Ron Evans

Tooting Our Own Horns: Sharing Campaign Success Stories

Posted by Ron Evans, Oct 19, 2016 0 comments


Ron Evans

Friends, the National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) Conference is in just a few weeks (how the time flies!) and I am ready to join 600-plus of my colleagues for the knowledge-packed, networking-boosting, late-night-karaoke-ing extravaganza that will be NAMP in Austin, Texas.

If you’ve never been and are on the fence about going (gee, that must be uncomfortable) it’s time to cash in on all those extra hours you’ve put in during all of the “hell weeks” and fundraising deadlines, and get some well-deserved professional development and peer recharge. You won’t be sorry.

Fun at last year's NAMP Conference, destined to be repeated this year.

Let’s talk about all the work you’ve put in during the last year. Your successes. Your failures … er … learning opportunities. I can’t stress enough how valuable this information is to your peers. If you’ve found something that works, let the sector know! If you’ve tried something and it failed, let the sector know that, too, so you can help others to avoid your mistakes.

But in my experience, people don’t often share this information. It may be because of a fear of admitting that something went wrong. Or it may be that people don’t want to brag that something went right. We’re complex beings who make irrational decisions around emotion.

Let’s set all that aside for this post.

In the comments below, I’d like you to write something telling us about a success or learning opportunity you’ve had in the last year. It can be short. Three sentences. I want to know:

  • What was your goal?
  • What did you try?
  • Did it work or not?

Let’s get these juices flowing for NAMP. I hope you’ll feel comfortable sharing. And if there are no comments, that may just mean we have more work to do on our comfort level talking about ourselves.

With that, I turn the remainder of my time over to you. What worked or didn’t work for you in the last year in arts marketing?

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