arts ambassador blog

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 08 with the ‘Student Ambassador Programme’. The idea was to start with just one Ambassador Programme and examine its success at the year end.

We chose to focus on Students because despite the VSO’s unarguably affordable $10 student ticket deal very few students were taking advantage of it and in fact as the season progressed, I discovered an alarming number of students even knew about it. Plus it gave me a remarkably good weapon to go out into the Student world: they were helpless to resist!

Things got going in September 08 about a month prior to the start of VSO’s 08/09 season and when all the universities and colleges in Greater Vancouver were going back. I sent out a mass e-mail to anyone and everyone aimed at department heads and secretaries. It talked about the Student Access Pass and about the Student Ambassador programme. I posted ads up on university volunteering websites and I also made the trip out to a couple of open days.

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/peers and suggest going to the Symphony, tell 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 far more valuable than any marketing campaign. I suggested that if they ever find themselves making small talk with strangers, talk about the symphony. When they’re at bus stops and that person talks to you, in bars and you’re queuing for a drink, standing next to the water cooler in the library, where ever it is, where ever they happen to be just telling someone about a great night they had at the Symphony can leave a lasting impression. It was our belief these small suggestions would make a big difference in the purchasing habits of everyone the VSO Student Ambassadors came into contact with.

We offered rewards for their time and efforts in the shape of special events, free tickets, a backstage tour, the opportunity to meet the musicians and to basically become a part of the VSO.

We had a great response from the start and people kept coming back. I kept up almost a constant correspondence with them and I like to think they all felt comfortable to come to me with updates on their progress and with idle conversation.

Further in, when I felt able to trust the majority I sent them numbers of two for one vouchers to hand to non students, professors, people of influence. I created the opportunity for them to suggest groups who I would consider giving comps to so they can try it out. I asked them to come to me with ideas, some did and we more often than not followed through with their suggestion. With a couple of very reliable and trustworthy Ambassadors I routinely offered them comps to use with their discretion so to invite their various contacts. From all of this and keeping it personalized I received resoundingly positive feedback from people saying they hadn’t been before but loved it and will be sure to go again. The Ambassador’s themselves I think saw reward in these reactions.

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. Without them I would have a huge area to cover and a lot of people to reach. With them I have one of the best marketing tools available, the word of mouth; and what an encouraging task force.

What do they get out of being ambassadors?
They are routinely offered free tickets, special events to meet the staff and musicians, back stage tour, the opportunity to be a recognized part of the VSO. Enjoyment out of offering their peers free tickets, personal reward from introducing new people to the symphony.

Do they get results you can measure? Can you give an example?
We started by giving each Ambassador a personal code so when people bought tickets they would quote the code to customer service reps. With this the idea was to keep count of how many tickets Ambassador have managed to sell but in the end it became too time consuming for us in the office and too convoluted for the Ambassador’s. It didn’t make any sense for someone seeing a poster on their department notice board with a sticker saying, quote 6342 when buying tickets. Why would anyone remember to do that?

How much time do you spend managing them?
Quite a fair amount. I would say with organizing the events, answering everyone’s questions and building my ambassador base takes up much longer than I imagined it would. It’s definitely hard to measure but depending on where I am in the season it ranges from 0 to perhaps 8 hours per week.

Is it expensive to run an ambassador programme? Is it cost-effective?
So far it hasn’t cost us anything more than the clean up costs from one of the special events and my time. Therefore I can’t say it’s expensive but as yet I can’t say if it’s cost-effective. I can only view this as a long term strategy to build an audience base.

Have you ever had to deal with an ambassador that is not effective in some way?
Any Ambassador who isn’t effective normally just stops responding to my e-mails, after a few e-mails 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?
Use the power of e-mail to reach to as many students as possible. E-mail everyone under the sun, I’m talking hundreds of people to tell them about the programme. Maybe 3 in every hundred will respond saying, “Wow, I forwarded that on to the students in my class, all 500 of them”. Out of that 500, you will be lucky to get maybe 5 who e-mail you. The numbers are small and you have to work hard on getting your Ambassador base. But once you find these loyal and enthusiastic people it makes those hours you spent trawling university web pages all the more worth it.

Plan your actions but be very flexible. With students, be aware of their schedule, when their exams are, when they’re on holiday etc. Work your campaigns around that.

Most importantly, be friendly. They’re doing this for fun and you’re a part of that fun.

Ambreen and Elizabeth (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.