Efficient cultural marketing in just 3 steps

Hu­go Vuyk | 15. Decem­ber 2022 | 3 min read­ing time

How do cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions suc­ceed in design­ing touch­points and mes­sages with the greatest pos­sible ef­fect? Our re­com­mend­a­tions in 3 steps.

For more than fif­teen years, Crafft has been ad­vis­ing cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions such as the Kun­sthaus Zürich, the Zürch­er Theat­er Spek­takel, vari­ous Zurich mu­seums and the Theat­er Casino Zug. One of the biggest chal­lenges here is to spread mes­sages across dif­fer­ent chan­nels. And to do so in such a way that are ef­fect­ive and re­ward­ing for the brand. Be it through con­tent on the web­site, through so­cial me­dia, through user ex­per­i­en­ce or through design. Cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions need to ad­apt their com­mu­nic­a­tion to the re­spect­ive chan­nels and con­vey con­tent that is rel­ev­ant to the tar­get group. 

These touch­points and mes­sages should be de­signed as ef­fect­ively as pos­sible to max­im­ize their im­pact. Here are our 3 steps to­wards suc­cess in this field:

Step 1: At­tract

The ba­sic pre­re­quis­ite for ef­fect­ive ex­tern­al com­mu­nic­a­tion is to be clear about the mes­sage. The fol­low­ing ques­tions should be asked: 

• What do we of­fer? 

• What do cus­tom­ers re­ceive? 

• What do we do bet­ter than oth­ers?
   

This leads to this fol­low-up ques­tion: What do we as an in­sti­tu­tion want to say to our tar­get group?

An­oth­er im­port­ant point is to pay at­ten­tion to con­sist­en­cy. Both in fre­quency, in con­tent and as well as in the tone of the mes­sage. And this in com­bin­a­tion with cre­at­ive as well as in­tel­li­gent im­ple­ment­a­tions. If the com­mu­nic­a­tion is con­sist­ent, it en­sures re­cog­ni­tion and gradu­ally builds a brand re­pu­ta­tion – at­trac­tion. 

What does this look like in prac­tice? In our col­lab­or­a­tion with Theat­er Casino Zug, we held sev­er­al work­shops where all the re­spons­ible parties con­greg­ated around a table to col­lect ideas, dis­cuss and even­tu­ally agree on the most op­tim­al com­mu­nic­a­tion concept. 

Step 2: En­gage

The task now is to op­tim­ize com­mu­nic­a­tion in line with the defined mes­sages and val­ues. The fol­low­ing ques­tions arise: 

• How do we ad­dress cus­tom­ers? 

• What con­tent is im­port­ant to them? 

• How do we com­mu­nic­ate our com­pet­en­cies?
   

Most spe­cif­ic­ally: How do we as an in­sti­tu­tion want to ad­dress our tar­get group?

It is im­port­ant here that the en­tire team (In­sti­tu­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tions agency) agree on the type of the chan­nels - both tech­nic­ally and in terms of con­tent. Spe­cif­ic­ally, this means se­lect­ing which chan­nels will be used for which mes­sages and who is re­spons­ible for the pre­par­a­tion and man­age­ment. 

One of the goals of these mes­sages is en­gage­ment. The tar­get group should re­spond to our com­mu­nic­a­tion. This suc­ceeds when a cul­tur­al en­ter­prise gen­er­ates con­tent that ap­peals to the tar­get group on the one hand and con­tinu­ously op­tim­izes the user ex­per­i­en­ce on the oth­er. 

Step 3: Con­vert

The third step is about mar­ket­ing and amp­li­fy­ing the mes­sages:

• How do we spread our mes­sages prop­erly?

• What dif­fer­en­ti­ates us from our com­pet­it­ors?

• Why should cus­tom­ers buy our product or use our ser­vice?
   

This leads to the fol­low­ing ques­tion: How do we en­sure that our tar­get group re­ceives our mes­sages?

No mat­ter how clev­erly a mes­sage is writ­ten, if the tar­get audi­en­ce does not read it, it is of no use. Tools like SEO and SEA, so­cial ads, net­work­ing, and in­flu­en­cer col­lab­or­a­tions can help dis­sem­in­ate the mes­sages and get the brand out there. 

To con­clude, de­cis­ive for suc­cess­ful com­mu­nic­a­tion is col­lab­or­a­tion and ex­change with all parties in­volved. That means: in­tern­ally, between the cli­ent com­mu­nic­a­tions agency, but also ex­tern­ally with the cus­tom­ers. Only in this way is it pos­sible to re­act to the rap­idly chan­ging en­vir­on­ment and con­stantly up­dated busi­ness agen­das. And what al­ways ap­plies to all com­mu­nic­a­tion meas­ures: Test. Ana­lyze. Op­tim­ize. Re­peat.