Marketing and Branding Workshop with T Hampton Dohrman presented by Vanguard Culture

By Patricia Frischer

Marketing and Branding Workshop with T Hampton Dohrman:  Tiny Opera House, for small non-profits, https://www.linkedin.com/in/thamptondohrman/

Please note: you can watch the entire session yourself at this link

These are my notes from a recent webinar sponsored by Vanguard Culture. The advice here seems to be geared to beginning business people. There were good links given to check out for inspiration but Mr. Dohrman did not deal with the question of how we define our own idea of success. His assumption was that selling = success and I have found that is not always true in the arts community. This is summed up neatly by his following statement: 

“It doesn’t matter how you think people will respond, only how they actually do. Your job is to be a good tester. “

BRANDING is how it looks. The aesthetics and how people see your organization and how you have value.
Visual identity is logo and all of your graphics but also verbal. You are building trust and credibility. With the right branding you can look more established than you are and bigger! Consider consistency first and then repetition. Use the same colors and same fonts. You need graphics for decisions about logo and color palette, fonts, website, and in the recent past, business cards. You no longer have to hire an expensive graphic designer as you can buy these templates. For inspiration look for an established  company that you aspire to be one with similar values. www.Dribble.com is a place to find a selection of inspiration for logos and it is free. Try www.graphicriver.com for all sorts of templates. Other sites include https://www.fiverr.com/ and  https://99designs.com/

Colors: https://paletton.com/#uid=1000u0kllllaFw0g0qFqFg0w0aF allows you to take one color (you need to know the hex code which you can find with your medicine dropper or get one at https://pixlr.com/) and it creates a professional color palette to go with your colors.

Fonts: You can buy an entire style guide or choose your own fonts. Always use the same fonts everywhere and always use a font everyone can read and is viewable on all devices or use a pdf so the fonts are not changed when you send a document. Google fonts are standard and free and websites all recognize them. https://fonts.google.com/

Your Website is there to drive an action. It needs to be secure and looks professional. Better to learn how to do your own to stay in control and to save money and so  you can use one of the website templates. https://www.squarespace.com/templates/start/topic Others are https://presswizards.com/, or Weebly, Wordpress, GoDaddy, etc. You can use stock photos that you can also buy. www.Shutterstock.com

WORDS: Mission Statement is a short paragraph and shorter still is Elevator pitch but the shortest of all is your tag line. Your origin story should be personal and relatable. Memorize all of these and remember consistent and repetitive.  

MARKETING is more nuts and bolts and all about action and to gain awareness. Start at being good at what you do and believe in what you do. Marketing is basically all about sales. Sales funnel from prospects to customers through a specific order: finding prospects, setting a meeting, submitting a proposal, proposal accepted. This the sales journey. The action might be to drive prospects to the website, click on more to read, sign up for the newsletter, send them a pitch.  Success is defined if they buy.  Write out your process.

Prospects: define your goals to determine how many you need. What is your call to action?  
Response: email list, attend meeting, and send out survey to find out how successful you have been, or try follow ups with phones calls or texts.
Proposal: Make sure this relates to customer i.e. what do they get of value from you.
Buying: This takes time. Repeat contact with prospect has to happen. Use the funnel approach to hone in step by step.

Strategies: Analytics are the cornerstone of this approach.
Email and email list, You can see the customer’s journey down the funnel. You should makes this as targeted as possible and as personal. Lots of statistics will enable you to see how well you are doing. A drip campaign, www.moutic.com  is pre-automated emails based on points to track how engaged the prospect is and these can be timed and trigger based.

Social media can be both branding and marketing. Each platform has a different audience so determine who and where your audience is. If you have a business account on your social media platforms, you can automate and schedule your whole week in advance. Paid advertising can be very specific. Make sure you have a call to action.

Public relations and the press is great as it is free. Create a reason for them to talk about you. Gather a press list. Get to know individuals. https://www.tinyoperahouse.com/how-to-write-a-press-release/

Please note: my own press release guide is mainly for visual arts.

Content marketing. Stories, blogs, podcasts, videos, photos make sure that you remain in front of your prospects. It should be given out freely and reinforce your brand. If you do this then do it regularly..