Comprehensive Marketing Plan – The Rose Children’s Theatre

By Lauren Wagner

Introduction and Situational Analysis

Rose Children’s Theatre (RCT) was founded by Celeste Rose in 1978 and became a non-profit organization in 1989. Their mission is “to strengthen our community by empowering children and their families through the experience of performing arts and the magic of theater”. The work with a pool of directors to choose plays that are suitable for children and provide them with a positive message. They strive to include families and many of their volunteers for each show the the family members of the actors. Past students and family members are also included on their Board of Directors. They have their own building, but work with community partners for their performances. Wildish Theater, The Hult Center for the Performing Arts, school gyms and auditoriums, and other community locations.

RCT had limited financial resources online, but did provide some of their donor information. They offer a tiered donor system as well as a tiered corporate sponsorship system. They recognize donors through their website and acknowledge what tier they may fall under. Corporate sponsors earn marketing space and acknowledgement on posters, programs and also receive complimentary tickets. They do charge for each show, and tuition for the children involved in either the plays or other programs they offer. You can also purchase DVDs of each performance from their website. Cost of attending a performance is usually $12/person and participation costs are listed below:

Camps: $75-$275

Jr. Musical: $195

Plays: $155

Benefit Concert: $100

Main Stage Musical/Concert: $195

Workshops: varied

They do offer scholarships for low-income families so that everyone can participate. They also receive quite a bit of funding through grants: last year they received a $15,000grant fromDaryl L. and Patricia L. Swenson Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation.

They have various social media platforms, which they do a fairly good job of maintaining. Instagram is used to showcase the posters for shows, and picture of some of the children they are working with. Facebook is also used frequently, about every three days, and is used to post events, promote shows, and post pictures of the organization and the actors.

Strategies

Media Map

Facebook – the organization currently has a Facebook page, but I think it can be utilized a lot better. This reaches a pretty wide audience and is a good way to advertise their upcoming shows, workshops and camps. They are able to do this through creating basic events, but they can also create posts that could be paid advertisement. There are other children’s organizations in town that could also post their information from time to time, and RCT can also be promoting them when they are just needing to keep their page active.

Organization’s website – the organization currently has a website, but I think that this can also be re-designed to be more effective. For example, some links lead to no information. While they show a different picture on each page, it is not a good resolution and does not demonstrate what RCT has to offer. I feel they should incorporate more photos within each category (i.e. workshops, previous shows, camps, etc.) This can really help to engage those visiting their site. I also think they should put in a widget for their social media pages which will in turn help increase those page views.

YouTube – Because this is a performing art medium, it could be beneficial to show their patrons what they are offering through video. Obviously not full productions or entire workshops, but previews of each! They could also do video introductions of directors so the parents are more engaged and interested in having their student attend. These could also be used as funding material in the future. Donors can see sneak peaks of what they are contributing to.

Strategy #1 -Content Marketing Through Social Media

One common theme through this class with a number of non-profits is the benefit of content marketing - specifically through their social media accounts. Focusing on their Facebook page, there a number of steps they can take to improve the content that they are displaying to their followers in order to make their page more effective. Looking through their Facebook from the beginning of the year, I have compiled the following observations:

  • Majority of posts, in some way, promote their events. They only have a handful of actual event posts, but many of their posts involve sharing this event or providing a link to purchase tickets.
  • They have a small amount of posts relating to their field
  • During the promotion of a show, they will sometimes post examples of the original version of the play that they are performing.
  • They have few, maybe one or two, posts about their organization unrelated to their shows.

I enjoy the above infographic because it is clear as to what should be expected in content marketing, and how to accomplish various forms of content marketing, in a fun and relatable way. RCT needs to incorporate many of these aspects into their social media, and it should make the much more effective in getting their mission across. While they have posted some postings from within the industry, this can definitely be increased and could even be the main focus of their page. They need to have relevance and show their audience that they are informed on what is going on in their field. They can post about other children’s theaters in the country, music, theater, children’s programs, etc. Another important part for this organization is video. Especially with theater, it is important for RCT’s followers to SEE what they are doing! Not only could this boost ticket sales if they preview the performance, but it would also be fun for them to show video of their performance, workshop and summer camps! This will allow them to engage their constituents with all aspects of the organization. Finally, posting for their audience, and enticing their followers to engage. This can be by asking questions, sharing history/trivia, throwback Thursdays – anything that is both fun and engaging. The final posting type should be their events.

The evaluation of this process will be both slow and quantitative. They can observe the impact by studying the analytics through their Facebook page. This will give them the most accurate account of the effect their posts are having on their followers. From here they can try boosting popular posts, learn what has been the most popular and continue posting in a similar style/genre.

Strategy #2 – Cohesive Website

RCT has a functional website, but it is a very basic Wordpress design and there is not cohesive flow. They have tabs at the top labeled accordingly, and above those is an alternating, blurry photo that changes with each page. Their name is at the top, minus any sort of logo. For the most part, the website has a lot of information, but this can also be a con as it is quite wordy.

The first thing I would change is to implement their brand/logo throughout the site. As it is now, it simply is written at the top and the bottom. The eye is not drawn to this and it easily forgettable. I would then remove the blurry photo banner, and work to include photos throughout the website. I think it is very important to show viewers what the organization is instead of writing about it. They do a good job acknowledging their corporate sponsors, but I think they can go a bit further with it and explain WHAT they helped to accomplish with their sponsorship. I also think they could combine the sponsorship and donations on the same page.

Donors need to be acknowledged better on the website, and they need to make it much more clear as to HOW they are able to donate and WHAT is needed. They offer a tiered donor system, yet it’s not easily obtainable on their website. I think by showing these tiered options, and explaining what each tier will support, along with their PayPal link it could go much further.

Their home page is quite simple. It features two things: there current show with a link to purchase tickets, and a sunshine that is paired with an announcement about their summer programs. They need to do more with their content on the homepage, and a sale shouldn’t be the first thing someone sees. They could perhaps feature various subjects on their page: picture from their last summer camp and a story about what happened, information about one of their directors and a picture of them working with the children, a throwback to a previous performance. They need to make their website more personal and it should allow the viewer to feel more familiar with not just the organization, but the people it is impacting.

The above ideas and implementations can be evaluated a few different ways. The best way could maybe be through a survey: new audience members, camp attendees, etc. can be surveyed about how they found out about the event. They can see how many more donors or ticket sales they get through their website as a result of any website changes they make (maybe also providing a survey after donation or purchase).

Strategy #3 – Bringing the Children’s Theatre to the Children

It is unclear if RCT is currently doing this as they do not have any much information about community engagement on their website. However, I think it would be ideal for them to reach out to schools and present their actors to other children their age. This can be done a few different ways: small, preview performance during assemblies, afterschool clubs/programs for a few weeks AT the schools, or inviting the schools to take a fieldtrip to their facility. This will accomplish a few things: they will be reaching out to a larger, and more diverse audience. This can help them to increase their participation in projects they already offer, but also develop new ones. If nothing else, these children could gain interest in attending their performance with their families, which would result in more ticket sales. It could open themselves up to more funding opportunities through school districts or educational grants. They will also become more well-known throughout the community. This will again be evaluated through survey: when the children enroll or register for their programs a question on the application could be how they heard about RCT, and they can also provide surveys at performances to discover impact on ticket sales.

References

The Mixology of Content Marketing [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2017,from