Last spring, we saw a trend within the Capital Support grantmaking area – multiple music organizations of varying sizes and foci were applying for funds to tailor or design a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM).
In its basic definition, a CRM helps businesses manage their interactions with customers and potential customers. For music organizations, a CRM helps to connect with donors, build relationships with audiences and artists, compile data for reporting, and better understand various stakeholders (audiences, students, artists, donors, volunteers, board members, etc.).
The Next Movement Idea Forum, held September 24, 2024, was designed to explore this topic. Five organizations were invited to present as panelists: Piffaro, The Renaissance Band; Tempesta di Mare; Westrick Music Academy; Choral Arts Philadelphia; and Ars Nova Workshop.
Each organization—three music performing, one music educating, and one music presenting—tailored a CRM platform to meet its specific needs and goals. The organizations’ budgets ranged from around $150,000 to $1 million—their wide-ranging experiences and knowledge of CRMs made for an informative session.
Each panelist and the participants’ thoughtful questions taught us a great deal. Here, we distill three critical points from the presenters and some additional notes.
Segment your lists to personalize your communications and reporting.
Shannon Cline at Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, shared how she uses their CRM to personalize communications with audience members. “We’re able to send the right message at the right time to deepen their engagement.”
Using this segmentation, Cline mentioned that they can identify and connect with new prospects using their CRM by integrating special discounts and resources in email messaging.
Ulrike Shapiro of Tempesta di Mare also emphasized the importance of segmenting lists to build useful reports. Using their CRM, Tempesta can pull valuable data about audience members and donors to share with their staff and board. “It’s important to be in touch with people when they connect to your organization.”
Have specific goals and strategies when using a CRM.
Lorraine Goodman of Westrick Music Academy (WMA) discussed how WMA uses their CRM to track grants and donations, send communications, track choral attendance, maintain a music catalog, and manage volunteers. To optimize the use of their CRM and design it to function in the multitude of ways that WMA wished, it was necessary to enter into the process with concrete goals in mind.
Mike Hogue of Choral Arts Philadelphia reiterated this point, sharing that with how small Choral Arts is, they had to identify how they wanted to build their audience base. In doing so, Choral Arts’ design and use of their CRM has resulted in a 30% rise in audience attendance, a 25% increase in donor giving, and a 40% growth in their subscriber base.
Use your CRM to develop deeper relationships with both patrons and musicians.
Both Hogue and Celeste DiNucci of Ars Nova Workshop shared how vital it is to use a CRM and its data to develop deeper relationships with audience members, donors, and musicians. By effectively designing and using a CRM, organizations can learn about and connect with people interested in learning more about the organization and build relationships with those already connected.
Outside of these three key points related to maximizing the use of a CRM, panelists and audience members mentioned other relevant ideas related to finding and paying for a CRM. Cline encouraged people to “speed date CRMs” to understand each other’s capabilities and see if they are a good fit for the organization. The panelists mentioned that each CRM has its language, strengths, and weaknesses and to figure those out during the “speed dating” process. Shapiro also emphasized using additional ticket fees to cover the cost of a CRM, as several organizations mentioned that the platforms themselves are not inexpensive.
CRMs offer a competitive advantage to organizations seeking to build and deepen relationships with stakeholders and patrons. We encourage you to view the recording to learn more ways to use CRMs to advance your mission!
