Gardner Email Marketing Strategy
The museum needed an email marketing strategy that satisfied short term needs for ticket sales while not short-changing long term goals for constituent engagement.
Challenge
When I first joined the Gardner Museum, it had two monthly newsletters. These newsletters were managed by the marketing department and went to a static list with the limited goal of marketing ticketed programs. The newsletters were created and sent using an outdated email service provider with a one-way connection with the organization’s CRM. This one-way connection made it impossible to get a holistic picture of a constituent’s interests or behavior. Other departments, such as the development department, would manage their own contact lists and send email through other systems, further fragmenting constituent data.
Process
This was a case of making lemonade out of lemons. The museum’s ticketing system was reaching its end of life and the institution needed to find a replacement. Rather than continue with the piecemeal ticketing, fundraising, CRM, and email systems that they previously worked with, the museum made a forward-thinking decision to switch to an all-in-one CRM that could handle all their needs. This was a huge opportunity for:
Getting a better picture of constituents
Thinking about marketing in a more strategic way
By thinking about ticket sales as a single step in a ladder, the museum was able to be more strategic about marketing tactics and campaigns.
Ladder of Engagement:
After the museum moved to its new CRM, I began work on developing and implement an organization-wide email strategy. Previously email had gone to everyone and were focused on selling tickets to programs. Now the museum agreed on a new goal:
Move constituents up the ladder of engagement from initial awareness, to first visit, and through continuing engagement.
The concept of a ladder of engagement was incredibly important because it encouraged the organization to expand its goals rather than abandoning old goals in favor of new ones. Ticket sales, formerly the only goal of email marketing, became a single rung on a ladder as opposed to a goal in and of themselves.
Once a person’s email address is in the CRM, tactics can be used to deepen engagement and shorten the time between first interaction and advocacy.
While the ladder of engagement starts with everyone, email marketing can only begin once a person provides an email address. Previously email addresses were only gathered through online purchases (fewer than 2% of all ticket purchases were conducted online at the time) or a single newsletter signup on the museum’s website. The museum developed tactics to increase the number of email addresses gathered from visitors and performance attendees.
Different sections of the ladder of engagement are managed by different departments. Each step has short term goals and tactics that integrate with the larger strategy. The departments meet on a regular basis to report on KPIs and to make sure that movement from one rung of the ladder to the next is smooth.
Result
Today email marketing efforts and resources focus on tactics that relate directly to the ladder of engagement. The museum no longer blasts a single list with offers to purchase performance tickets, but instead uses segmentation and targeting based on constituent self-selection and past behaviors. Additional resources have been put towards increasing the number of constituent records with email addresses, such as improving the online ticket purchasing experience.
Three departments now work together (Marketing, Membership, and Development) to develop and test the effectiveness of repeat offers to encourage repeat visitation, event attendance by specific segments, donations by specific segments, and conversion to membership or high levels of membership and patronage by specific segments. This collaboration allows for a holistic view of how constituents are communicated and satisfies short term needs for ticket sales while not short-changing long term goals for constituent engagement.