the core, your measurement activities should strive to answer some pretty basic questions:

•    What’s working?

•    What isn’t?

•    What do we need to do to make it work next time?

Here is where you have to be really honest with yourself, the metrics you define will show you whether you have reached your goals. If you remember in the post, The Way post we said asked, what metrics are you going to use and what criteria will you base your decisions on? Make sure you set goals for each of the key metrics you choose to track and also make sure that the key metrics you put in place should reflect on the success and failure you defined for your goals.  Your goals will put your performance into context, and help you to see if your results are on par with what’s expected – or better, or worse.

So what was the purpose of your marketing program?
 

What Specific behaviour were you looking to change or what were you trying to gain? Remember when we defined the Marketing Programme we mentioned that normally you are looking to produce one of three types of results:

•    Awareness – The target audience knows something about your company, product or service.

•    Perception – The target audience thinks about your company, product or service in a certain way.

•    Behaviour – The target audience does something, or refrains from doing something

So what did you decide to measure to show whether you had reached your goal? – I know I keep repeating this but it is critical.  It is also a bit late if you are only now deciding on what measurements you are going to be looking at, here we are really only concerned with the results you have achieved.

You should have been following your results as the programme progressed, keeping up-to-date with the measurements, seeing if they were in-line with your expectations and making decisions on the continuation of the goal based on results.  but I also know that a number of you will get to the end of your programme having not measured along the way and now you are only looking at what results I need to see if I can achieved your goals.  No Problem – well it is but as the saying goes, “Better late than never.” 

It is also very easy to twist results to suit your outcome, please avoid this at all costs as the only person you are not being honest with is yourself – and why would you do that to yourself – fear of failure? – To go off track for a second, this was exactly the reason we decided to bring the Fuckup Nights to Ireland, we wanted to celebrate failure.  But why celebrate failure? Well, failure sucks, but at the same time we can learn from failure. We firmly believe that you can learn more from stories of failure than from stories of success. Also did you know that the majority of people don’t create the “project of the year” in their first attempt? Of course not, unless you are really really really lucky the first project that you do will be a total failure – but do you give up? Of course not, you learn from the failure and put the learnings into action and see where you can make success out of the failure. We need to break free from the stigmas surrounding “failure”, because failure, after all, is just a learning tool.  In the context of metrics failure is looking at the results and reviewing them to see if we reached our goals – obviously when we fail at something we didn’t reach our goal the first time – but more importantly we might end up in a better place and a different goal. So why should you be worried about failure? Failure is great – Now no one sets out to fail but we will all fail at something at some point in our lives – it’s what we do with it that is important.

We deeply believe in communicating failure as a positive step everyone must overcome on the road to success, this is what we have set about to change.

The DATA Process
 

Ok, lecture over and now back to the task in hand. While it’s possible to measure just about anything in marketing, measuring everything is impossible (and unprofitable!).  Begin with the end in mind.  As Jim Lenskold, of the Lenskold Group  says, “Prioritize when and what to measure based on the answers you need to make decisions that will improve your profits.” Our goal might not be profit-based; it could be engagement-based, but the argument remains the same: think about what you need to measure to improve your engagement. Only when we have our measurements will we be able to judge success and failure.

The DATA Process looks at four elements:

•    Defining

•    Assessing

•    Tracking

•    Adjusting

Defining

Defining the results that your programme intends to promote. What’s the purpose of my marketing program? What Specific behavior are you looking to change or gain?

Basically there are three results that you are looking to get to

• Results That Increase Revenue
• Results That Decrease Expenditure
• Results that Increase Engagement

Assessing

Assessing the value of each potential result. If the average value of a sale is €3,000, and the average customer buys four times per year for five years, then the lifetime value of a customer is €3,000 x 4 x 5 = €60,000 – now this might seem a little high but if you work out for yourself what the lifetime spend of ONE CUSTOMER is than you will have a figure you can use.  Remember it is easier to get the someone who has bought from you before to buy again than to get someone new to buy from you.

The person who has already bought from you has a relationship with you, is part of your crowd, part of the movement that you have created.  However, the new person is probably not part of your crowd, so they need to build the relationship with you from scratch – this takes time and resources on both yours and theirs.

Tracking

Tracking actual results and determining whether your programme achieved them

Adjusting

Adjusting your programme based on the tracking; doing more of what works well, and less of what works not so well. Ultimately, measurement helps you adjust and optimise your programme.

Start with a Pilot

No not one of those that flies the plane but a small scheme. I have lost count of how many times we have said it but don’t try to measure everything at once, or change everything at once. Instead, select a few tactics and run a pilot.

How you select any tactic is up to you. But two good selection criteria are:

•    It looks like an EASY tactic to measure

•    It’s an IMPORTANT tactic to measure

It looks like an EASY tactic to measure

Some tactics are easy to measure, some are difficult, and most are somewhere in between. You can gain experience and confidence more quickly if you start with an easier challenge. Remember the Chinese proverb: “To move a mountain, begin by carrying off the small stones.” So start with something that is easy to measure – like engagements on posts or the number of retweets – you get the idea.

It’s an IMPORTANT tactic to measure

You may have one tactic that’s so important that you want to tackle it first. That’s fine, unless it also appears to be among the most difficult to measure. If it is difficult to measure then maybe it is best to leave it until you have gained some experience and knowledge in measuring easy tactics. Otherwise you might end up changing an important tactic that (by luck or by design) may be well-optimized already or not really knowing if you have achieved your goals or not and in this instance the results could be critical.

Measuring Return On Investment (ROI)

Now, for each programme / tactic you run, there is a cost incurred – whether posting something on social media, measuring the retweets or likes of a post.  Each of these has a cost associated with it – like your time.

Even the simplest ROI goals should include:

•    How many incremental sales are generated

•    How much revenue each sale produces

•    The gross margin percentage

•    The total marketing and sales investment

But remember to include:

•    Staff costs within marketing

•    Travel expenses

•    The cost of sales’ time spent following up on leads

So To Recap

Each measurement should seek to augment your understanding of improving the programme and aligning it with your goals & outcomes. This way, even if you don’t meet all of your programme goals, you can still figure out why and how to improve the programme. This is almost always better than launching a new programme you know nothing about.

Ensure you set goals for each key metric you choose to track.Your goals will put your performance into context, and help you to see if your results are on par with what’s expected – or better, or worse.

Think about what success looks like

What is it you are trying to achieve? – then measure it!

BUT the best tactics applied across the wrong strategies won’t produce your desired results. In other words, focus beyond “what is” and start measuring and thinking along the lines “what if”

Help with business development in the arts sector.

Letcombe Production is dedicated to the arts, creative and social enterprise sectors. Our website has dedicated reels on running your creative or artistic practice as a business, articles and opportunities for artists. In addition, we can organise digital media, marketing, project management, grant writing, application assessment, and tools to help you run your creative and artistic practice.

Working predominantly with arts and social enterprises, Letcombe Production can assist in all getting projects from idea to distribution. We can look after any size of project.