The Deadline To Complete The Website Review Survey Is Today

First of all, a great big thank you to all of the groups who have already completed the 2011 Orchestra Website Review surveys. We already have nearly twice the number of completed surveys as last season’s review but today is the deadline to complete the survey for your organization so don’t wait.

If you haven’t completed the online survey yet and can’t find the email notice with the link, send me an email and I’ll get it out to you ASAP. The survey shouldn’t take more than a few moments to complete and to make it a little easier for you to have all of the data ready, here’s the list of questions.

In order to make things as easy as possible to complete the survey, here’s a list of the questions:

Click to view the questions

Items with an * indicate questions that feature a dropdown range selection so no need to provide figures to the exact dollar, ballparking it is just fine.

  • What percentage, less employee salary, of your marketing budget is allocated toward all website activities?*
    Please include any annual fees associated with online or other web related services.
  • What dollar amount, less employee salary, of your marketing budget is allocated toward all website activities?*
    Please include any annual fees associated with online or other web related services.
  • How many single tickets did you sell through your website for the 2010/11 season?*
  • How much single ticket revenue did your website generate during the 2010/11 season?*
  • How many subscription tickets did you sell through your website for the 2010/11 season?*
  • How much subscription ticket revenue did your website generate during the 2010/11 season?*
  • How much contributed revenue did your website generate during the 2010/11 season?*
  • Is your website designed on-premises or by a contracted developer/firm?
  • Do you have the ability to make changes to your website directly?
  • Which box office software and/or arts enterprise software management products do you currently use?
    • Tessitura
    • Raiser’s Edge
    • Patron Edge
    • OPAS
    • PatronResgister
    • Choice Ticketing Software
    • Ticketmaster
    • Theatre Manager
    • Total Info
    • ProVenue or ProVenueMax
    • Ticket Turtle
    • Other
  • Which email marketing products do you currently use?
    • Constant Contact
    • Vertical Response
    • MailChimp
    • iContact
    • Patron Mail
    • Tessitura Messaging Service
    • Campaigner
    • Other
  • Please use this space to include any additional information about your organization’s website and/or related online activities.

One question I’m getting a bit more often than normal this year is whether or not I can schedule or delay a review due to an impending redesign launch planned in the near future. In order to keep the reviews fair, those requests can’t be accommodated as the review schedule is determined at random.

However, in order to address that issue what I strongly recommend is for groups in that situation to take advantage of one or both of the following options:

  1. In the website review survey, select “yes” for having your replies published and include as much information about the timing of your new site and any related details in the “additional information” field at the end of the [sws_css_tooltip position=”center” colorscheme=”rosewood” width=”400″ url=”” trigger=”survey” fontSize=”12″]If you’ve already submitted your survey but would like to add this type of content, send it along in an email message and I’ll make sure to include it [/sws_css_tooltip].
  2. Post a comment to the main ranking article when the article is published with pretty much the same information recommended in point #1. This way, your details will always be attached to the ranking article regardless when readers visit the page.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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