Taking Out the Guesswork: A Guide to Using Research to Build Arts Audiences
The Wallace Foundation has released a guide designed to help arts organizations use market research to identify ways to build meaningful connections with different audiences. Taking Out the Guesswork: A Guide to Using Research to Build Arts Audiences draws on evidence gathered from 10 organizations across the United States, including visual arts institutions, theaters, dance and opera companies. The guide provides valuable insight and detailed guidelines on how to learn more about current and potential audiences, create effective promotional materials, and more effectively track and assess the results of new audience-building initiatives.
The audience research guidebook distills evidence gathered from 10 arts organizations that received Wallace Excellence Award grants. The organizations include: the Boston Lyric Opera, The Clay Studio, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Fleisher Art Memorial, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Minnesota Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Girls Chorus, Seattle Opera, and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. The guidebook highlights examples from several of these organizations to illustrate how research techniques were used to learn about, attract and retain desired audiences. Along with narrative examples from the organizations, there are step-by-step instructions for conducting the most common type of market research for that particular audience-building activity.