Wait, what!? That’s right, your tech stack. If it’s not, it needs to be.
In today’s digital marketing age, everything your performing arts organization is doing should be measurable, including your program book usage. Whether it’s the number of patrons who access the program book or how many people view and then click on an ad, these are part of a larger set of measurable data points. This type of information can drive your marketing strategy, boost ad sales, and increase future performance sales.
The old printed program books won’t do this. Printed program books are a black hole when it comes to measuring engagement. How many patrons picked up the printed program book but never cracked it open? How many glanced through a few pages before throwing it away? And how many actually looked at the advertisements or were mildly interested in the upcoming season lineup? All of this information is lost in the printed program book experience, but easily captured, quantified and tracked with digital program books.
What is a performing arts tech stack?
The essential elements of a performing arts tech stack include the various marketing and technology components you use to run your performing arts organization. In fact, you probably already have most of the critical tech stack components:
- A content management system (CMS) for storing and managing all the content videos, articles, and blogs you like to promote on your website and other social media feeds
- A website hosting and management tool to help optimize the design and performance of your website
- An online or digital ticket sales platform that either supplements or supports your phone and in-person sales
- Any kind of software for tracking the contact information of patrons, vendors, performers, and everyone else you deal with (also known as a CRM or Content Relationship Management tool)
- And an email service provider (ESP) to help you communicate with patrons and send automated marketing emails.
As your organization grows, you upgrade and replace the system or the software for each of these important marketing and business functions. But have you noticed one key item missing? Your digital program book!
Adding Your Digital Program Book to Your Tech Stack
If you still rely on paper program books as your main marketing and communication tool, then this will continue to be a large and potentially costly gap in your tech stack. The information you are NOT collecting with paper program books is staggering. Instead, your digital program book needs to take its rightful place in your marketing tech stack as a source of business-critical data for marketing, sales, advertisements, and customer engagement to name a few. This information can then be integrated with the data from the other points of your systems to form a truly comprehensive marketing and customer experience strategy.
A marketing tech stack may sound complicated, and a digital program book may seem out of reach, but everyone starts their digital engagement journey somewhere. Let us help you take the first step. Contact us to learn more about how digital program books can become an integral part of your performing arts tech stack.
