Logbook Entry: How will you use marketing and the strategies explored in this course with your career as an artist or arts administrator?
I think this class has made more critical of design. Collecting all the marketing materials and reviewing them has made me pay more attention to how all things designed. Writing about these materials has helped me define what I think to be good design and gave me examples to model my work after.
This class also taught me the value of planning out your marketing goals. I had always just been thrown into marketing plans and expected to deliver. Now that I know how to create a strategic marketing plan, I will feel more prepared to take on that responsibility. I also found it really helpful to do the SWOC analysis for my marketing plan. That analysis really put into perspective where we really needed improvements and where we were strongest. I was thinking it might be interesting to do a marketing plan for myself. In this field and age we have to spend a lot of time marketing ourselves. It may be a good idea to have a plan.
Lastly, this class has given me an inside look to how marketers think. The idea of target marketing makes perfect sense, but still throws me. My mission has always been to make art accessible for all, so it’s difficult for me to design a marketing plan that tailors to a specific audience. Though I see how an organization must cater to the right clientele in order to stay financially stable. I just want to figure out how to do that while still maintaining accessibility. It reminds me of a story I hear from musician Bonnie Raitt: She said that artist like her were funded by the big commercial stars; that without bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, she wouldn’t have been able to have a career. So, maybe I should think of marketing like this: sometimes you need to pull in the big bucks in order to help the small artists, but in the end we are always supporting the arts.