Marketing mix and resources
A good marketing mix is essential for cultural institutions and creative creators who want to market their products and services effectively. In this article you will find tools for developing a winning marketing mix.
A good marketing mix is essential for cultural institutions and creative creators who want to market their products and services effectively. In this article you will find tools for developing a winning marketing mix.
What is a marketing mix?
A marketing mix is the strategic combination of marketing tools used by an organization to achieve its marketing objectives. It provides a framework for strategically planning marketing activities. The classic marketing mix consists of four elements, also known as the 4 Ps: product, price, place and promotion.
- Product: The focus of Dutch cultural policy in recent years has been on better tailoring cultural products to a wider audience, with attention to new target groups, genres, geographical distribution and social relevance. It is important to focus your offerings on the needs and interests of your target audience. This may include responding to current trends or offering unique and authentic experiences not found elsewhere.
- Price: Pricing in the cultural sector is often complex due to the non-commercial nature of many institutions. Prices must remain affordable, often thanks to subsidies, in order to attract a wide audience. It is important to strike a balance between cost recovery and accessibility. Discounts, subscriptions or special rates for certain target groups (such as students or seniors) can help attract more visitors.
- Place: This includes physical locations such as museums, theaters and galleries, as well as digital platforms. Online presence has become increasingly important with the rise of social media and digital marketing. Platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube help reach younger and more diverse audiences. Accessibility is essential to not exclude a portion of your target audience.
- Promotion: This is an essential part of the marketing mix and includes all activities to reach and persuade the target audience. A mix of promotional channels ensures broad reach and a strong image. The power of repetition is important: your audience sees the poster in the café, reads about it in the newspaper, and sees an ad on Facebook. This way, your message sticks better with your target audience.
Modern additions
In addition to the 4 Ps, various combinations of variables are used in various fields, such as the 6P model for service or the 3R model for reputation. An overview of all these models shows that there is no one-size-fits-all, but that you can borrow from different models to arrive at a marketing mix that best fits your profile.
Marketing Plan
As a cultural organization, a good marketing plan helps you reach and engage your audience. Whether you are organizing a festival, theater production or concert, it is important to be clear about who you want to appeal to, how you will do it and with what resources. This article provides an overview of the most important components of a marketing plan, with practical tips and examples.
Online promotion
Thanks to the Internet and other digital applications, you can communicate more quickly and easily with your supporters. Some of the resources you can use for your online marketing are:
- Website or app
- Social media
- Free publicity and press approach
- Ads
- Search Engine Optimization
- Newsletters
Offline promotion
Yet you cannot escape communicating through offline avenues as well. Anyway, a mix of different means of communication is very important when it comes to promotion and publicity. Some forms of offline promotion:
- Advertisements and advertorials
- Free publicity and press approach
- Site Promotion
- Merchandise
- Radio and television
- Activations
Content types
Effective marketing requires a diverse approach with different types of content. Content can be broadly divided into the four categories:
Images: Think of beautiful pictures of performances, portraits of team members or cooperation partners, work processes, and campaign images for (digital) posters and flyers. But also humorous images, infographics or graphics.
Video: Video is becoming increasingly important in marketing. Create short videos where you introduce yourself, showcase your work, offer sneak previews, show atmospheric images, report, show collaborations, teach the audience something, or use professional campaign videos.
Audio: Audio remains as popular as ever because people enjoy listening during other activities. Consider creating podcasts, showing musical clips, interviews with partners or audiences, recording stories or an audio book.
Text: Text is a powerful medium for content and authenticity. Think posts on LinkedIn, captions under social media posts, blogs, your biography on your website, newsletters, reports and press releases.
Monitoring and data analysis
A successful marketing strategy requires constant evaluation and adjustment. Monitoring and data analysis help you gain insight into the effect of your campaigns and activities so that you can optimize where necessary.
Tools
Using a content calendar helps you plan and coordinate your communication activities. There are many templates available online, but you can also choose specialized services such as Later.com or Hootsuite. These tools offer advanced features for planning and analyzing your content.
Data
Use tools like Google Analytics and Meta-tools to monitor website traffic and social media performance. Link them via Google Tag Manager for optimal data analysis and present everything in a clear dashboard via Looker Studio. Also get valuable data from your newsletters, such as subscriptions, click behavior, open rates and popular reads. Collect physical visitor numbers and analyze ticket sales to discover trends and improve your marketing strategy. For example, the Digital Information Platform for the Performing Arts (DIP) provides additional insights for benchmarking and best practices.
Tip: Use QR codes on print and offline campaigns to increase engagement and collect valuable data on interactions with your campaigns.
Adjust
After a certain period of time, it's good to evaluate your results. Using statistics from Google Analytics or Meta, you can see where your audience comes from, who buys tickets or interacts with your website, and which channels work best. After analyzing all the data, you can make choices based on your results: what is going well and what could be better? Is your audience more interested in videos or podcasts? Which platforms reach your audience most effectively? Adjust where necessary and keep monitoring and analyzing regularly.
Data-driven marketing and privacy laws
As a marketer, you collect data to better understand your audience and optimize your strategy. Data-driven marketing helps you work more effectively, but privacy laws such as the AVG set clear limits. In this article, you'll learn how to handle data smartly without breaking the rules.
Feedback
It is increasingly important to engage your audience early and incorporate their feedback. Building a strong community through events, workshops and online interactions yields positive results. By actively communicating through social media and audience research, you can better tailor how your audience wants to be informed. This approach helps create a deeper and more lasting connection with your audience.
Purposeful and authentic
The ultimate goal of modern marketing is to make communication as personal as possible, with the right message for the right audience at the right time. Especially at a time when visitors and consumers value authenticity and personality. By using CRM systems and database management effectively, you gain insight into the preferences and behavior of your target audience. This enables you not only to attract new fans, but also to serve existing relationships better and approach them in a more relevant way. How to conduct a thorough audience analysis, read here.