Improved Marketing In An Environment Of Utter Chaos

Among the most valuable responses that come in each year from the reader segmentation are the topics readers would like to see more of in the coming year. My favorite from the most recent bunch simply said “improved marketing in an environment of utter chaos” (I edited out a colorful adjective, you can have fun inserting one on your own). And once you get past the entertaining phrasing and really think about the request, defining “utter chaos” isn’t as straightforward as it seems on the surface.

Adaptistration People 197Does it define office working relationships, higher demands with smaller budgets, or eternal crisis management? Is this a large, mid, or small budget organization?

Any combination of those can produce utter chaos and I found myself arriving at different topic points after following each thought path.

One of the variations that produced the most topics centered around budget constraints, especially within smaller to mid-size organizations.

To that end, I recently published an article at ArtsHacker that presents some options for creating visual dashboards inside custom reporting tools (using Google Sheets and Zapier). It provides a great no-cost solution for marketing pros operating in the chaos of micro budget environments. Better still, it doesn’t involve any begging, borrowing, or dealing to get it.

Read Can’t Afford Custom Reporting Tools? Then Take A Look At This Option From Zapier at ArtsHacker

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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