ARTS MARKETING
by Keith Diggle

 

A message from Keith Diggle, author of the Audience Development Arts Marketing website and the book ARTS Marketing.

Why buy the book? Isn’t the website enough? A simple answer is that a website is a website and a book is a book. Marshall McLuhan would have agreed with that statement. (Who? McLuhan is a must-read for marketers. Search him out on the internet). This website is intended to provide a complete package of information, a tutorial that will provide you with - and here I quote from the home page - the ‘Concepts, Philosophy, Methodology,
Terminology’. Now you could just take that away and go to work with it...

But the book came first and, unlike the website, it argues its case. Its content is broader and deeper and because of this it is convincing. Because I have witnessed the entire development of the subject in my lifetime and have stayed with it - not dipping in and out as part of a career plan - I also include some of what I believe to be valuable ‘historic’ material. If building audiences is your business then it is probably your passion as well and information about how your business has developed over the years - the problems it has faced, the mistakes that have been made, the way in which concepts have developed and so on - is something that will feed your passion for knowledge. And it may disincline you to attempt to redesign the wheel.

I am a teacher. Whatever else I do in life, I remain a teacher. My skill lies in analysing difficult things so that they can be understood easily. The business of attracting audiences is one of those difficult things and I have spent a large part of my life first understanding how to do it myself and then working out how to explain it to others. What I believe and what I say has been well tested by readers and by my own audiences over many years. This book - my third on the subject - comes out of all that experience.

Published in 1994 is it now out of date? Before I created my website I read the book again with that question in mind. As a professional writer objectivity is what I have to have in order to survive. My objective view was that some parts definitely needed updating. The section of the website, The Keith Diggle Articles (there are eight of them) completely replaces Part Four of the book which carries reprints of eleven articles taken from the now defunct Arts Management Weekly magazine. So that part of the book is out of date. That’s all. Really, that’s all.

What emerged from my reading was that seen against the background of all that has happened - and all that has been published since 1994 - the ideas contained in my book have never been more valuable.

Other books have been published in the last decade that cover the subject of audience building. If you are wondering which you should buy then ask yourself:
Have the authors ever actually promoted a show?
Have they ever committed their organisations to paying for design, print, advertising and distribution and wondered what is going to happen if ticket sales don’t start to flow in?
Have they ever put their own money on the line?
I can answer Yes to these questions.

But the book was published in 1994 and when I came to create the website, although I did not find the book to be out of date, I did find things that I now wanted to add to it. There were new thoughts to express. The website became my update, if you like. The best example is the A.D.A.M Model which does not appear in the book. I have already explained my approach to updating the Keith Diggle Articles. My intention was to provide website information which, when read alongside the book, would give the whole picture.

ARTS Marketing was written primarily for UK readers (so you’ll find money expressed in £s and other UK related references) but don’t let that worry you. I deal in principles and they translate into any setting. Standing in front of an audience of 300 in the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila, as I once did for three day-long sessions, I experienced no failure in communication just because I occasionally made a reference that was unfamiliar to those fine people who were there to learn.

Because the market for this book is worldwide it is vital that would-be readers who live far from my shores are not penalised by the high cost of postage (you will see from my chapter on Sales that lowering the barriers to purchase is most important in the marketing process) so I have persuaded my former colleagues at Rhinegold Publishing Limited to offer the book at one price that includes the cost of packing and airmail postage to any country in the world. Pay by credit card and it is as easy as falling off a log.

£15 INCLUDING PACKING AND POSTAGE TO ALL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD!

POSTAL SERVICE TO ALL COUNTRIES OUTSIDE UK IS AIRMAIL!

PAYMENT BY CREDIT CARD ELIMINATES CURRENCY PROBLEMS - YOU ARE CHARGED IN YOUR OWN CURRENCY AT YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY RATE OF EXCHANGE!

WE DESPATCH WITHIN 24 HOURS OF RECEIVING YOUR ORDER!

 

 [ONLINE ORDER VIA OUR SECURE SERVER]