Using Audience Answers to Warm Up Winter Audiences

Late winter can be a tricky time for performing arts venues. Audiences are financially hungover from Christmas, no one wants to go out in the awful weather - so January productions often struggle to stand out. 

The Audience Answers tools offer a practical, data-led way to sharpen your marketing and reach the right people with the right message, giving you the best chance of success in challenging seasons. Your organisation might already have some of these tools in place, but if not, contact us and we’ll get you set up.

This step-by-step guide is adapted from a webinar in December 2025, which you can watch in full here > 

Before we start, an quick introduction:

Audience Answers is a set of tools to help cultural organisations understand who their audiences are, identify potential new or underserved audiences and learn how best to reach them.

At its heart is Audience Spectrum, a UK-wide population segmentation. It groups people into 10 segments (and 20 sub-segments) based on their real engagement with arts and culture as well as demographics, lifestyle and geography.  

Start With Your Existing Audience Data

Begin with what you already know about your bookers. This helps ground your campaign in reality rather than assumptions.

• Log in to your Audience Answers ticketing dashboard where you’ll find the Audience Spectrum profile of your bookers over the past 12 months. Which 2-3 segments are most prominent?
   
• For more flexibility: upgrade to the Essentials dashboard, where you can customise the Audience Spectrum profile to look only at the bookers you’re most interested in analysing eg bookers from last winter, or for specific types of shows.

Where could you find new audiences?

Next, explore who could engage, but hasn’t yet.

• Ask Audience Spectrum Genie to suggest the segments most likely to enjoy your upcoming event (e.g. ‘Which segments should we target for a classic production of West Side Story?’) 
   
• The individual segment profiles also give guidance on the type of work each is most drawn to. 

By now, you should be narrowing your focus and getting a sense of who your target segments should be.

But before you invest time and budget creating campaigns, you’ll need to:

Check if these people actually live in your catchment area.

• Use the free mapping tool to explore your local population.
   
• For more detail, use a Population Profile Report to understand segment distribution down to local authority or ward level.

This avoids targeting audiences who are unlikely to travel

Once you’ve chosen two or three priority segments:

• Read the relevant Motivation Guides and segment profiles to learn what they value, what motivates them, and what barriers to engagement they may face.
   
• Pay attention to lifestyle, price sensitivity, and arts/ culture preferences. 

This insight is crucial for shaping your messaging.

Now refine your campaign:

• Adjust tone, language, imagery, and key selling points to match your chosen segments.
   
• Highlight the benefits that matter most to them (e.g. escapism, social experience, quality, familiarity).
   
• Consider relevant add-ons such as post-show talks, group offers, or flexible pricing.

Audience Spectrum Genie can offer guidance on what typically resonates.

Finally, put your insight into action:

• Engage your past bookers: Build targeted mailing lists by segment using Audience Spectrum data integrated into your ticketing / CRM system. 
   
• Target new audiences: Use geo-targeted advertising, outdoor media, or print distribution informed by mapping tools or a Population Profile Report, and focus spend where your priority segments actually live.

Audience Answers helps you move towards focused,  confident decision-making. By understanding who your audiences are, what motivates them, and where they live, you can make your marketing campaigns more relevant, efficient, and effective, especially in challenging seasons when every sale counts.

Get in touch if we can help further.