Most cultural organisations have at least three objectives. The first is usually artistic, relating to the type and quality of work presented. The second is social, related to the makeup of the audience. And the third is financial: most often, how to pay for the first two?

And this is where we can help – making the most of your commercial potential in order to support artistic and social objectives.

We bring together analysis and research techniques developed over more than fifteen years (now available to end users in our software), with practical advice on strategy to offer solutions tailor made to each client’s needs.

Practical Strategy

Our recommendations are always data-driven, using a combination of research analysis and software tools and we work with clients right through from strategy to practical implementation of tactics.

Our work straddles the three key areas of earned income: admissions income, ancillary sales and ‘affiliation’ (including membership and subscription) because strategy for all three is intrinsically linked, and an integrated approach ensures optimal design that delivers to the bottom line.  For example:

  • A custom segmentation enables a market-driven approach to objectives and strategy, providing a customer focus to earned income strategies
  • The Pricing Playbook brings together forecasting and pricing tactics in a systematic approach to dynamic revenue management.
  • Research, analysis and modelling drives design of differentiated membership or subscription schemes to stimulate greater loyalty and increase sales.
  • Insights from the field of behavioural economics help design tactics that motivate choice and ensure strategy meets your objectives.

Analysis & Research

We are continually developing analysis and research methods to inform our strategy recommendations and drive our software development. We fit methods to individual needs and focus on interpreting findings – helping clients understand implications for strategy.

We believe an understanding of the rich data available from transaction records is fundamental to any cultural business. We offer insight in the areas of business performance, price demand and customer behaviour, membership and donor analysis. Where appropriate we use clustering techniques to inform sophisticated behavioural segmentations and multi-variate analysis to help sales forecasting.

These analytical methods are supplemented with specialist primary research techniques to understand price sensitivity and demand, including conjoint analysis, also known as decision, or choice modelling.  In researching membership, for example, it allows us to understand: the relative value of individual benefits; the optimum combination of benefits; how respondents segment in relation to the relative importance of benefits (and combinations of benefits) and the price elasticity of resulting products.

Software

Offering functionality developed out of our analysis and strategy work, making our methods available to all users.

Revenue Management Application (or RMA) offers a suite of powerful tools, exclusively for Tessitura[1] users, that give vital insights for strategy, forecasting, monitoring and evaluation, as well as dynamic pricing; all based on up to date information, right on your desktop.

Advantage Dashboards. Following the enormous success of the Revenue Management Application we have developed a pricing report suite that works with other ticketing systems.

Segmentation Engine is a web application that allows users to easily and quickly create a sophisticated audience, visitor or donor segmentation, improving the accuracy of communications and the effectiveness of CRM strategy.

We also build custom income and forecasting modelling tools on request.

[1] Tessitura is a registered trademark of Impresario L.L.C and is used by the Tessitura Network Inc. under licence.