Here are the key points and questions, raised by a diverse array of arts and cultural organisations.

Why do audiences matter?

“Because they are us”     

                             

“Without them, there is no us”

 

“We need their applause”

 

“That they are appreciating the experience”

We consider the art is the most important thing but just as much, it should be about the engagement. Without a focus on people, on the combined artistic and audience agenda, we are the proverbial one hand clapping.

What do you worry about growing and sustaining audience relationships?

“Finding money” 

 

“Finding ways to make it personal when you are dealing with a mass of people”

 

“Lack of diversity. That we talk to the same people all the time”

• We worry about our budget, our social media knowledge and spreading our message.
• We worry about inconvenience, traffic, other distractions/event conflicts, accessibility in travel, public conveniences and safety of area.

These are all valid concerns. But why are we not worried about innovation.  Your organisation needs to take responsibility for innovation.

What do your audiences worry about? 

Is the perception “quality” and “value”? Your audience doesn’t just worry about it – they demand it. Quality and value are ubiquitous.

What is relevance? 

It is the narrative you need to make your organisation’s work meaningful and purposeful. Programmes like the Olympics or the X Factor don’t just show you the event. They show you the back-story, the personal journey.  And, three minutes later you are emotionally invested.

When it comes to emotional investment, we all do great work in the moment itself. But you had to be there. What does it take for us to get the audience there in the first place? A postcard or an email with a URL isn’t enough. This won’t build emotional investment.

What’s the next event you are going to try and sell your audience?

The Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz talks about how if you give people too many choices they buy less and are less happy with what they buy. So, don’t send your customers everything. Help them with their discovery to make the link.

Audience development cannot just be delegated to the marketing department. Innovation requires all to work together. Read Matt’s blog to learn more his four audience types.

Our Imperative of Innovation

Too often enough we think of our audience having to come to us. For successful participation we must make ourselves relevant in their lives, where they are. Are we ensuring this social and emotional connection, expressing the narrative and keeping them entertained?

How will the world be different five years from today?

How will your organisation adapt or adjust to change? What is an option as a response?

From asking this question, options and opportunities that we hadn’t considered before will follow. We can’t think only about the work. Instead we must embrace new ideas of  how we will engage differently in the arts. People don’t know what they want until YOU understand them so incredibly well that you can show it to them.

Want to hear the whole thing? This talk is also available as a podcast.

Join the Culture Republic family and benefit from a wealth of upcoming events, workshops and networking opportunities. Drop an email to our partnerships manager Ela. We’d love to discuss how we can help your organisation develop and grow, from practical skills building, funding applications to audience research data.

The post Imperative of Innovation from Matt Lehrman appeared first on Culture Republic.

This episode is an exclusive live recording from our series of Learning Week events. Matt is a globally recognised audience development expert, motivator and strategist. His consultancy, Audience Avenue, focuses on loyalty and customer engagement for arts and cultural organisations.

In this podcast you’ll hear Matt’s talk from Wednesday the 2^nd of November. Called The Imperative of Innovation, it focused on what audiences want from arts organisations. It is a thought-provoking reflection followed by a Q&A.

One note – there are a few audio glitches in the Q&A (around 1 hour 20 minutes). We felt the content of the questions and answers were worth it. These are the challenges of live recordings. If you want to skip that section, things are clearer again in the last couple of minutes.

The last series of Culture Republic podcasts were all about how Scottish arts and culture are engaging with different segments of the Scottish population. We’ve got a new series in the works. Subscribe to have them appear automatically in your feed!

Credits 

Follow us on Soundcloud  or subscribe on iTunes or on Stitcher.

For more information about Matt Lehrman check out his consultancy, Audience Avenue and his guest blogs linked below. You can Tweet him @mattlehrman.

Thanks to the Dovecot, our hosts for this event.

Culture Republic is on Twitter @culture_public and Facebook. Presenter Ashley Smith Hammond is on Twitter @AnAshleyAbroad. Use the hashtag #CRpodcast to let us know you’re listening.

In and out music by Drew Hammond of Mesura Music. Additional audio production by Culture Republic Marketing Assistant Eva Gnatiuk.

Please help us spread the word by rating and reviewing this podcast and share it on social media!

The Culture Republic Podcast by www.culturerepublc.co.uk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The post Podcast – Learning Week with Matt Lehrman appeared first on Culture Republic.

Arts administrators worry.

We worry about cash flow. We worry about achieving and sustaining consensus. We worry about attracting and retaining quality staff team. We worry about logistics. We worry about outstanding grant applications and whether last year’s donors will continue their support this year. We worry about deadlines and opening nights. We worry about why ticket sales are underperforming budget expectations. We worry about play-off games that get scheduled concurrent with long-standing major events. We worry about the short term. We worry about the long-term.

It is our nature to worry.

And late at night, when the world is quiet, we also lie awake and worry about RELEVANCE.

The words vary, but the core of the question is: “Who cares about the kind of work we do?” Sometimes we ask “who will care” or “who used to care” which reveals that the nature of our worries are NOW (say, when reviewing a disappointing ticket sales report) or SOON (as in considering next season’s offerings) or LATER (posed while updating a strategic plan.)

In a brand new workshop called Opportunity Everywhere – coming soon to Glasgow, arts & cultural organisation leaders have been tackling that worry – taking time to parse it into its elemental components and address it as functions of the challenge of audience development.

I’m delighted to share this self-test – and invite comments & questions at [email protected].

How Relevant is My Arts Organisation?

Score each of the following questions on a scale of 1 (not at all satisfied) to 5 (highly satisfied).

HOW SATISFIED ARE YOU THAT…

1. The aim of our MISSION STATEMENT is important.
   Even if you can’t quote or don’t love the specific words of your organisation’s mission statement, answer this question based on your understanding of the intention it expresses.
2. Our ARTISTIC CHOICES fulfil our mission.
   For clarity, focus on the artistic decisions made within your organisation within the last 24 months.
3. We possess the CAPACITY to pursue our mission.
   How satisfied are you with the financial, human, physical and intellectual resources available to you to pursue your mission?
4. We understand & agree on what drives RELEVANCE from the perspective of the people who attend and support our activities. 
   When it comes to making decisions within your organisation – how thorough and explicit are any discussions of the implications of those decisions on your audiences, visitors, customers, donors and stakeholders?
5. We own the full journey of the AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE.
   To what extent has anyone within your organisation charted and taken steps to direct the specific route by which attendees discover, decide, attend and evaluate their experience with you?
6. We satisfy the growing imperative of CONNECTIVITY.
   How present is your organisation in the world of social media? How vigorously does your organisation embrace opportunities for social media connection to the events you produce and present?
7. Our company is well-embraced by a “VILLAGE”.
   Just as “it takes a village to raise a child,” how well supported do you, personally, feel by your organisation’s Board, donors and stakeholders? Whatever your role or level, if you feel lonely, or if that support feels distant, that’s a legitimate cause for dissatisfaction.
8. Beyond survival, there’s a real CAUSE to our efforts.
   It’s not uncommon to spend one’s days solving immediate challenges and crises. So, take a deep breath. This question asks you to consider how much of your stress is relieved by recognising the greater cause behind what your organisation is working to accomplish.
9. We excel at making people feel CONNECTED.
   Every non-profit arts & cultural organisation has a “mission” at its core. This questions asks you to evaluate how effectively your organisation connects that mission to audiences, volunteers, donors, members, visitors, stakeholders, vendors, staff members and others with whom it comes in contact. The imperative is to not merely “perform for” or “exhibit to” an audience, but to engage them in an on-going relationship.

TOTAL SCORE __________
Maximum = 45

Scoring:

• 40+ – ROBUST – You appear to be on solid ground! Be sure to share this self-test among others of your Staff and Board to confirm consensus. Keep up the great work!
• 35-39 – PROMISING – Your results likely reveal a general weakness or a very specific weakness. Either way, rest assured that you’re in a fairly strong situation where you can take proactive steps to improve your ratings.
• 30-34 – CHALLENGED – Relevance can be a fragile and fast-changing virtue. Consider this evaluation as a “wake up call.” It doesn’t mean that nobody loves you or that you’re locked in a downward spiral. It does mean that it’s time for your staff and Board leadership to focus on being mindful & purposeful on ALL the ways it can work to pursue relevance. As the saying goes, “It’s not how many times you get knocked down that matters. It’s how many times you get back up.”
• below 30 – CONCERNED – Don’t fret! This self-test also serves as a “flotation device” – and can be used to create a specific action plan for your organisation. Consider sharing this self-test among others of your Staff and Board to identify areas of shared concern and priority. It’s not too late start asking profound questions or to consider making meaningful changes, but you should proceed with a sense of urgency.

The post How Relevant is My Arts Organisation? Take this self test! appeared first on Culture Republic.

The 4 Types of Audiences

You want to attract, grow, diversify and sustain your audience?

Great! But the biggest mistake you can make is to think of that audience as a single entity. True, “your audience” converged at some point – whether for a particular night’s performance, during the run of a production or exhibition, into your venue, or some other way onto your mailing list. But the happenstance of their intersection doesn’t mean they share the same motivations, preferences or priorities.

Here is a more practical model by which to understand and serve your audience – a model we explore in-depth in my Audiences Everywhere workshop…

Consider a framework of 4 basic audience types on a grid where vertical represents the CAPACITY to participate (i.e. time, money, physical ability and opportunity) and horizontal represents their level of INTEREST:

• Devoted – These the relatively small number of people with high interest and high capacity who already know that they love you, your art and/or your organisation and can’t wait to be part of whatever you are doing next. You want to attract and grow this audience? Then reward them with a “depth” of relationship worthy of their passion and loyalty.

• Oriented – With high interest but lower capacity, think of them as people who subscribe to the local newspaper (God bless them!) and open the arts section eagerly because they know that “their fun” lies somewhere inside those pages. Conventional arts marketing focuses on attracting these audiences the first time – believing that once they’ve had a taste, they’ll return. The numbers speak for themselves: research by TRG Arts reveals that an astounding 76% OF AUDIENCES WHO ATTEND IN ANY ONE YEAR DO NOT RETURN IN THE VERY NEXT YEAR. So, you want to attract and grow this audience? Better to start by recognising that your organisation – like every arts & cultural organisation – is an incredibly leaky bucket and before investing time and resources in advertising for new audiences, we have a major job to plug those holes.

• Asleep – A vast population possesses neither the capacity for nor interest in whatever an arts organisation is offering. We call this “audience” “asleep” but the name is not intended as a pejorative. It solely references our opportunity/responsibility to awaken these folks. To be clear, whenever we proceed from a “pick the low hanging fruit” methodology, we are actually directing that organisations should abandon this population. There’s nothing easy or immediate about the process of awakening this population – but the idea that arts & cultural organisations can survive solely by “picking the low hanging fruit” when demographics, technology, competition and everything else suggests otherwise makes that an outdated and dangerous philosophy. It’s time to CHOP DOWN THAT TREE and replace it with a metaphor that recognises the imperative to serve audiences beyond the ones who come to you most easily.

• Uninspired – How exciting! Here’s the quadrant whose people possess the time & money, but who routinely fill their leisure time with OTHER activities because “they were not raised in households that exposed them at an early age to the value of arts & cultural experiences.” Let’s note that these folks aren’t “uninformed” – so, the solution here isn’t to shout more marketing messages in their direction. Rather, this quadrant reminds us to pursue the mission of our organisations in “Extraordinary” ways – because the only way to inspire the uninspired is to actually inspire them.

Lastly, let’s observe that audience members likely fall into multiple quadrants… A Devoted fan of musical theatre may be Uninspired when viewed from the perspective of classical music or Asian art. Someone who is oriented to jazz may be totally asleep when viewed from the perspective of contemporary dance.

This model of audience engagement provides both a macro and micro perspective on who is your audience and practical ways to cultivate that relationship.

“But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The post Model of Audience Engagement appeared first on Culture Republic.

‘What are the dos and don’ts for the look and feel of your print?’

‘How can arts organisations make the most of print distribution?’

Benefits of Print in a Digital Age

• Adds another dimension to an integrated marketing mix.
• Track a wider audience.
• Major online businesses that use print distribution include ASOS, Net-a-Porter and Moshi Monsters.
• Print is physical and tangible.
• Printed assets are ‘always on duty’, you don’t have to click on anything or turn on your devices to get the message.
• Print has a strong organic reach.
• Print is self-selective.
• Print can be made to engage all your senses (smell, touch, sight, audio).
• Holding a flyer or brochure creates emotions of ownership and engagement.
• Printed assets can be tracked and measured by using tracking codes.
• The cost of print has dropped and technological abilities have increased.
• Print allows for a richer story.
  

  Top Tips for Design & Print

• Visual Impact- pictures say more than words. Select great images that convey the right message.
• Front Cover- boost the pick-up-ability factor with great branding: colour, imagery, typeface, etc. The cover design is critical, especially top third section of the printed asset as this will stand out and get you noticed.
• Integrated Print & Digital- encourage readers to engage through social media. You can direct traffic to your website for richer content, offer incentives to sign up, use consistent branding, graphics and content throughout and repurpose data to suit each target market.
• Less is More- a quick read for high impact. Use clear, concise content that helps your audience to understand what you are about in an instant.
• Top Class Production- the quality of print can reflect the quality of your offer. A poorly produced leaflet might put your audience off from attending events.
• Size Matters- consider your readers. Print is portable, tangible and transferable so use formats that are both easy to use and cost-effective.
• The Right Paper- watch out for the flop-ability factor. Too thin and your printed asset could flop, too thick and you won’t get enough leaflets onto the rack.
• Essential Info- include the basics: prices, times, maps, address, website, contact and make sure that it’s all legible – don’t let elaborate graphics get in the way!
• Proof Read, Then Proof Read Again – go over your print thoroughly before it is committed to paper and ask colleagues that haven’t written the copy to proof check – reprints are costly!
• Print in 4’s- multiples of 4 pages per leaflet / brochure (4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.) is both economical and environmentally sound.
• Be Ecological- when choosing the right paper look for the ‘Forest Stewardship Council’ symbol.

As ever, we loved getting together with our friends from CCA Glasgow, East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure, On at Fife Theatres, Cumbernauld Theatre, National Youth Choir of Scotland, East Ayrshire Leisure, National Museums Scotland, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Ensemble and V&A Dundee to discuss real issues that we‘re all facing in the arts as well as just to catch up and break bread together. Happy days!
Find out more about how you can be a part of November’s #1stWed at Dovecot, Edinburgh.
Share your thoughts and experiences on print distribution HERE 

For more information on print distribution please visit: Direct Distribution or  Tartan Ink.

The post The Paper Trail appeared first on Culture Republic.

One audience, many values

Whether at a theatre, an exhibition or writing a blog – we all know that everyone interprets events and information differently. However, insight helps us to shape our voice for different groups in society to be meaningful and relevant.  On Monday, Paul from our team showcased the value of Google Analytics. Website analysis is a great way for understanding how audiences react towards your message. Tuesday, saw Kemi delve into the social media engagement with some useful insight into how social media opens up the world to more debate and real time information. This was a celebration of our need to be different but share our common values with others…

Just going out for the messages

Think about how you talk to your colleagues, your parents, your child or even your neighbour. We adapt our language (verbal, body, written) to whom we are talking. In our world of arts and culture marketing it’s no different. On Wednesday, Ashley nailed the value of getting a content plan in place. It’s important as part of any marketing strategy; you are thinking of how to organise your time, segment your audiences and get the most impact from your content.

SEO – computer says no

Let’s be honest, there will be some technically minded types out there reading this thinking, ‘So what?’ SEO best practice with Eva from the team served up some everyday tips on how to ensure your message reaches a wider audience. Often when you think your message is creative and brilliant, algorithms take over and the cyberspace says ‘NO’. A uniform and structured approach to keywords and content on your website will help your message gets noticed.

Here for you…

Success full teams have a ‘can-do’ approach and welcome a range of diverse opinion… people from all walks of life, with different personalities, coming together to share.  The ‘Learn from Us week’ has been a great way of showcasing the wealth of knowledge within our team, for helping you grow your audience.

For November’s first Wednesday, Kathryn from our team will be presenting on Deprivation and Social Inclusion. SIMD16, a tool that can be used to invest in those areas that need it the most, and make it easier consider your own audience engagement practice in this area.

While we are on the point of diversity and displaying the “aye” in our team – I’d like to point you to The Learning Week with Matt Lehrman series. As an audience expert and strategist, Matt brings over a fresh perspective from the USA. Join us and Matt, for the jam-packed week of thought sharing and innovation coming to a city near you!

Don’t miss these useful articles and keep an eye out for Matt taking over our airwaves next week:

• Getting more from Google Analytics
• Social Media Engagement
• Content Hacks for the Win
• SEO Best Practice
• The Learning Week Audience Development Series  
• Deprivation and Social Inclusion – An introduction to SIMD16

The post Celebrating Diversity with our team appeared first on Culture Republic.

What is SEO Engine Optimisation?

Is the implementation of strategy and good practice to achieve high search engine rankings (SERP) which will in turn drive more traffic to your website.

What are those strategies?

Gone are the days of going keyword crazy, Google now use a different algorithm to inform rankings. Whilst keywords still have a part to play, you may be surprised to learn that one of the main drivers is valuable content. This is because the behaviour generated by users interacting with your content – such as shares and commentary- legitimises the authority of a page within Google.

Ensuring you have fresh and valuable content on your site has multi-fold purpose. It keeps your site engaging, whilst bolstering your authority within the field, this will encourage loyalty and returning visitors – which in turn drives rankings. Furthermore, content that contains the relevant subject matter will naturally contain the keywords and phrases that are used in searches.

Do your research

As keywords still have a part to play in the Google algorithm, Keyword Research should become an ingrained part of your campaign planning. Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner is a great research tool; however, the results are limited according to your account access. Do not despair as there are still a number of free keyword research tools out there, such as: https://serps.com/tools/keyword-research/

TOP TIP – Know your market:

Go one step further and Keyword Planning can actually be incorporated into your competitor analysis. Within the browser, navigate to Developer > View Source and simply enter the term ‘keyword’ in a search bar. It will highlight the terms that your competitor uses, giving invaluable insight.

Alt, Link, Repeat

Images need to have alt text (or alt tag) attributes. This has the duality of making them readable by screen readers for the visually impaired, but also by Google, so that it can identify related topics. Images are part of the multi-media content that Google loves to lap up, so labelling them correctly and giving them alt tags is essential.

Be sure to have outbound links to relevant high-profile pages, ideally ones that link back to your own site. Reviews, popular blogs and listing sites are good examples of this. This cyclic nature of authoritative sites linking to your own and back again, is highly valued by the Google bots.

Yoast so simple

If your site is created in WordPress, be sure to add the free Yoast plug in. It has a simple interface with a nifty traffic light system, which assesses your SEO and identifies pointers for improvement. For bespoke sites, created in code-free programmes such as Muse, there are still options to add metadata within each page as well as alt tags and titles.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read the rest of our Learn From Us series below. Don’t forget, we will be bringing Matt Lehrman, an internationally respected expert on audience engagement, to Scotland for a three city tour from 31 October to 2 November 2016. Remember we are here for additional consultancy too. Contact us to discuss.

The post SEO Best Practice appeared first on Culture Republic.

Here’s today’s instalment of digital skills and drills that will hopefully send a shockwave of electricity through your social media channels and set up your organisation in flashing neon lights. Has your Facebook engagement dropped? Wondering how you can better engage with your fans? Look no further, help is at hand! #TuesdayMotivation

#1 Pose a Question
If fans can relate to the question and you find a way to leverage people’s interests or needs, they’ll find it hard not to answer.

#2 Ask Fans to Make a Choice
A fun way to get your fans to engage with you is to publish a “this or that” post. Most of the time, those debates are good fun but be mindful of trolls. If you want to spark even more debate, you can always mix in a little controversy but avoid politics.

#3 Post When Your Fans Are Online
Check your Facebook Insights to find out when your audience is most active. By default, the dashboard shows data for when your fans are online.

Top tip: Posting late at night (when your fans are less active) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There’s less competition in their feed, so the people who are active on the site are more likely to see and engage with your content. Try posting at different times to see what works best for you.

#4 Share Relevant Images
One picture is worth ten thousand words! Enough said.

#5 Engage With Other Brands
Wander the social landscape, post to other pages, and engage with brands when there’s synergy and a shared audience.

#6 Include a Call to Action
Use a call to action in every post, whether it’s to prompt a comment, share, opt in, like, RSVP, or any other action. Always tell your audience what you want them to do to encourage engagement.

#7 Boost Your Best Posts
If you have a blog post or other website content that has seen tremendous traffic, post it to your Facebook page and boost that post. Give it a modest boost of $25 and target the people who like your page and their friends.

#8 Share Industry News and Hot Topics
Even your most loyal fans are interested in more than just your business. Sharing big news from your industry will show your fans that you’re not focused solely on promoting your business.

#9 Share Content from Other Channels
Select content, videos, and images from your other social platforms (YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and so on) and share the best with your Facebook fans (and vice versa).

#10 Go on, Have a Giggle
Please lighten up!  Show some personality. Don’t overthink it. Keep your audience’s interests in mind and make sure the humour is relevant and appropriate.

In the vein of practising what I preach (also see #6), I compel you, please, for the love of digital, get in touch. It can be about anything: the weather, your favourite brew or if you need more help in the area of social media engagement. You can also get more hands-on help at our Learning Week conference.  Remember we are here for additional consultancy too. Contact us to discuss.

Shout out to www.socialmediaexaminer.com

The post Social Media Engagement appeared first on Culture Republic.

Culture Republic are delighted to bring Matt Lehrman, an internationally respected expert on audience, sustainability and growth to Scotland for a three-city tour from 31 October to 2 November 2016.

Who should attend:

Any leader, creative or marketer within the arts and culture world who wants to grow ticket sales and stay sustainable despite funding and financial demands.

What you will learn:

• Methods to build devotion, re-engage one time purchasers and reach new audiences,
• Strategy to create meaningful return on investment and an achievable mission statement,
• How to create a framework that uncovers the options and opportunities for audience growth and a plan to achieve them.

Don’t miss the chance to hear tips and lessons from across the Atlantic, where no stone left unturned on the route to organisational sustainability

Learning Week starts here

Glasgow, Monday 31 October

• Workshop AM – Audiences Everywhere : Strategies to
  attract, sustain, cultivate & diversify your audience.
• Workshop PM – Opportunity Everywhere: Entrepreneurial measures to pursue relevance and revenue in your organisation. You’ll learn the seven key connections between artistic ambition, audience engagement and financial viability.

Dundee, Tuesday 1 November

• Workshop PM – Opportunity Everywhere: Entrepreneurial measures to pursue relevance and revenue in your organisation. You’ll learn the seven key connections between artistic ambition, audience engagement and financial viability.

Edinburgh, Wednesday 2 November

• Insight Forum AM: What does your audience want from YOU? This  thought-provoking conversation will provide answers to the most crucial questions you’ve wanted to ask of your audience.
• 1-1 surgeries PM: There are limited number of 1-1 surgeries available with some of Scotland’s most brilliant minds in Marketing for arts and culture organisations in the afternoon. 

Here’s a taste of what you’re in store for:

Matt’s consultancy, Audience Avenue, focuses on loyalty and customer engagement for arts and cultural organisations. He’s a globally recognised  audience development expert, motivator and strategist.

A breath of fresh air, Matt brings food for innovation and inspiration. Read his blog, A Budget for NOT MORE OF THE SAME for insights into how you can open your doors to positive change in your organisation.

The post Learning Week – Grow Audience & Sustainability appeared first on Culture Republic.

Print Distribution Under The Lens

Print distribution can work brilliantly as part of an integrated marketing campaign to direct people to your venues, programmes, online activities and offers. But are the brochures you pay for really working for you? Are your flyers and posters giving you maximum impact?

Angus White from Direct Distribution joins us for this First Wednesday session to show you how to reach your target audiences through the medium of print, and take advantage of the constant exposure print display gives you.  When you need to optimise your marketing budget you have to make sure all opportunities are taken – so ensuring that your printed materials achieve maximum exposure with minimum waste is vital.

At this session, Angus will address:

• Is there still a place for print distribution in the digital age?
• How can arts organisations make the most of print distribution companies?
• What are a distributors’ dos and don’ts for the look and feel of your print?
• What does the future look like in the industry?

Angus will also share experiences of things which have and haven’t worked well throughout his time at Direct Distribution.

Why You Should Attend:

This session is for arts marketers who want to make sure they are maximising their print distribution impact and budgets. You’ll be hearing first hand from someone who has been involved in the business for over 30 years. He’s main aim in this session will be to optimise your budgets and ensure you get the best return from your spend.

Angus White, Chief Executive of Direct Distribution

Angus White has been in the print distribution business since 1986 and started Direct Distribution in 1988 working with the then Third eye centre (CCA) and the Scottish Opera . Since then he has been instrumental in developing Direct Distribution’s customer base across Scotland and other markets such as tourism and event support. He has always encouraged the team at Direct Distribution to be creative when compiling campaigns for customer’s print – listening and adapting to customers’ needs is essential. As a result the service range has increased to provide promo teams, magazine drops, storage and online stock ordering.

Angus will also be joined by Fiona Garry from Tartan Ink  who will offer her expertise  for the ‘dos and don’ts for the look and feel of your print.’  Fiona is  Managing Director of Tartan Ink, specialising in providing design, print and associated services to two main markets, Tourism and the Arts. She is a Board Director of ASVA (Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions).

ABOUT FIRST WEDNESDAYS

Some of the most stimulating sessions take place when there’s the opportunity to step away from the pressure of a busy job, get together with colleagues and share learning.

That’s why we host ‘First Wednesdays’ – a series of topical, bite-sized information sessions taking place on the first Wednesday of each month.

They are an open invitation each month for our Partners and industry colleagues to regularly drop in our offices to keep up to date with ideas and examples of useful practice we’ve gathered from across the country.

It might be as simple as hearing how other people have successfully tackled the same challenges you face building profitable customer relationships and wider public engagement or learning about the raft of new tools or approaches emerging daily.

Our goal is to inspire fresh thinking, expand current networks and focus on the Most Important Thing … to build new audiences and greater engagement.

If you can’t join us in person, why not sign up for a periscope registration.  You will be able to tune in remotely so you can still hear from our speakers from wherever you are!

Join the conversation #1stWed

FAQs

What can I bring to the event?

Please bring your own device for taking notes.

Where can I contact the organiser with any questions?

If you have any questions prior to the event please contact us on [email protected]

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