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SOR 023: Shoshana Fanizza

Guest:
Shoshana Fanizza (@AudienceDevSpec)

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There are many reasons I’m pleased to welcome Shoshana Fanizza to the podcast. One is that she started her own company, Audience Development Specialists, that she has been running since 2008. Another is that she champions the idea of developing a relationship with the right audience as opposed to just selling a ticket. Perhaps most importantly, though, Shoshana comes at the idea of connecting with your audience from a completely different angle than I do.

In this episode I also briefly touch on a concern that reader Caleob brought up. His theatre company does not have a home, but instead relies on municipal space and a small local university’s auditorium when available. He feels like this creates a challenge for their audience to reliably find them.

My thought is to focus on forging a connection between your audience and the other common threads in your productions. Location may not be consistent, but find the apsects of your shows that are the same across your performances. More detail on that in the episode.

In this episode:

• what audience development means – this phrase came up in a previous podcast episode with Matt Lehrman, but Shoshana sees it a little differently
• broadening, diversifying, and deepening – the different angles to take when developing your audience
• how A/V content is showing up now in arts marketing – this growing trend isn’t going to be shrinking anytime soon
• how big of an audience do you need – how many Facebook fans / Twitter followers / email addresses do you need for it to be worth creating A/V content?
• how polished does your content need to be – not very, in fact sometimes unpolished content fares better
• the unique advantage theatre has over other art forms in A/V content – it’s the same advantage we have in any marketing channel: we’re natural storytellers

Items mentioned:

• The How of Audience Development for the Arts – Shoshana’s ebook on creating an audience development plan
• Conquering the Fear Factor: Creating and Promoting Great A/V Content on a Shoestring – Shoshana’s session at this November’s NAMP conference on multimedia content
• ‘Midsummer’ on Google+ Is Shakespeare as You’ve Never Seen It – article on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s broadcast performance
• Shoshana’s blog – this will be moving, but for now this is the link
• ADS community page – centralized location for all the social media channels on online presences of the Audience Development Specialists brand

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