Audience Spectrum in Action | Aberdeen Performing Arts

The Project 

Aberdeen Performing Arts (APA) is a charitable trust managing three city centre venues and three festivals playing a vital part in Aberdeen and Scotland's cultural landscape. With over 800 performances and over 20,000 creative learning participants, the organisation is one of the largest in Scotland, serving audiences keen to engage with a range of art forms, in addition to being a key stop on the national and international touring circuits. 

Starting in 2019, APA began working with The Audience Agency as part of the Creative Scotland-funded programme. The key driver was to use segmentation across their activities, creating a universal language for audiences, and use this as a central part of wider audience development planning and marketing campaigns. Initially, in reopening from the COVID-19 lockdowns and then in a more bespoke capacity as the organisation continued to develop its activities and programming profile.  

Our Approach 

Data Integration and initial analysis  

In looking to use Audience Spectrum, APA first integrated their ticketing and CRM data feed to Audience Answers, and looked to undertake analysis of their existing audiences to understand their artform split across each venue they manage, all of which have varying programmes. These profiles provided an initial overview of audiences alongside the respective spending, yield, booking habits, and other factors.  

Segment prioritisation 

To take this analysis further, we then looked to identify the priority segments, at a sub-segment level, in audiences and the Aberdeen population. Each group was assigned an attendance goal, USP of what they were looking for, social grade, motivations, marketing tactics and details of percentages in existing audiences and the number of households in their catchment. All while factoring in geographic location and drive time distance from the organisation.  

Enhanced audience understanding 

This allowed for a much deeper understanding of how the segments related to their audience and allowed internal teams to understand how using this could support and enhance their existing work by creating personalised profiles.. 

For example, understanding the engagement and potential booking habits of families within the Dormitory Dependables and Trips & Treats segments, or how students and young professionals who are primarily Experience Seekers could be encouraged into making more frequent and cross-artform booking. 

Licensing benefits  

These profiles have been used to educate and support existing teams, primarily starting with marketing to begin to enhance planning, communications and audience analysis activity. To support implementation, APA began an Audience Spectrum license within their Spektrix system now provided through the dedicated enhancement with Spektrix. This provides opportunities to run profiling and customer lists in-house, as well as an overview list of individual bookers at an Audience Spectrum level. 

The Outcomes 

Supporting audience development and financial goals 

Across this activity, we've supported APA in using Audience Spectrum. We are developing this further by exploring further personalisation of their audiences, in line with the recommendations and actions of their audience development strategy, and broader audience and financial objectives.  

More personalised audience communications 

Since beginning to implement Audience Spectrum within their activities, including mailing lists and show reporting, APA has developed further ideas for use including in remarketing, email campaigns and media planning. Using the shorthand guides as a key resource, and focusing on the more frequently attending segments of Commuterland Culturebuffs, Dormitory Dependables and Experience Seekers, feedback and direct response will inform further campaign personalisation.