Market Research

In July 2008 I particpated in the Harvard Business School's Social Enterprises Executive Education program Strategic Perspectives for Nonprofit Managers (SPNM). It was one of the best and most transforming weeks of my life.

Here are all of the links and topics for posts from SPNM:
Overview
Inspiration
Capacity
Leadership
Scale
Strategic Service Vision
Mission and Strategic Triangle - Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission
Value Chain
Market Research
Measuring Impact


So, let me step away from the Harvard classes...


Back at the Playhouse, we are talking about embarking on a market research study. Let me frame this with the fact that I believe that some people are predisposed to like certain art forms. Just like there are born readers, natural lovers of music, and those with an innate love of visual arts, I think there are people who are drawn to the theatre.

So after we carefully think through what we want to learn and the methods of collecting date, where do we start? It makes sense that we talk to the people who are coming to the Playhouse about their experience with the Playhouse. But who else do we talk to?

Conventional wisdom says we also talk to the people who are not coming to the Playhouse. But what type of person who is not coming? If I am right that some people are drawn to theatre and the other simply are not, the first group of “non-attenders” we should talk to are the people in our area who went at least once to another theatre in Connecticut or New York but not to the Playhouse in the last 3 years. We know from tons of data research that there is only a small cross-over between art-forms, but it might be interesting to talk to people who attend other performing arts disciplines in the area but not the Playhouse (but you may have to convince me).

But what about people who just don’t go to the theatre, any theatre? Let’s assume they tried it at some point in their life. Some school trip or friend got them into the theatre. Let’s assume they saw a GREAT show that was relevant to the things happening in their life. But they just didn’t like the act of going to the theatre. Can you really convert someone into liking theatre? I don’t think so. I would go so far as to say that what form of arts speak to you is genetically determined. So do we just forget about those folks. Can't we just be happy if they agree that we are doing some good in the community but they don't have to ever come see a show? It will give us more time to get the folks who are predisposed to attending through the doors.

But there is a lot of talk about getting new audiences. Getting more people to come and experience theatre. I would argue it is our mission to create opportunities for children to see theatre. And give folks their first theatre experience (that way they will probably figure out it they are theatre folks or not). But if I am right up above than that means there is a finite group of people who we can get into shows and our goal should be to get a larger share of that group.

But for any other kind of new adult audiences, I wonder where these we could find them – Mars?

I bet Eric, Beth, Jenn, Marica, and Laura S. can't wait for me to get back and schedule our first meeting about this!