Source Stories

PART I: Organization

In terms of sources, we have to manage two unrelated Seasons (technically more, but for simplicities’ sake, it’s our own presentations and then various rentals who may or may not have their own seasons) thus all of our ticketing really runs on two separate tracks. The phone room is shared and all of the secure web processes match, but when we think or talk about what we’re selling, it’s going to be either New Victory or Duke.

That being said, the sources run system-wide and we’ve revised our sources to accommodate the big picture first. During Tessitura Year 1, we attempted the opposite and then were unfortunately looking at reports that attributed New Victory sales to both “New York Times” and “New York Times – Rental” and so on. It was frustrating to look at because the reporting not only *looked* a bit careless to have something so clearly mismarked, but also because it no longer gave you real totals where there were supposed to be totals. But we definitely wanted to make it as straightforward as possible for the box office—not only because we like them and would prefer not to make them choose between almost identical sources, but because it’s a bit ridiculous to keep a patron on the phone longer simply because we have complicated naming conventions—so we streamlined everything as part of the next round of season building.

I now just approach Campaigns and Appeals as if they’re simply buckets to hold sources. I’m sure I’m accidently eliminating some of the intended usefulness, but we don’t records dollars from these tools, at least not in a way that finance is affected by this idea. (I should note that Development operates differently and Campaigns and Appeals have a more literal definition for them.) Campaign names make sense, but mostly exist (here; they do connect to Finance stuff) only because Appeals require an entry in that field. The Appeal bucket has a few seasonal ticketing appeals (internal, external, multi-show, corporate discounts, whatnot) and then some “All Seasons” appeals. The former have things like sales emails, show postcards, etc; the latter has the sources that we use every year and don’t need to rebuild. This last bit is still sort of in its beta phase, because there are some finance related implications with the dates attached to it, but we’re seeing how it goes and liking it so far.

The reports make a lot more sense now, we’ve drastically simplified what the box office has to deal with, and everyone seems happy to repeat this set-up for future seasons.

PART II: Reporting

There are two reports I run constantly: our Daily Wrap (custom) and Performance by Appeal. A lot of the organizational strategy of the campaign and appeal “buckets” comes directly from how I want this report to read, how I want things grouped together. However, my “source story” to share is how we’ve customized the latter ever so slightly and made it much more useful for me.

I’ve attached some paperwork here. Page 1 is one page of what I get from the out-of-the-box report. Page 2 is one example of what I can run using the custom version (same parameters as previous page, but filtered to a specific source). Page 3 is a second example (YTD sales from that same specific source, plus others through the same vendor).

The canned report gave me the information that I wanted, but often way too much of it. When analyzing campaign results, I only wanted to compare certain campaigns, not look at all activity within that date and production range. Plus, I needed to have a document that I could share with ad reps, either to officially report their sales commission or discuss how they had or hadn’t been successful for us. The custom version of the report adds two parameters, select Appeal and select Source. Both are clickable and sticky so I can run a report for whatever portion of the sales picture I need at that time.

I do archival snapshots (also known as PDFs!) per show and per season, so we have them on hand to compare when mapping out show budgets.

I can’t answer questions about the queries behind the report customization, but can try to field them on any of the other items above.

Jamie O'Brien
Marketing Associate
The New 42nd Street, Inc.
229 W. 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036-7299
(646) 223-3000
www.newvictory.org

Thanks to the responses I’ve already received.  They are exactly what I was hoping for!  But I know there have to be more than two of you with stories to share about sources.  I think I’ll take a tried and true page from the marketing handbook and offer a little incentive.

Anyone who shares a source story (including those who already responded) will be entered in a drawing for….a batch of homemade, from scratch brownies.  As my wife and her coworkers (since mine live too far away to share with) can attest, I’m a pretty good baker.  I make it all from scratch: cakes, cupcakes, frostings, cookies, breads, even marshmallows (easier than you think and a great way to impress people). This weekend I made a raspberry, cream cheese filled sweet bread braid that looked straight from a bakery.  My first from scratch revelation though came as a teenager when I tried baking brownies from scratch.  The rich, dense, powerfully chocolaty result turned me off flat and stale boxed brownies for life.  Now I want to make a convert out of you.

Due to the practicalities of shipping perishable food oversees, I’m going to have to limit the baked goods offer to US residents.  I’ll be happy to share the recipe though.  I’ll even make a T-Cast for you on how to make them if you’d like.

So send in your source stories.  If not for brownies, then to help your marketing compatriots get better at using sources and maybe help yourself with it too.

Thanks,

Kevin Sheehan
Documentation and Baking Specialist