Audience development that turns insight into action.
Understanding your audiences is one thing. Knowing what to do with that understanding is another.
I help arts, cultural, charity and purpose-led organisations get closer to the people they want to reach; understanding who they are, what matters to them and what might be getting in the way. I turn that insight into a practical audience development strategy your organisation can actually use.
Know your audiences, reach the people you’re missing.
Audience development isn't simply about attracting more people. It's about making deliberate choices about who you want to reach, understanding their needs and behaviours, and creating meaningful ways for them to engage with your organisation.
I can help you make sense of the information you already have, identify gaps in your understanding and explore where the greatest opportunities lie.
That might mean reaching new or underrepresented audiences, deepening relationships with existing ones, increasing participation or engagement, or giving your team a clearer shared understanding of who you're trying to reach and why.
How I can help.
Depending on what you need, I can support you with:
Audience research and insight: Bringing together existing research, data and organisational knowledge to build a clearer picture of your audiences.
Audience segmentation: Identifying meaningful audience groups and helping you understand their different needs, motivations and behaviours.
Barriers to engagement: Exploring what might be preventing people from engaging and where there are opportunities to make participation more accessible or relevant.
Audience development strategy: Turning insight into clear priorities, objectives and practical actions.
Reaching new audiences: Identifying opportunities to engage people who aren't currently connecting with your organisation.
Team workshops and facilitation: Bringing people together to develop a shared understanding of audiences and turn insight into action.
Strategy that’s not off the shelf.
I don't believe audience development should result in another lengthy document that gets filed away and forgotten.
My approach combines insight with practical thinking. I'll work with your team to understand what you already know, challenge assumptions where useful and focus on the opportunities that can make a meaningful difference.
The result is a strategy that's grounded in evidence, realistic about your resources and clear about what happens next.
Audience development in arts and culture.
For arts, cultural and heritage organisations in particular, audience development is increasingly about more than growing attendance. It's also about relevance, representation, participation and building stronger relationships with communities.
I've explored some of these issues in my analysis of the latest DCMS Community Life and Engagement Survey, including what the findings could mean for arts, culture and heritage organisations developing their audience strategies.
Want to understand your audiences better?
Whether you're starting an audience development strategy from scratch, trying to reach people who aren't currently engaging, or sitting on a mountain of audience insight you're not quite sure what to do with, I can help you turn what you know into a clear way forward.