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Thoughts for NAMP blog post

I've been invited to participate in the National Arts Marketing Project Blog Salon about marketing the arts, in advance of this year's conference in November. As I'll be leading a roundtable discussion there on Customer Service in the Small Shop Arts Organization, I thought I'd write about how to keep audiences coming back for more.

This post is just some thoughts and ideas about the topic, things to remember, or spark questions.

-power of a name. How often are you greeting patrons by name, before they tell you what it is?

-good service makes the whole event. Crappy service can mar good art.

-building relationships takes time.

-ask questions, then write down the answers so you can follow up next time.

-share information with staff, up and down.

-how are you hugging your customers? Once marketing gets them in the door, what actions are you taking to make them raving fans?

-do you have a customer service mission? Not a list of rules, but a mindset about how customers are valued?

-does everyone in your org have a passion for people? This is critical, from box office staff to development to artists.

-you don't need to have expensive technology to build customer databases. All you need is the wherewithal.

-can you name your top 5 patrons? How about 5%?

-are you following up with patrons when they don't show up for a while? "R u ok?"

-share information. Sure, there may be things that an informal patron doesn't need to know, but sharing little things can have a big impact.

-asking for feedback, then actually listening to it and trying to implement.

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