Patron Journey 3: Setting Goals for Each Audience Segment

One of the keys of the ArtsRising system is to customize a Patron Journey: a breakdown of goals for different sections of your audience. In this blog series, we’ve been exploring how you can customize your own Patron Journey for your organization. We discussed three main steps:

1. Describe your patrons’ behavior,
2. Set goals for those patrons, and
3. Lay out specific actions that you will take to encourage the patrons to reach those goals.

First, we explained the benefit of splitting all your patrons into meaningful groups, called Audience Segments. Next, we discussed the segment groups that ArtsRising uses, based on patron behavior in different activity areas. Now that we have described our patrons’ behavior using Audience Segments and organized them into the three stages of the Patron Journey, it’s time to set some goals.

Stage Goals

The stages of the Patron Journey are theoretical groupings of Audience Segments to help us keep organized. Each of the three stages contains segments with similar goals. While we will select small, specific goals for each segment, the broad stage goals help us keep alignment between segments or patrons in the same stage. (Of course, the overall goal is to get patrons through the stages to Stage Three.)

1. Discovery Stage goal: Draw patron interest to inspire basic level of engagement
2. Engagement Stage goal: Inspire deeper involvement by building patrons’ trust in the organization and alignment with your mission. 
3. Loyalty Stage goal: Ensure patrons’ continued support and advocacy by helping them feel like impactful and valued partners of your community.

Once you have your stage goal in mind, you can think about what more specific goals might be appropriate for each of the segments within that stage. Let’s break down each of the stages with its segments and goals.

Stage One: Discovery

Audience Segments: A0 “Prospect Attenders,” A1 “First-Time Attenders,” D0 “Prospective Donors,” “D1 “First-Time Donors”

Whatever action these patrons first take, whether it’s subscribing to your email list, purchasing a concert ticket, or even making a small donation, we want to use positive reinforcement to encourage them to do it again. The second instance of the same action is what will take a patron through this stage and into the next; it demonstrates that this isn’t a fluke: they’re interested!

• A0 Prospective Attenders: Patrons who have never attended one of your performances/events but might be interested
  • Goal: inspire them to sign up for one event
    
• A1 First-Time Attenders: Patrons who have attended one time
  • Goal: inspire them to sign up for a second event

• D0 Prospective Donors: Patrons who have never donated but might be interested
  • Goal: inspire them to donate one time

• D1 First-Time Donors: Patrons who have donated one time
  • Goal: inspire them to donate a second time

Stage Two: Engagement

At this stage, your organization has to prove to its patrons that it is worthy of their continued attention. We want to align the patron’s concept of you with reality so that patrons can truly evaluate you. We also want to continue to demonstrate your trustworthiness. If the patron trusts you and is aligned with your mission and work, they will become consistently involved.

• A2. Non-Committed Attenders: Patrons who have attended more than one concert but are not reliable
  • Goal: Get them engaged in an additional / deeper aspect of your programming (e.g. another type of event, season subscription, etc).

• AL. Lapsed Attenders: People who were an A segment at level 2 or higher, but have no activity within the current season or previous season.
  • Goal: Get them to re-engage with event attendance (but maybe to a lesser degree)

• D2. Non-Committed Donors: Patrons who have donated more than one time, but not on a consistent basis
  • Goal: Inspire them to begin an automatic recurring donation at a low level, instead of sporadic gifts

• DL. Lapsed Donors: Patrons who have donated at least twice, but no activity within current or most recent season
  • Goal: Inspire them to re-engage with donations (but maybe with a lesser amount)

• S0. Service Prospects: Patrons who are good candidates to be asked to serve within your organization
  • Goal: Inspire them to serve one time
• S1. First-Time Service: Patrons who have volunteered with you one time
  • Goal: Inspire them to volunteer one more time
• S2. Non-Committed Service: Patrons who have volunteered / served 2+ times, but not regularly or in a committed role
  • Goal: Inspire them to volunteer on a consistent basis or in a named role; inspire them to serve in a new way

• SL. Lapsed Service: Patrons who have volunteered at least twice, but no activity within current or most recent season
  • Goal: Inspire them to re-engage with service (but maybe with a lesser degree or in a less-committed role)

Stage Three: Loyalty

In this third and final stage, you have already proven your artistic merit and organization trustworthiness to your patrons. They have shown their alignment with your mission by getting involved at a deeper level. In the Loyalty Stage, the goal for each segment is simply continued involvement. Many patrons will find it rewarding to get involved, either within the same activity series or in a different one, in a new way that utilizes their experience. 

• A3 Consistent Attenders: Patrons who have attended many times and can be generally relied upon to show up
  • Goal: Continue their attendance; inspire them to get involved more deeply or broadly involved with events

• D3 Consistent Donors: Patrons who have donated many times, perhaps they have automatic recurring donations set up, who can generally be relied upon to donate
  • Goal: Continue their donations; inspire them to get involved more deeply or broadly with donation-related activities
• S3 Consistent Service: Patrons who have served many times and can be generally relied upon to serve
  • Goal: Continue their service; inspire them to get involved more deeply or broadly with volunteering

Why does this matter?

This exercise helps narrow your organization’s focus to your people. When you know what you are working towards for any set of patrons, you’ll more easily be able to figure out what steps you should take in that direction.

You might already have many actions you undertake in the name of patron retention or growth. But now you can start to evaluate each one: does it advance you towards any of your Audience Segment goals? After seeing these goals, are you focusing unevenly on one patron group? Are there any gaps in your communications?

ArtsRising can help you apply these goals to your unique situation

The next post in the Patron Journey series will provide some examples of what actions you can do to meet all these goals. Stay tuned for Patron Journey Part 4!

If you’re interested in applying the ArtsRising system at your organization but would like some help, book a call to discuss setting up some consultation and training sessions with our team.

Intrigued by the system but don’t think you have the manpower to carry it out over time? Consider hiring ArtsRising for a full-service contract. We’ll set up a customized Patron Journey for your organization, work with you to select the goals and actions you want to focus on, and then we’ll create and execute your whole marketing plan! Book a call to learn how this could work for your situation.

Want to dive deeper into practical ways to strengthen your revenue strategy?

Stay connected with our blog, where we’ll share more insights on applying the 3Pillar approach to your own organization.