New Subscribers in Gothenburg

Kenneth M Linton, GSO Ambassador

Kenneth M Linton – Ambassador for Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (GSO) is this world-famous Swedish orchestra’s most successful ambassador, regularly attracting a particularly precious type of new audience – new subscribers. His success is hardly suprising as he is a warm, articulate man, clearly passionate about the GSO and very active in his support (he also provides content for their Friends website) Here Kenneth describes his role and explains why he is so committed to the cause:

How did you get first involved?
I write articles for a small monthly newspaper. Last year the City of Gothenburg decided to name a tram after the GSO and there was a ceremony in front of the central station. I took a couple of photos and afterwards thought I could write an article about it. During the ceremony a lady came up to me and put an envelope in my hand and said, “You have won a prize: two tickets to a concert of your choice”. This lady turned out to be Paula Gustafson, a member of the orchestra. In the article I said ‘Paula Gustafson usually plays the cello but here she played the role of Lady Fortuna’. I sent her a letter of thanks and she gave this to the GSO Ambassador Co-ordinator, Måns Pär [Fogelberg], saying, “This chap would be an excellent ambassador”.

Måns Pär contacted me and I learned that the system was, get at least ten of your friends to attend a rebated series of five concerts and you get a free ticket to the series as well. I spoke at a community meeting and said how proud I was of the GSO and if anyone was interested, “sign this piece of paper”. When the meeting was over I had twenty-three names. I was shocked: it took about four minutes! I never thought I’d get that many, I’d thought if I get five or six that would be great. Because of the success I set up a second group in the first season.

This season I’ve set up two groups: in the first group I’ve had twenty-one attenders and that was a bit of a domino effect from the first season, the first season’s group told their friends who in turn joined. They just called me, (I’d never met them) and said, “Could I bring a friend of mine?”

I have also spoken at the university and talked to teachers and professors too.

What exactly do you promote?
I promote subscriptions. In the first season there were five concerts on offer and very heavily discounted; 590 SEK for five concerts, a single ticket cost 285 SEK (circa £25).

For this season I’ve enrolled twenty-eight new people in a regular subscription. We will meet before every concert, in the Victor Rydberg hall meeting room. They will meet Sara Troback, the new concertmaster and four other musicians. They will meet with one musician before each concert; each meeting being approx. 45 minutes.

For the current season, if the previous Ambassador guests re-subscribe through their Ambassador, they get a 10 % discount. We as ambassadors get discounts too if they re-subscribe.

Do people re-subscribe?
In this year there have been about 60% re-subscribing from the first season (the original goal was 20% repeat). The original goal was a 20 % repeat, so I think it fair to say that the Ambassador programme was a success!

Why do you do it?
Lets start with the romantic reason: I’m love with that bloody orchestra! My wife and I lived in a small town outside Gothenburg for the last twenty-six years with absolutely no cultural events at all save the church choir. So coming back to Gothenburg after a twenty-six year’s exodus was coming back to culture really.

On my father’s side it’s a musical family. My parents took me to my first concert when I was six. My father loved to play jazz music and in the fifties made recordings for Decca. In the seventies and eighties he made LP and CD-recordings for the Swedish jazz label Dragon. He also had career as a much appreciated jazz pianist. I don’t play very well but I love music.

What do you do as an Ambassador?
Måns Pär created a slogan ‘Would you like to lend us your friends?’ and that’s the way it has worked for most ambassadors here at GSO. You contact your friends and simply say, “Its great why don’t you come?”

As a normal person you have so many more contacts that you think of: you go to the grocery store, you go to the doctors and most of the time you don’t regard them as possible contacts but they are. Most of them won’t be interested but suddenly in surprising places you find them.

At one of the deprived suburbs we have here in Gothenburg, called Hammarkullen, there are a lot of people from South East Europe and Arab countries with no access at all to the available arts. Gustavo Dudamel is well known for his great engagement when it comes to young people and music. He and the concert house decided we won’t get everyone we want to come in so we’ll go out there. So they used a hall used for basketball and had two concerts on the same day and some eight or nine hundred people attended in all. These were young people from the age of 10 – 15. Some of the young boys are so tough and come in with you know [with the attitude], ‘what kind of sh*t is this?’ The leaders were there in their karate gear, standing with their arms folded… anyway, the concert was such a huge success, straight from the regular programme, Beethoven’s 5th, Tchaikovsk’s violin concerto. Afterwards Måns Pär did a video interview and the attenders said “Great, fantastic!” and really meant it. When he asked them, “Do you realise Beethoven has been dead for over 200 years?”, they just dropped open their mouths and said “It can’t be!”

How much time do you put in?
Not too much, its not continuous, it comes in bursts of half an hour, not even on a weekly basis. Before every concert I mail everyone, Måns Pär sends us an email which we send to our guests. Then it’s the ‘tedious’ thing of going to concerts…that takes a lot of time!

Do you need to be a certain type of person?
Yes, you have to be able to speak to people and have to be organised enough to maintain some kind of contact with your groups. Also you have to recognise your own contacts, ie: ‘This is a contact’, not just, ‘who are my best friends?’, they are not the only ones. Your local bank branch, your doctor, your church choir.

Finally, any Top Tips?
• I would stress what you have stressed in your Ambassador Guide, that for the orchestra it takes much more time than you think. Its only from your book that I realise how demanding I have been on Måns Pär’s time for example. He has been fantastic. I call him at home, at work and he always has time for me.

• From the guests’ point of view – get them to meet with musicians on a personal level. This is what happened in the original Ambassador programme. For the coming season, together with Måns Pär, I have arranged for musicians meeting twenty to thirty people at a time.

• Also some kind of discount is good, particularly in the times we are facing now, as an incentive to help people come.

• In all in our first year, we assembled 200+ new attendees, 60 % of which have gone on to become regular subscribers; way over target!. However, a series of five concerts are not the ideal thing for everyone. Alternatives should be considered parallel to more elaborate offers. There definitely is a market for both!

Young Ambassadors in Vancouver

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

Sarah Fletcher, Community Engagement Co-ordinator & Marketing Assistant
at Vancouver Symphony Orchestra tells us about her ambassador programme and answers some questions:

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra introduced its first Ambassador programme in September 2008 with the ‘Student Ambassador Programme’. We decided to focus on Students because despite the VSO’s $10 student ticket deal known as the Student Access Pass, very few students were taking advantage of it. We felt as though we needed a new approach in order to reach out to this demographic and we couldn’t think of a better way for students to learn about it than via their own social circles and through the power of word of mouth.

Things got going in September 2008 about a month prior to the start of VSO’s 08/09 season and when all the Universities and Colleges in Greater Vancouver were starting their new year. I sent out a mass e-mail to University and College department heads and secretaries with a friendly tone explaining the Student Access Pass and the Student Ambassador programme. Thankfully of those I contacted a good deal reacted very positively and told me they will forward the e-mail onto their students. Out of that I must have received about twenty or so e-mails from students interested in the Ambassador Programme. I responded by inviting them individually to our first special event in which they could see for themselves what the programme entails.

I also went to orientation days at various Universities and Colleges in Greater Vancouver. I manned several tables for the VSO advertising the Access Pass and the Student Ambassador Programme. This was a great way to meet potential Student Ambassadors as having a physical presence helped to break down any negative misconceptions and with friendly conversation students could see for themselves what the Ambassador Programme might actually be like.

Our aim was to discover anyone with a keen interest in music, regardless of their background or education and to get them to simply try the programme. Their role would be to spread the word about the VSO and the Student Access Pass in any way possible: put up posters, hand out flyers, e-mail their friends, professors and peers and suggest they go to the Symphony by telling them why they think they should go, from their own perspective.

I reminded them about the power of word of mouth, how talking to friends and suggesting they go, even just once is tremendously powerful, perhaps more powerful than all of the traditional marketing methods combined.

I kept up an almost constant correspondence with every Student Ambassador, relating to them as colleagues and as friends. After a short time, once we were all comfortable with the programme and with one another I found a lot of them started coming to me with various ideas of their own, things in their day to day lives which they felt would be a perfect environment for advertising the Access Pass. There were tons of ideas coming at me and I found myself almost trying to keep up.

We offered our thanks to each Ambassador in the shape of invitations to special events, free tickets on a regular basis, a backstage tour and the opportunity to meet musicians. However by the end of the first year it was evident that Ambassadors gained a tremendous amount of personal reward from being a part of the programme and witnessing first hand the reactions of those they’ve persuaded to attend the symphony for the first time.

Ambassadors forwarded me e-mails from happy concert goers thanking them for introducing them to the Symphony and explaining how they wouldn’t normally have considered going but will in future. It was heart warming to see such positive reactions from both sides and it was our hope that in time and with continuing the programme into the long distant future that these positive feelings would grow and continue to influence a wider population.

Do you think of your ambassador programme as part of marketing for VSO?

Yes I do. I think of them as an extension of the marketing department and as small part of the education department.

What is the most important thing your ambassadors provide or add to VSO?

In their entirety they are an amazing task force. They are hard working, creative, enthusiastic and open minded. They are priceless in my mind and perhaps the best marketing tool there is.

What do they get out of being ambassadors?

They are routinely offered free tickets, invitations to special events to meet the staff and musicians, a back stage tour and the opportunity to be a recognized part of the VSO. It seems they also gain a good deal of personal reward.

Do they get results you can measure?

No they do not, not ones I can stick onto an excel sheet that is. It’s a long term investment.

We did start out by giving each Ambassador a personal code whereby if anyone bought tickets and quoted that code, their tickets would count towards the Ambassadors’ total. However, I felt it wasn’t working for several reasons. The first one being it didn’t make sense for anyone to remember a code and repeat it to a customer service rep when it didn’t effect them in any way, ie. there wasn’t a discount or a perk associated with it. Secondly, I didn’t think it showed we had much faith in the Ambassadors and it erased a part of the good will, we’re doing this because we love it vibe.

How much time do you spend managing them?

Quite a fair amount. I would say with organizing events, answering everyone’s questions and building my ambassador base it takes up much more time than I had imagined. It’s definitely hard to measure but depending on where I am in the season it ranges from 0 hours per week to perhaps 16 hours per week.

Is it expensive to run an ambassador programme? Is it cost-effective?

So far it hasn’t cost us anything other than the clean up costs after one of the special events plus my time. However, I view the Student Ambassador Programme as part of my role as the VSO’s Community Engagement Coordinator and I can’t think of a better, more cost effective way to reach this demographic.

Have you ever had to deal with an ambassador that is not effective in some way?

An Ambassador whose heart really isn’t in it is pretty obvious and will normally just stop responding to me. After a fair amount of time I cut them off. I haven’t had to kick anyone off as such.

What tips would you give to someone who is just starting to put an ambassador programme together?

Maintain almost a friendship with your Ambassadors. Talk to them as often as you can either over the phone or via e-mail on a one to one basis and keep a personal touch. It is easy to be overly zealous and communicate with your Ambassadors as though you’re a living breathing press release. It’s not necessary to ‘sell’ to them and in fact as it has been documented lately that can be quite a powerful turn off. Just be yourself, have fun and be personable. They’re doing this for fun and you’re a part of that fun.

London Symphony Orchestra

Abreen and Elizabeth (LSO Arts Ambassador) at the EC1 Festival, Islington

Ambreen Ahmad, Community Marketing Co-ordinator at London Symphony Orchestra tells us about the ambassador programme she has been running at London Symphony Orchestra for three years: Please tell us a bit about your ambassador programme: The LSO’s Community Ambassador Scheme is made up of 8 volunteers who all live or work in the the local ‘ECI’ postcode area. This is the local area around the LSO’s home in the Barbican Centre and LSO St Luke’s – the LSO’s community education and music centre. The scheme has been running for three and a half years I have been running it for three of these. The ambassadors’ main role is to help us to promote the LSO, its concerts and activities to local audiences. Many new audiences may not have tried a classical music concert before and actually have a negative perception about it being ‘elitist’ and ‘not for them’. So our ambassadors certainly have their work cut out changing these incorrect perceptions! What’s is the most important thing your ambassadors provide or add to LSO? They provide a bridge between the LSO and our local target audience – or in other words between the organisation and actual people. The ambassadors live in the local area and know and interact with people on a regular basis. They tell people about the LSO in their day to day lives -it might be whilst picking up their child a primary school, having a drink in the pub, going to the supermarket, or community centre. These are places where our local audiences live and areas they frequent. The LSO ambassadors have access to people and places in a way that we just don’t have otherwise, they are known and have networks in the area. This work is extrememly valuable to the LSO in achieving our mission of ‘bringing the best music to the greatest number of people’. Do you think of your ambassador programme as part of marketing for LSO? Yes absolutely, I manage the scheme as part of the marketing department, I definitely think of the Community Ambassadors as an important part of our Marketing work. But it is also very much part of the Discovery (education) department too. Many of the events targeted to the local community are LSO Discovery events and projects – e.g community choir, Family Concerts, Concerts for Under 5’s etc. Although this has expanded more and more the ambassadors are also promoting our main classiocal concerts at the Barbican. It’s a mixture of marking and audience development. What do they get out of being ambassadors? We offer incentives such as complementary concert tickets, merchandise and have social get togethers. Small things like saying thank you and printing their names in concert programmes at the end of season also goes a long way. In terms of why they do what they do – one thing they all have in commom is enthusiasm to share their love of music. This is what I think makes them so effective and a great addition to our marketing team. Many don’t even take the free concert tickets unless pushed! Do they get results you can measure? It is very difficult to measure how many people have come to a concert because of a community ambassador telling them about it. When we run a special offer with discounted tickets, I can set up a code with the box office and measure tickets bought using the code. But the profile the ambassadors achieve can not be measured in the short term, it is a long term commitment, much in the same way as brand profiling. Although not directly measureable – successes include: Many of our community LSO Discovery events selling out and being over subscribed, I’m sure the ambassadoes work plays a part. We have information stalls at local festivals – when meeting people at these events it’s interesting to see how reactions to the LSO have changed over the last three years. People are asking less ‘what is the LSO?’ and more and more are wanting to know when the next event they are interested in takes place – this kind of feedback is lovely. If there money in the budget I would definitely recommend working with research professionals to try and put measurement systems in place at the beginning of ambassador projects. How much time do you spend managing them? I’m in touch with different ambassadors on a daily/weekly basis, it really depends on which project we are working on. Initially I set up group meetings every 4 weeks to keep the momentum going, but we no longer need to meet so often as many of the team have been with us for a long time now – over 3 years, so are very motivated and know what they are doing. Also, I really enjoy speaking to the ambassadors, they are a mix of really interesting individuals, they feel more like friends, so regular e-mails, phonecalls, coffees etc counts as communication but is just good fun. Is it expensive to run an ambassador programme? Not at all, it depends on the objectives. You can start small and expand, there is no reason set up costs should be expensive. The LSO’s ambassadors spend a lot of time spreading word of mouth amongst their networks, this doesn’t cost anything. We began by simply profile raising and event promotion which is relatively cheap. We now run a beginners concert club with interval receptions, the chance to meet musicians and learn about the music. We also arrange a programme of annual outdoor concert events which eats into the budget quite a lot, but is a really important audience development initiative. In an ideal world the budgets would grow with the ambitions! It also depends if you want to pay the volunteers. I think for long term ambassadors they don’t do what the do for monetary reward, its about the love of music, of enjoying meeting people, and something different outside of there usual work and life. Of course you could offer expenses and perks like free concert tickets. For short term temporary projects monetary reward may be a stronger incentive, but for the LSO scheme I think it works well as it is. Have you ever had to deal with an ambassador that is not effective in some way? Yes, but its important to remember that they are volunteers and even though you expect them to be reliable al the time it can not be enforced in the same way as for an employee. Volunteers will come and go, they have lives outside the ambassador scheme, I always value and respect this. A couple of volunteers left for almost a year and then re-joined when their circumstances changed. Others start and realise it’s not for them, but this is quite rare as I’m not afraid of telling people if ours isn’t the scheme that suits what they want at the initial interview. What tips would you give to someone who is just starting to put an ambassador programme together? • Read this website! I really wish I had had such a resource 3 years ago when I started out, it would have saved me a lot trial and error! • Be clear about your objectives – what is it you want to achieve though the scheme? • Get in touch with people in similar organisations and see if they also run an ambassador scheme. Other peoples experiences are really useful and a network of people managing similar schemes really helps with getting advise and support as you go along. Your local audience development agency can probably help put you in touch with people working in the same field. • Speak to each volunteer and understand their personal motivations for being an ambassador, if they are getting what they want out of it then you are more likely to achieve your objectives too, and are likely to retain your volunteers for longer. • Make sure they meet other people in the organization. I invite different LSO staff to meetings from time to time. Not only do the ambassadors feel more part of the organization, it means other staff also understand and value the ambassadors work- after all if you weren’t valued in your job would you do it? Its no different for volunteers. • Oh and have fun! You are likely to meet some truly dedicated and enthusiastic individuals.