Strategic Communication for Non-Profits was a class that, in the fall of 2009, allowed seven students (myself included) and two professors to embark on a professional marketing/branding/social media campaign with the Indianapolis Opera.
The task
Together, over the course of four months, we worked with the IO to implement a creative initiative for the a youth ticket campaign, aimed at increasing attendance rates among young professionals by offering a "25-and-under" $10 ticket.
Who we worked with
We had the opportunity to work with local media (the Indianapolis Star and WISH-TV) to help publicize events, such as a Black Tie Tailgate, aimed at introducing the lower-priced tickets to younger audiences. The ticket promotion and outreach to young audiences was the focus of the Jay Harvery blog in the Indianapolis Star. In addition, we were responsible for creating a new branding design for the IO (see photo below) to be implemented on posters and direct-mail postcards for regular IO patrons. We had the chance to present our designs and copywriting ideas to the IO's communications consultant, who later presented the ideas to the board of directors, as well as pose a year-end special event with the Indianapolis Urban League of Young Professionals (for more information on this, please click my 'Special Events' tab.)
My role
During the campaign, one other student and myself were personally in charge of media relations and social media: writing and editing press releases and media advisories for special events focused on advertising the ticket campaign, in addition to creating and maintaining a Facebook fan page and Twitter account for the IO $10 ticket campaign. In addition to connecting with the media, we were tasked with crafting e-newsletters as outreach for area high school arts teachers, fraternities/sororities, and young professionals groups to generate student interest in the IO, as well as crafting text for the "Add a little drama to your life" and "Drama you can afford" themes.
Results
After having our ideas approved by the board and after implementing the new branding design for the IO on posters, direct-mail postcards and in a 30 second advertisement on http://www.wishtv.com/, we were able to see the direct results of our efforts.
Final sales tallies showed 77 of the special tickets were sold for the December opera, a 305 percent increase over the 19 sold for the IO's October performance, which was prior to implementation of our work. For our video advertisement and banner advertisement on http://www.wishtv.com/, created with Adobe Flash, we received 542 total responses - a .82 CTR (click through rate) for the video, and a .15 CTR for the banner ad. Johanna Guyton with WISH-TV informed us that the CTR's and total responses (259,178) exceeded those of similar campaigns by other arts organizations.
Below are the final prints of our branding initiative in poster form.
Master Poster Copy
Postcard Back Copy
